Nate James on Duke Big Men Mark Williams, Patrick Tape

Blue Devils have grad transfer, seven-foot freshman

Duke has plenty of size joining this year’s team, including graduate transfer Patrick Tape and freshman center Mark Williams.

Having played for Columbia to start his college career, Tape provides experience, but assistant coach Nate James says the value of that experience may not be what most people expect.

“It is (a benefit),” he said, “but I tell you, it’s slightly a little bit different than you might think, because Patrick didn’t play last year. He sat out. Mark went to IMG, but he had a tendonitis issue and missed a great deal of the season. So we have two big guys who are new, learning, developing, unlike a typical grad transfer player in Patrick. With Mark, he’s just a seven-footer who’s still trying to figure out how to use all of his tools, because of the level of play at his previous high school, before the transfer to IMG.”

“Those two guys are learning a lot,” he added. “Patrick, because he’s older, he’s just stronger right now. He’s really trying to impose his will on all the guys he’s going up against. I really like that about Patrick. Both kids though, whatever we tell them to do, they try to do to the best of their ability. With this group, you can go down the list and probably sound like a broken record. All our players love being in the gym. They want to get better. They’re extremely easy to coach. I hope that remains to be true when we start playing against real opponents, but those two big guys have brought it every day.”

Tape has impressed James on the defensive end. “He does a great job with ball screens. He moves his feet. He doesn’t talk a lot, but one thing you need to do on ball screens is call it out. He actually does that a great deal. I see him being a guy that facing an opponent that runs a lot of ball screens on offense, can really move and blow up, disrupt, a lot of plays. And he rebounds. If you can guard the post, guard ball screens, play with a level of physicality that leads to rebounds—he’s probably our best rebounder—that equates to being able to help us.”