The Mark Mitchell Blog: This is Why I Committed to Duke...

Mitchell will join the top ranked recruiting class in the SI All-American team rankings.

Mark Mitchell adds even more versatility to Duke's top ranked 2022 recruiting class / Mitchell

Sunrise Christian (Bel Aire, Kan.) wing Mark Mitchell is one of the most dominant and versatile forwards in the country, checking in at No. 18 overall in the SI99 for 2022. On Friday, he picked Duke over UCLA and wrote an exclusive blog for Sports Illustrated to break down his thought process behind the decision.

Hey, what’s up everyone this is Mark Mitchell and I’m excited to announce that I’m now a part of The Brotherhood!

Man! I’m so excited to be able to play for such a storied program like Duke!

This was a tough decision, but, at the end of the day, the relationship I had with Coach (Jon) Scheyer and being able to get to know the players that they’ve got coming in really made me feel comfortable with my decision.

My brother just kept telling me to go where my heart was, and I really knew that it was Duke the more I thought about it all.

Honestly, it was after the Gonzaga game that did it for me.

Just seeing the atmosphere there and the energy the team played with was something I knew that I wanted to be a part of.

RELATED: SI All-Americans SI99 Basketball Rankings

Then when I went on my visit I was there with Kyle (Filipowski), Dereck (Lively) and Dariq (Whitehead) and that really gave me a chance to bond with them. We’re all highly touted players, but all of them were talking about doing whatever it takes to win there at Duke.

We were all just on the same page.

When I knew for sure I just called Coach Scheyer and he was just really excited!

Our class is pretty crazy!

We’re obviously super talented and versatile.

We’ve got Dariq who’s a big guard and an explosive scorer, Kyle is a face-up four who can beat you in a lot of different ways, Dereck is a 7-footer who can do it all and dominate defensively, Jaden (Schutt) is the best shooter in the country and I’m a versatile combo forward who can do everything.

It’s gonna be special for us next year!

I’m just so relieved to have this decision out of the way. I was really going back and forth between Duke and UCLA for months, but I made the right decision for me and it feels great.

Of course, we’ll be the first class at Duke without Coach K, but all of us talk about how we want to prove that Duke will continue to be Duke.

We’re all motivated by that. I’m 100% confident in Coach Scheyer and I know that we’re all locked in to the goal and we’re all behind him 100%.

It’s really a family; it’s really a brotherhood there!

OK guys, I’ve gotta get going but I wanted to give you a more in depth look into the reason I picked Duke.

Thanks for taking the time to read!

Go Devils!

Don’t forget to follow Mark Mitchell:

Twitter: @Mark_mitchell25

Instagram: mark.mitchell25