Duke gets recruit a year early

Dawkins will play this coming season

By: By Bill Cole | JOURNAL REPORTER
Published: August 15, 2009

Andre Dawkins has completed the last of his high-school academic work and will enroll at Duke next week and play basketball this coming season.

Dawkins took a final English exam Monday at Atlantic Shores Christian School in Virginia Beach, Va. He is still awaiting his exam score, but a passing grade is considered a formality for Dawkins, who took several Advanced Placement courses and scored 1,200 on the Scholastic Assessment Test.

Now, instead of being a member of Duke's 2010 recruiting class, Dawkins will arrive early and help a backcourt that needs depth.

"It was definitely surprising," Dawkins said of the events of the last month that gave him the chance to enroll early, "but I knew about a month before it actually broke that the process had started already.

"I'm excited. I'm ready to go and get started as soon as possible."

Dawkins, a 6-4 guard, signed an offer of admission from Duke. He could not sign a binding national letter-of-intent because the NCAA's last signing period for the 2008-09 school year ended in May.

He will be in Durham on Tuesday to start freshman orientation.

Dawkins spent four years in high school, starting in 2005 as a freshman at Deep Creek in Chesapeake, Va. He then transferred to Atlantic Shores and asked to be reclassified as a freshman to help himself athletically and to become a member of the recruiting class of 2010. At the end of the 2008-09 academic year, he lacked only one core curriculum credit, the English course, required by the NCAA Eligibility Center to enroll in college.

Dawkins' father, also named Andre, was among the first to suggest that entering Duke a year ahead of time might be possible.

"He looks at it as a great opportunity," the elder Dawkins said. "The family, of course, is sad to see him go a year early, but we're excited as well. We have mixed emotions there. He doesn't know exactly what to expect but he's ready to go."

Dawkins should provide an immediate lift for a team that has only two returning recruited guards, Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith. Duke lost Elliot Williams, a freshman guard last season, when he decided to transfer to be closer to his home in Memphis, Tenn., and his ailing mother.

Dawkins averaged 20.5 points and 4.8 rebounds last season and led Atlantic Shores Christian to a 32-2 record and a berth in the Virginia Division II private schools' title game. He helped Atlantic Shores to a 70-15 record in three seasons and was considered one of the top guard prospects in the class of 2010.

"I'm just going to come in and do whatever they need me to do," Dawkins said. "I'll help out in any way possible to help the team win games. If they need me at point guard, I can play there. I think my primary position is shooting guard."

Duke will have two other freshmen in its incoming class -- Ryan Kelly, a 6-9 forward from Raleigh, and Mason Plumlee, a 6-10 forward from Warsaw, Ind., who attended boarding school in Arden, near Asheville.

"I personally feel that God opened the door for this to happen," the elder Dawkins said. "I don't mean for tragedy to happen (with Williams), but it just seems like things worked out for him to go."

■ Bill Cole can be reached at bcole@wsjournal.com.