YouTube Gold: The Freshmen Four

If you haven’t caught on to this yet you will soon: Duke’s freshman class has great chemistry. Virtually every college basketball player talks about “my brothers,” meaning his teammates, but these guys really seem exceptionally close.

Duke’s freshman class is Jared McCain, Caleb Foster, Sean Stewart and TJ Power. They are from completely different parts of the country and very different backgrounds, yet they seem to be getting along beautifully.

This isn’t always the case. It’s not uncommon to see teams - or any social group - where guys don’t get along. And of course in the NBA, it’s not at all uncommon. Norm Nixon and Magic Johnson had to get a divorce. Dennis Rodman had issues with just about every teammate he ever had because he was, well Dennis Rodman. Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal ultimately became good friends but as teammates, they drove each other nuts. That’s the nature of the league.

In college though it can be different.

At Duke, Gene Banks and Kenny Dennard developed an enduring bond which exists to this day and more recently, Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett became extremely close.

It just makes a team better, and as you can see, this group has the potential do that as well. We sure hope so.