Five years of college basketball. Four at a school most Duke fans couldn't find on a map. One at the place every basketball player in America dreams about. Sion James took the long road to Cameron Indoor Stadium, and that's what made him exactly the player Jon Scheyer needed.
James was born on December 4, 2002, and grew up in Sugar Hill, Georgia, a quiet suburb thirty miles northeast of Atlanta. He attended Lanier High School, where he was a two-time Region 8A Player of the Year and led the Longhorns to consecutive regional titles and a trip to the state championship game as a senior in 2020. The recruiting services rated him a three-star prospect — the 59th-best point guard in the class. No blue bloods came calling. James committed to Tulane.
New Orleans became home for four years, and James became the kind of player who defines a mid-major program. He started 107 of 114 career games for the Green Wave, logging more than 34 minutes per contest — an iron man in a conference that grinds through February. He improved every season: 5.8 points as a freshman, 7.7 as a sophomore, 9.7 as a junior, 14.0 as a senior. His junior year produced a career-high 30 points and seven steals in a victory over Memphis. His senior year featured a 28-point double-double against North Texas in the AAC Tournament and a Tulane record for most blocks in a conference tournament game — six against Wichita State. He finished with 1,084 career points, 520 rebounds, 337 assists, and 187 steals.
Off the court, James was even more impressive. He became the first player in AAC history to win the conference Sportsmanship Award twice, in 2023 and 2024. He was a two-time chair of the AAC Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. He completed nearly 350 hours of community service and won both the Freeman School of Business Dean's Service Award and the Newcomb-Tulane College Student-Athlete Award. The NBA came knocking after his senior season — James entered the 2024 draft — but so did Scheyer. 'I chose Duke because it gives me a chance to impact winning and compete under the brightest lights in college basketball,' James said. He withdrew his name from the draft and headed to Durham.