{"id":64879,"date":"2025-07-14T12:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T12:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/64879\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T12:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T12:46:08","slug":"duke-basketball-among-the-finalists-for-5-star-forward-but-unc-might-have-the-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/64879\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke basketball among the finalists for 5-star forward but UNC might have the edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Duke basketball program made the cut for the final seven schools in contention for five-star forward Miikka Muurinen, <\/a>one of the top prospects in the class of 2026. However, North Carolina might have the edge over the Blue Devils, as Muurinen’s mom played college basketball at UNC. <\/p>\n

An in-state battle <\/a>is now heating up for the forward’s services as Duke, UNC, and NC State are all in the final seven. Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas round out the list. <\/p>\n

Despite head coach Jon Scheyer’s recruiting prowess throughout his time at the helm for Duke, securing the No. 1 overall recruiting class in both 2024 and 2025, the Tar Heels have a big advantage on their hands as the top recruit’s mom is a former Tar Heel. Jenni Laaksonen, Muurinen’s mother, played for the UNC women’s basketball team from 2001 to 2003. <\/p>\n

Appearing in 52 games for North Carolina throughout her two seasons in Chapel Hill, Laaksonen averaged 1.8 points and 1.3 rebounds a game. <\/p>\n

A personal tie to a school is always a really difficult thing for the other programs in contention to overcome, but with Scheyer’s elite recruiting ability, Duke is still very much in the running for Muurinen. <\/p>\n

Muurinen is the No. 9 overall prospect, No. 2 power forward, and No. 1 player out of the state of Arizona per the 247Sports 2026 Composite Rankings. The 6’10, 185-pound forward attends Compass Prep (AZ).<\/p>\n

The recruit doesn’t have any official visits scheduled at this point, but has already taken an official visit to both Arkansas and Michigan.<\/p>\n

Earlier on in his recruitment, Muurinen was\u00a0considering a reclassification<\/a>\u00a0into the class of 2025, but ultimately elected to remain as a 2026 prospect.<\/p>\n

Duke will be looking to get the forward in for a visit soon, adding to the already elite list of top prospects already slated for an official visit in Durham. Brandon McCoy (No. 2 point guard in class of 2026), Jordan Smith (No. 1 shooting guard in class of 2026), and Austin Goosby (No. 6 shooting guard in class of 2026) all have official visits scheduled for the fall of 2025. <\/p>\n

Scheyer has yet to seal a commitment from a member of the class of 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Duke basketball program made the cut for the final seven schools in contention for five-star forward Miikka…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":64880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-64879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114851662033312618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}