Duke faces its biggest challenge yet under Jon Scheyer

The sting of Duke’s stunning collapse against Houston still lingers. To get rid of it, the Blue Devils head coach will have to succeed under circumstances he hasn’t faced before.

Given the current state of college basketball, phrases like “roster retention” and “culture continuity” being omnipresent for years to come seems to be about as safe a bet as there is.

For Duke, still the sport’s most ascendant brand, achieving both goals came fairly easily in Jon Scheyer’s first two offseasons at the helm.

Following a 2022-23 season that included an ACC Tournament championship, the Blue Devils were the only power conference team in the sport to not lose a single player to the transfer portal. A year later, following a run to the Elite Eight, Duke lost seven players to the portal, a fact fueled by an incoming top-rated recruiting class and the return of players like Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster who had already served as major contributors for Scheyer.

Scheyer was also able to avoid losing the core of his staff, with top confidantes Chris Carrawell and Jai Lucas sitting next to him on the bench for the first three years of the ride. That all changed when Lucas was hired to be the new head coach at Miami, and made the unusual decision to leave Duke following the end of the regular season.

Following Lucas’ departure, the Blue Devils rolled to an ACC Tournament title, rolled to an East Regional championship, and then appeared poised to roll to a spot in the national championship game. Instead, a team two wins away from cementing a place among the greatest in college basketball history will now forever be remembered, at least largely, for its end-of-game collapse against Houston.

At a place like Duke, this isn’t the type of poltergeist that can be jettisoned through lesser means. It’ll take the win on the first Monday night in April for the whispers about Scheyer not being a big game coach or being in over his head or not being the right choice to replace arguably the greatest sideline walker in college basketball history to disappear forever ... at least to settle down for a few years.

Year four also feels like the most unique test for Scheyer yet in his ongoing quest to fill the largest of shoes.

On one hand, Scheyer once again did not lose a single scholarship player to the transfer portal. On the other, he’ll be asked to replace all five starters — NBA bound Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, Khaman Maluach and Tyrese Proctor, as well as graduated Sion James — for the first time since taking over in Durham.

While Scheyer has cleared many bars in his first three seasons, this fresh situation will give the 37-year-old an opportunity to answer a pair of new questions.

Can he really develop?

If Duke is once again going to be in the national title mix in 2026, a handful of bit players from last season are going to have to develop into primary contributors. If players like Foster (5.1 ppg), Isaiah Evans (6.8 ppg) and Patrick Ngbonga II (3.9 ppg) don’t seem prepared to be at or near the core of a team poised to make another Final Four run by next March, people are going to justifiably ask why not.

Can he make it work with a transfer as a primary star?

There’s no reason to believe that incoming freshman Cameron Boozer will be anything less than sensational for Duke next season. But there’s a difference between “normal freshman sensational” and “Cooper Flagg sensational.” That means Boozer will need some backup in the star department.

The player best-equipped to handle that role is Cedric Coward, who — assuming he eventually puts off an early jump to the NBA — will arrive in Durham by way of Washington State. Coward only played six games for the Cougars last season, but averaged 17.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 1.7 blocks a game on 55.7 percent shooting from the floor. He’s a three-level scorer and a polished defender; precisely the type of player Duke needed to round out yet another youthful roster.

Coward could also wind up being one of the best stories of the 2025-26 college basketball season. A player who began his college career at Division III Willamette University ending it by helping the mighty Duke Blue Devils make a run at a national championship is an anecdote that doesn’t need a ton of additional details.

But can Scheyer make it work?

He’s had success with transfers before — Sion James started and was the team’s fourth-leading scorer last season after playing four years at Tulane — but Scheyer has never been as reliant on the production of a seasoned newcomer as it seems he’ll need to be with Coward this season. If it works, it could open the door for a new roster construction route for Scheyer to take moving forward.

After all, everyone in the sport is still in the “adjusting and trying to figure out the best way to go about this” phase.

“By far I feel my biggest job is roster construction,” Scheyer said back in March. “That’s always been a big thing in college basketball, but especially now. When we won (the national championship) in 2010, the starting five played in 100 games together. You’re not going to have that now. So for us, the right complimentary players with skillsets that balance each other out — but more importantly, their motivation and who they are as people.”

Of course, making all of these decisions and determinations isn’t a one man job.

Lucas was instrumental in helping Scheyer lure the best young talent in the sport to Durham over the past three years. While Scheyer was able to keep the Boozer twins in blue, Lucas flipped fellow five-star recruit Shelton Henderson who is coming with him to South Beach.

Tasked with making his first major assistant hiring at Duke in a couple of years, Scheyer took a bit of an unconventional route. To fill the role Lucas left behind, Scheyer hired Evan Bradds, who most recently served as the player development coach for the Utah Jazz. After a decorated playing career at Belmont, Bradds immediately jumped into the coaching world with a stint as an assistant with the Boston Celtics before making the move to Salt Lake City in 2022. He has never coached at the college level.

Unlike the past two seasons, Duke doesn’t figure to start the 2025-26 season at or near the top of the list of the teams most expected to cut down the nets in April. That fact, coupled with the other significant changes taking place in Durham, provide Scheyer with an opportunity.

Pass it with flying colors, and the talk surrounding the three straight disappointing NCAA Tournament exits will dissipate. Struggle, and ... well, Scheyer and everyone else already knows the rest.

Is any of this fair for someone with an 89-22 overall record, four ACC championships and eight NCAA Tournament wins in three seasons? Of course not. But nothing about replacing Mike Krzyzewski was ever going to be fair.