Duke Basketball's Patrick Ngongba II Is 'Like a PG in Some Ways'

Duke basketball head coach Jon Scheyer has talked about Patrick Ngongba II's impressive abilities to impact winning ever since the former five-star recruit out of Paul VI Catholic High School (Va.) arrived in Durham as a freshman ahead of the 2024-25 campaign. But now that Ngongba, who was on back-to-back 35-win Blue Devil squads, is a seasoned junior fresh off a brilliant performance in Sunday's 90-84 road exhibition win over the Kansas Jayhawks, Scheyer has dialed the praise up a notch.

"He controlled the entire game, his passing, his scoring, his rebounding, defense," Scheyer said in Duke's postgame press conference after the 6-foot-11, 250-pound 20-year-old tallied a game-high 28 points, 10 rebounds, and two blocks against the Jayhawks, not to mention his team-high four assists and highly efficient shooting clips of 9-for-12 from the field, 1-for-2 from downtown, and 9-for-10 at the charity stripe.

"I could go on and on. I don't want him to get too big of a head. So, I'm going to stop right there."

Although Scheyer did temporarily stop talking about Ngongba, he continued to rave about the preseason All-ACC First Team selection when asked about Ngongba's improvements as the "offensive hub" for the Blue Devils this go-round.

"I'll just say, with Pat, not often do you get to be on a multiple-year journey with a guy as talented as Pat is and as good as he is," Scheyer explained. "And he's just a winning player. And I think his feel for the game, he understood that tonight it was more scoring and more decisiveness, and it totally changed our team. It totally changed our team.

"He's so smart. He's like a point guard in some ways, the way he sees the floor. And then, his ability to protect, his ability to switch, he's rare in terms of a big guy that has that much versatility."

Patrick Ngongba II's Self-Assessment Following Win at Kansas

Across Duke basketball's 3-0 run through its loaded preseason slate, Ngongba averaged 15.3 points, 8.0 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 2.3 blocks per game. There's no doubt, though, that his most complete all-around effort came against the Jayhawks in front of a notably raucous preseason crowd in Kansas' famed Allen Fieldhouse.

"Offensively, I feel like it's just something I feel comfortable with, with the ball and making plays for others," Ngongba noted in Duke's postgame presser about his willingness to serve as a facilitating passer in the middle of the offense, yet with an eye also on attacking the basket from that position. "And then tonight, like Coach Scheyer said, I just felt like I was just looking to be aggressive, and I was scoring, so that's what we were doing."

PAT IN THE PAINT 🔥🎨

Patrick Ngongba II dropped 28 PTS and 10 REB in @DukeMBB's exhibition win over Kansas 😤 pic.twitter.com/oJH3gYchwa
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) October 25, 2026

Ngongba and the rest of Scheyer's No. 2-ranked Blue Devils are now en route back to Durham to gear up for their season opener. Duke tips off its campaign at home versus the Army Black Knights in Cameron Indoor Stadium on Monday, Nov. 2, at 6:30 p.m. ET (ESPNU).

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