Roach’s Transfer to Baylor: A New Chapter for the Former Duke Guard
Jeremy Roach, a former guard for Duke and two-time captain, declared his commitment to Baylor on social media on Sunday.
After a career-best season in which he shot 42.9 percent from three and 84.4 percent from the free-throw line, Roach averaged 14 points, 3.3 assists, and 2.5 rebounds per game. With one season left of eligibility, the two-time captain—one of just two scholarship players still playing from Mike Krzyzewski’s final squad—has to go.
Scott Drew’s perimeter-oriented strategy could be a great fit for 6-foot-1 Virginia native Roach, assuming he can continue to make 3-pointers. Since winning the program’s inaugural national championship in 2021, the Bears have placed among the top 10 in adjusted offensive efficiency in each of the last four seasons, according to KenPom. That includes having the fifth-best 3-point percentage in the country this season—39.5 percent—and placing sixth in terms of adjusted offensive efficiency this season.
Three starters from the previous season have already left Baylor: freshman Ja’Kobe Walter and Yves Missi, who announced their intentions to enter the NBA Draft, and senior RayJ Dennis, who is ineligible. Jalen Bridges could be the fourth. Immediately filling one of those spots, Roach is expected to be one of Drew’s most important players in the upcoming campaign.
Jeremy Roach is set to transfer to Baylor University.
Shooting 43% from three, he averaged 14 points, 4 assists, and 3 rebounds per game for @TheAthletic pic.twitter.com/BEjqEngLhT.
— Tobias Bass (@tobias_bass) April 21, 2024
This adds an intriguing new chapter to Roach’s collegiate experience, if nothing else. Though he was a five-star recruit when he came to Duke in the summer of 2020, his rookie campaign turned out to be the Blue Devils’ worst in more than 20 years, as they missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1994–95. In June 2021, about three months later, Krzyzewski declared he will coach for one more season before retiring.
Roach was a hit-or-miss starter in his sophomore year on Krzyzewski’s last squad until he had his finest game of the season in the NCAA Tournament, which helped Duke advance to the Final Four. Given his impressive postseason performance and the fact that he and Jaylen Blakes were the only two players from Jon Scheyer’s original team who remained, Roach was chosen the only team captain for the new Durham era very soon after.
Under Scheyer, Roach reached to the Elite Eight this March and won the 2023 ACC Tournament in only two seasons.
Watching Roach play in a different uniform would surely be unusual, but it is all too frequent in today’s college basketball. In theory, Roach could have come back to Duke for his final season of eligibility, but doing so would have required him to enroll in graduate school in addition to changing the way Duke’s roster was assembled.
Along with Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster, two guards who combined for 40 starts for Duke this season, Scheyer has already announced that he will return for the upcoming season. This will be Scheyer’s second offseason recruiting class as head coach, and the top high school recruiting class in the nation. Cooper Flagg, the best high school player in the country and one of the top American-born pro prospects of the past several seasons, is the cornerstone of that six-man class.
The NIL scenario at Baylor, which has attracted a number of elite transfers in recent years, will also aid Roach.
(Photo: John Jones / USA Today)