What Duke’s solid, but banner-less, basketball season says about Jon Scheyer’s program
As Duke basketball picks up the pieces from an NCAA Tournament loss to another Triangle rival, there’s solace among the sourness from Jon Scheyer’s second season as Blue Devils head coach.
No, Duke did not live up to the program’s standard of hanging a banner — or banners — by winning the ACC (either regular season or tournament), advancing to the Final Four or winning the NCAA championship.
Those are annual goals for any ACC team, but Duke’s one of the few schools where they are realistic expectations.
N.C. State, the team that knocked the Blue Devils out of the ACC Tournament and ended their season one win shy of the Final Four, is the team that gets banners for winning the ACC Tournament and their NCAA Tournament regional.
While that doesn’t sit well with anyone associated with the Blue Devils, their second consecutive 27-9 season does show the program remains on solid footing, two years after Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski exited the sidelines and into retirement.
“The program is right where it left off,” Duke senior guard Jeremy Roach said Sunday, following Duke’s 76-64 upset loss to N.C. State in Dallas. “We’ve been top 10 in the country for both years. We got to Elite Eight this year. Like people don’t know how hard his job is. People don’t know how hard his job is that you are taking over after the GOAT. That’s not easy work. Just give credit to him. He is always instilling confidence in us every day. Whether we’re messing up or not, he just always has that strong face.”
Faltering against the Wolfpack in the ACC Tournament robbed Duke of the chance to repeat as league champions, but beating top-seeded Houston, 54-51, in the Sweet 16 put Duke in its fourth Elite Eight in the last six NCAA tournaments.
Krzyzewski-led teams fell short in 2018 and 2019 before making the Final Four in 2022. Now Scheyer is just short of reaching the sport’s marquee event, which makes him the lone current head coach in the Triangle who hasn’t led his team to the Final Four — the other two being North Carolina’s Hubert Davis and N.C. State’s Kevin Keatts. No Blue Devils’ coach has been in this situation in the Triangle since the mid-80s when Krzyzewski still searched for his first Final Four after UNC’s Dean Smith and N.C. State’s Jim Valvano won NCAA championships in 1982 and 1983.
But in the same way it was for Krzyzewski four decades ago, Scheyer feels it’s just a matter of time for his Blue Devils.
“Where is our program at?” Scheyer said Sunday in Dallas, repeating a reporter’s question. “I think our program couldn’t be in a stronger place. We’re just 20 minutes away from going to a Final Four in our second year. I don’t shy away from our expectations or what we want to do, but for me, that’s not the way I’m thinking at all. I’m just hurting for these guys right now.”
This year’s Blue Devils returned four starters from last season’s ACC championship team that bowed out in the NCAA Tournament’s second round. They vowed to advance further and accomplished that by making the regional final.
Those starters, Roach and sophomores Kyle Filipowski, Tyrese Proctor and Mark Mitchell, welcomed freshmen guards Jared McCain and Caleb Foster. McCain started every Duke game while Foster started 15 of his 27 games played before a stress fracture in his right ankle ended his season early on Feb. 24.
They never lost more than two games in a row this season. While they twice suffered back-to-back losses, they responded to the first occurrence with an eight-game winning streak and the second with their three NCAA Tournament wins.
With three games remaining to be played this season — involving Final Four teams Connecticut, Purdue, Alabama and N.C. State — Duke is No. 7 in the KenPom.com national rankings for efficiency. The Blue Devils are No. 8 in offense and No. 15 in defense, which puts them among only seven teams that are top 20 in both categories.
That’s a sign of a strong team.
But the same Blue Devils were swept in their two regular-season games against rival North Carolina before losing two of three games to N.C. State in March, with the two losses coming in the postseason.
That’s the situation now. While Scheyer has gone 56-18 in two years, both of Duke’s Triangle ACC rivals had more accomplished seasons this year. He knows more must be done because of that.
“I’ve always used the motivation in my time at Duke from the things that happened,” Scheyer said. “Some of the most heartbreaking moments in my career have happened at Duke. We didn’t go to a Sweet 16 until my junior year. We didn’t go to a Final Four and national championship until my senior year.”
He’s confident in the culture that surrounded the team this season, with Mitchell, Roach, Proctor and Foster all missing games at one time or another to injury. Duke still finished second in the regular season standings behind UNC.
“Obviously that’s hurt our continuity, no question,” Scheyer said. “That’s no excuse. That’s part of it. We have to continue to have a team where if somebody goes down, we can step up, which these guys did.”
The 7-foot Filipowski led the team in scoring (16.4 points) and rebounding (8.3), earning first-team, all-ACC and second team all-American honors after being named the ACC’s preseason player of the year. He’s almost certainly played his final game at Duke and will enter the NBA Draft.
Proctor missed nearly all of December with a sprained right ankle and another game in February with a concussion. He led Duke in assists at 3.7 per game, while scoring 10.5 points per game. A solid defender who made two key late steals when Duke beat Houston, his season ended with a thud two days later with a scoreless performance in the Elite Eight loss to N.C. State.
Mitchell improved slightly over his freshman season, scoring 11.6 points with six rebounds per game. But there were still cases against more physical teams where Mitchell looked overwhelmed and Scheyer opted to use graduate student center Ryan Young more.
Roach, a senior who still has another season of eligibility remaining should he choose to use it, had his best overall season while averaging 14 points, 3.3 assists and 1.1 steals per game. They are all career bests as are his 46.8% overall shooting accuracy and 42.9% on 3-pointers.
McCain proved to be Duke’s best perimeter scorer, averaging 14.3 points per game while making 46.2% of his shots, including 41.4% on 3-pointers. He scored 35 points in Duke’s NCAA Tournament win over James Madison and 32 in the loss to N.C. State.
It was a solid, at times spectacular, team. It just wasn’t able to win the games needed to bring championships to Duke, which is the metric by which the Blue Devils are annually measured.
Roach, though, said his belief in Scheyer is steadfast.
“All the criticism that people say, I mean, it’s unacceptable,” Roach said. “There’s no reason for that. If somebody wanted to, try doing his job and see how easy it is. So I give credit to coach Scheyer. I love him. I love him.”
As is so often the case, Duke looks to a bright future. The incoming recruiting class is considered among the best ever, with five-star talents in 6-9 forward Cooper Flagg, 7-1 center Khaman Maluach, 6-6 wing Isaiah Evans and 6-5 sharpshooting forward Kon Knueppel, and four-stars in 6-6 guard Darren Harris and 6-11 center Patrick Ngongba.
Both Flagg and Maluach are projected as top-five prospects for the 2025 NBA Draft.
The Blue Devils still need veteran players to surround them as they strive for championships once again. Foster should certainly fit well with the new group.
With Filipowski almost certain to depart, stay-or-go decisions loom for Proctor, Mitchell and McCain with Roach also noncommittal about using or losing his extra year of eligibility due to COVID-era rules.
Either way, mark Scheyer down as someone expecting big things to continue for the Blue Devils.
“We’ll have to regroup and figure out who you have coming back and coming in and all that stuff,” Scheyer said. “But for me, I couldn’t be more confident in where this thing is heading and what we’re doing.”
