ACC Preview #16 Duke - Part I: Coaching

Jon Scheyer is back for Year III and he’s done an impressive job so far.

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At last we come to Duke, where Jon Scheyer is now moving into Year 3. What have we learned so far?

Scheyer finished Year 2 as he did Year 1, 27-9. In his second season however, Duke got to the Elite Eight before losing to the DJ Burns/NC State steamroller.

He’s also recruited phenomenally well and has managed the transition to the NIL/portal era as well as anyone.

On the downside, in his first season Duke had injuries to star freshmen Dariq Whitehead and Dereck Lively that slowed things down and last season, Caleb Foster missed the stretch drive with a foot injury.

In both years, Duke started a bit slow and then coalesced into a very good team by the end. Unfortunately injuries played a key role in the post-season in both years: in Scheyer’s rookie season, Mark Mitchell was out for the loss to Tennessee, a game where he would have been very useful, and last season, Caleb Foster missed the last part with a foot injury.

To be clear, Scheyer is not and cannot be Mike Krzyzewski, and he’s wisely not trying to be. He’s charting his own course. He’s placing an emphasis on defense and three point shooting, much more so than Coach K did. K’s teams reflected his competitive personality, which is aggressive. This may be apocryphal, but we heard a story once from practice (there may be a written account of this but we can’t remember) where Krzyzewski challenged one of his players to a fight and told him “you might win...but you’ll have to kill me.”

True or apocryphal, that catches something about how he ran his program.

You don’t want to call Scheyer kinder and gentler or anything - he’s also intensely competitive - but he’s not as fiery as Krzyzewski was.

On the other hand, he is far more youthful and while Coach K made it a point to relate to players who were decades younger by, for instance, learning some rappers and discussing tracks with his perhaps very surprised charges, Scheyer is not so far removed from their daily lives. He may play rap in his office for all we know, but even if not, he knows who’s who. He might have theories about who killed Tupac and Biggie, and why.

He grew up in a wired world too, which Krzyzewski did not. Scheyer can jump into any app and get around. He games. He’s a 21st century guy, basically.

He has a sunnier personality too, though in fairness, Krzyzewski’s competitive personality and his off-the-court personality aren’t the same thing. He has frequently shown great compassion and kindness to people who are suffering or afflicted in one way or another. He never called attention to that but we’ve all seen it: remember Steve Mitchell, the man who had Down’s Syndrome who sat behind the Duke bench for 37 years? They became genuine friends and Coach K admired him a great deal.

We come across news stories and obituaries on a regular basis that mention that Krzyzewski reached out to people with cancer or other terminal conditions to just give them a boost. This has been a constant practice for decades. People rightly focus on the brilliant coaching job the man did, but his compassion and empathy are sincere. He might offer to fight us to the death if we said this to him, but his feminine side is strong and we respect that.

Scheyer, as noted, is charting his own course, but one thing the coaches have in common is an ability to adapt. The injuries Duke has had have made things tougher than they might have been but Scheyer has found solutions and kept the train on the tracks. It’s worth mentioning that at times, fans have grumbled a bit and on two occasions last season, Scheyer apologized to them after a game: first after losing to Pitt and second after losing to UNC in March.

It seemed unnecessary to us but at the same time, it was a statement of accountability and he meant it and his team showed that they meant it too.

And by the way, fans seem to appreciate the job Scheyer is doing. It’s almost impossible to follow a legend like Krzyzewski, and we just have to look down 15-501 to see just how tough that is, but he’s certainly carving his own path and doing so brilliantly.

Consider his staff, for instance. After a certain point, Coach K exclusively hired former players as assistants, and former captains at that. Scheyer has very few former players who could do that. He did keep Chris Carrawell on staff, but Nolan Smith left for Louisville while Amile Jefferson departed for the Boston Celtics last year and now wears an NBA ring as an assistant coach.

In one of the most striking hires in recent years anywhere, Jai Lucas left Kentucky for Duke in 2022. It seemed strange that a UK guy would leave for Durham, but Lucas comes from a prominent Durham roots - his dad is former Maryland star John Lucas and his grandfather was an educator in Durham.

He also perhaps realized that John Calipari’s Kentucky program was decaying and got out before Calipari felt compelled to leave, which he did this past spring.

Emanuel Dildy worked for Chris Collins at Northwestern and Porter Moser at Oklahoma, so he got a solid education from both. At Northwestern, he had to learn to recruit for an academically challenging school, and at Oklahoma, he had to work hard to beat out opponents like Kansas, Texas, Baylor and Oklahoma State for players.

The rest of the staff are Dukies in one way or another. Will Avery is back and after leaving early in 1999 - the first year that anyone left Duke early for the NBA (he, Elton Brand and Corey Maggette all left early) - returned to Durham, buckled down and finished his degree and now is an assistant with lots of wisdom to depart.

Mike Schrage was on Coach K’s staff, first as academic and recruiting coordinator and then as director of basketball operations. He left for Stanford with Johnny Dawkins, later took the Elon job and now is back on Duke’s bench as a special assistant. You might reasonably call him an (ethical) consigliere: he is the older coach who knows the ropes. He started as a student manager at Indiana under Bob Knight - the stories he could tell!

And then there is Justin Robinson, one of college basketball’s greatest walk-ons. The Admiral’s son, David’s kid was emerging in his own right just as Covid hit. He had become a wonderful player, but that’s not what made him special. What made him special was the powerful influence he had on his teams as a walk-on. He has natural leadership gifts that will serve him well. We’re thrilled he’s back at Duke. The guy is special.

When he took the job, Scheyer made it clear that he was okay with following the legendary Krzyzewski and all the pressures that came with that. He has simultaneously maintained Duke’s traditions while putting his own stamp on the program.

Basically, we’d call that threading the needle. No one knew for sure if he, or anyone for that matter, could do it, but he's done a very good job to date. That’s not to say the pressure has disappeared, but rather that he has managed it very well. It all augurs well for the future.

Next up - who’s gone from last season.