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Duke looking for more success with Texas guards

Rasheed Sulaimon, a current freshman from the Houston area, is currently starting for the Blue Devils in his first season. Matt Jones, a senior shooting guard at DeSoto (Texas) High has already signed with the program and looks to be on his way to becoming a McDonald's All-American this season.
Daniel Ewing from Sugar Land and Thomas Hill from Lancaster were two other notable backcourt stars that were Lone Star natives who made their way to Durham and had successful tenures there.
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You can even go all the way back to Tate Armstrong from Houston, who won a Gold medal in the 1976 Olympics and was drafted in the first round of the NBA Draft the following year.
In short, the staff loves to recruit Texas prospects, and they have had particularly good luck with the guards there.
Austin Grandstaff, a super sophomore from Rockwall High School, just north of Dallas, is another one that the Duke coaches are watching this season and according to the combo guard, they are showing a good amount of attention.
"They have been calling my dad and asking for my grades," he said. "I have talked to Coach (Steve) Wojciechowski a few times."
The message from the Duke staff is clear. They are interested. They want to see him maintain progress in the classroom and they want to get him on campus in the future.
"He just tells me to keep working hard and that I need to get down on a visit and stay on my grades. The general message is just stay in touch and get down on a visit sometime soon."
The shifty and skilled guard says that he has a high opinion of the Duke program and is glad that they are recruiting him.
"I like them a lot," he said. "I always have and they're a serious option."
On the season, Grandstaff is leading Rockwall High to a respectable 10-4 record so far and he's running a little bit of point guard as well as spending some time on the wing as a primary scorer. In his last two games, he has put up 62 points and is averaging about 20 points per game so far this season.
He's a gifted shooter who has an advanced handle and floor vision. He's quick and crafty with the basketball and makes the people around him better with his creative passes. And he has the ability to make the defense collapse with his isolate and drive skills.
It also doesn't hurt that he's still growing and is evolving into that esteemed big guard that many college coaches covet.
The 2015 prospect tells Devils Illustrated that he's a legit 6-5 now, up an inch and a half from the previous summer.
On the recruiting front, the sophomore guard holds early offers from such schools as Arizona, Oklahoma, Marquette, Texas A&M, UMass and SMU. And he says that he is getting recruited hard by Syracuse, Boston College, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M as well as Duke.
As his recruitment heats up this summer, we anticipate a lot of eyes on him as he plays for his father, Wes Grandstaff on Team Texas.
Stay tuned to DevilsIllustrated.com for the latest on Duke basketball recruiting in the classes of 2013, 2014 and 2015.
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