ACC Champion diver Greg Duncan has transferred to Purdue after spending his freshman season at the University of North Carolina. Duncan had previously-announced that he would be transferring to Arizona, but after a change of plans for the diving program there, he’s now found his way to Purdue.
Purdue has produced 11 NCAA men’s diving event championships in the last decade, via U.S. Olympians (and synchro partners) David Boudia and Steele Johnson. As a team, they finished 19th at NCAAs last season, with all 54 of their points produced by divers. That includes a title for Johnson on the 3-meter springboard.
Adam Soldati, the diving head coach at Purdue, is a 5-time NCAA Diving Coach of the Year.
Duncan was originally going to be reunited with his former club coach John Appleman at Arizona, after Arizona announced in early June that Appleman was going to take over as their head diving coach. Arizona later rescinded that offer of unemployment after Appleman was suspended by USA Diving, though SafeSport later cleared Appleman and lifted his suspension.
Last season, Duncan was one of two UNC men who qualified for the NCAA Championships, along with Michael McBryan, and he finished 11th in the 3-meter springboard event to score the Tarheels’ only 6 points at NCAAs. That made him the 2nd-highest scoring freshman in that event, and one of just 3 nationally to score. A springboard specialist, he was also 23rd in the 1-meter event.
At the USA Diving Senior Summer Nationals in August of 2017, he won the 3-meter event and placed 2nd in the 1-meter event. He also won the 1-meter event at Junior Nationals that year, and was 3rd on 3-meter.
Duncan was the ACC Champion on the 1-meter and 3-meter events last season He was the only North Carolina diver to finish in an A-Final at last year’s ACC Championships (where he did dive platform, but was just 31st out of 33 competitors).
