LOOK: Paolo Banchero wears shirt honoring Duke guard Jeremy Roach at UNC-Duke game
The stars are in attendance for one of the biggest games of the year between the Duke Blue Devils and North Caolina Tar Heels on Saturday night. Former Blue Devils’ superstar Paolo Banchero is in attendance in Durham, North Carolina and he wore a special t-shirt honoring his old teammate, Duke point guard Jeremy Roach to the game.
Check out the video below.
Banchero’s been having a highly successful season thus far and his former teammate Jeremy Roach is having an excellent game thus far on Saturday night. Roach has missed a number of games during the 2022-2023 season for Duke, due to dealing with a lingering toe injury. When healthy, there’s no question he’s one of the most important pieces on the Blue Devils’ roster.
This season, the Paul IV product (Fairfax, Virginia) is averaging 12.2 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 3.1 assists. In the 2020 recruiting class, Roach was rated as the No. 22 overall prospect in America, according to the On3 Consensus Rankings. His former high school teammate, Trevor Keels, also suited up for Paul IV and played with him at Duke, before moving onto the NBA in the 2022 NBA Draft.
Paolo Banchero career information
The 6-foot-10, 250-pound, Seattle native played and started 39 games for the Duke Blue Devils as a freshman. He scored 17.2 points per game in 33 minutes with a 47.8% hit rate from the field. Posting 7.8 boards per game, Banchero was just a couple of rebounds shy of averaging a double-double, which he notched on 12 occasions.
He is a former five-star recruit who ranked No. 3 in the 2021 On3 Consensus Rankings and No. 1 among power forwards.
This offseason, Banchero spoke about dealing with the high expectations coming into his rookie year in the NBA as the former No. 1 overall pick.
“It’s nothing I feel like I’m not used to,” said Banchero. “It definitely is different, but I feel like I dealt with a lot of the same stuff throughout this year. I had a couple bad games, and everyone has their opinions and whatnot, but you can’t pay attention to that. You can’t give that any attention. People are going to say what they say. As long as me and my coach and teammates are on the same page, they’ve got their trust in me and I’ve got trust in them. We’re going to figure it out.
“I’m not ever really worried about what’s going on and what’s being said on the outside. I try to keep everything internal within the team and the coaches and look to them for help and advice.”
On3’s James Fletcher III also contributed to this article.