Duke basketball just landed a grad transfer from Davidson. You’ll know his brother
Bates Jones, who just finished playing four years of basketball at Davidson, told The Charlotte Observer on Thursday that he will play his fifth and final college season at Duke in 2021-22.
“I’m just not ready to hang up the jersey,” Jones said in a phone interview. “I think I’ve got some good basketball left in me, and fortunately Duke thinks so, too.”
Jones, a Charlotte native, will follow some large family footsteps at Duke. His older brother is former Duke star quarterback Daniel Jones, who was the No. 6 overall pick of the 2019 NFL draft and now starts for the New York Giants.
His younger sister, Ruthie, is currently the starting goalkeeper for the Duke women’s soccer team and was just named the ACC’s Defensive Player of the Week.
Bates Jones will graduate from Davidson in May with a degree in history and will take graduate courses at Duke, he said. Davidson doesn’t have a graduate school.
Coach Bob McKillop said in an interview he was thrilled that Jones will have an opportunity to play at Duke under Mike Krzyzewski — the two coaches are good friends — and added that the Blue Devils were getting “a wonderful player and person.”
A 6-foot-8, 225-pound forward who played in 96 games at Davidson but started only five, Jones said Duke planned to put him on scholarship for the 2021-22 season.
“I think I’m generally easy to play with, and the Duke coaches said they liked that I’ve played college basketball at a pretty high level for four years,” Jones said. “I can bring a lot of experience to a program that will have a good amount of underclassmen and make some of the younger players by bringing intensity to practices, too.”
An NCAA rule related to the COVID-19 pandemic allows most college athletes an extra season of eligibility if they want to accept it. Jones will be immediately eligible to play at Duke, just like fellow Davidson senior Kellan Grady will be immediately eligible to play at Kentucky for his fifth and final season.
Jones averaged a modest 2.6 points, 2.6 rebounds and 12.7 minutes per game as a senior for the Wildcats. But he called his time at Davidson “better than I ever could have hoped” due to the program’s camaraderie and coaching.
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Jones provides depth in Duke’s frontcourt next season after the Blue Devils lost three forwards from last season’s 13-11 team.
Two Duke reserves, 6-9 Patrick Tapé and 6-8 Jaemyn Brakefield, entered their names in the NCAA transfer portal last month. Tapé, the Queens Grant High graduate from Charlotte who played one season at Duke as a graduate transfer from Columbia, will play his final season at San Francisco. Brakefield, a freshman last season, has yet to pick a new school.
Matthew Hurt, Duke’s top forward last season when he led the ACC in scoring (18.3 points per game), entered the NBA Draft on Wednesday.
Duke has two incoming five-star recruits in the front court in 6-9 Paolo Banchero and 6-7 A.J. Griffin. Jones gives Duke depth along with 7-foot center Mark Williams, a rising sophomore who averaged 7.1 points and 4.5 rebounds as a freshman last season.
Duke is also pursuing 6-9, 225-pound forward Theo John, a forward from Marquette who entered his name in the transfer portal on Wednesday. John played four seasons at Marquette, averaging 5.5 points and 4.3 rebounds.
All four Jones children went to high school at Charlotte Latin and ended up on athletic scholarship in college; sister Rebecca was a field hockey player at Davidson.
Jones said that although he already has two siblings with Duke pedigrees that wasn’t the determining factor in his decision (he also had offers from several other mid-major schools, he said).
“I would have made the decision to go to Duke and play for Duke even if Ruthie and Daniel didn’t go there,” Jones said. “But that’s certainly going to make it more fun and more interesting.”
The News & Observer’s Steve Wiseman contributed to this story.
This story was originally published April 15, 2021 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Duke basketball just landed a grad transfer from Davidson. You’ll know his brother."
