Eighty-nine wins in 111 games. Two ACC Tournament championships. Three NCAA Tournament appearances, including an Elite Eight and Final Four in separate years. The resume of Jon Scheyer after just three years as head coach of Duke men’s basketball already surpasses the accomplishments of most other coaches. Yet, in modern sports discourse, where banners outweigh all else, Scheyer’s excellence has been disregarded and ignored.
It’s no insignificant feat to take over college basketball’s premier program, much less from Mike Krzyzewski, much less as your first head coaching gig. Under Scheyer, Duke has never finished below 12 in the final AP poll or recorded a season with a sub-.750 winning percentage. His teams regularly demand the national spotlight: The allure of the blue-and-white jersey in Cameron Indoor has not faded in the slightest. Especially in a time where fellow blue-blood programs have faltered, the Blue Devils’ continued success shouldn’t be taken for granted.
And it appears that Scheyer has only continued to learn and grow with experience. Each season, his squads inch closer to the ultimate goal of a national championship, despite unprecedented levels of roster turnover. As top recruits and prospects have come and gone, the former captain has managed to instill a program-wide identity of selflessness and making the right play. I believe this past season, in particular, even with its disappointing finish, has cemented his status as one of college basketball’s finest coaches.
After freshman phenom Cooper Flagg’s ankle injury in Duke’s ACC Tournament opener, a team that had been rolling was suddenly in danger of screeching to a halt. The Blue Devils had lost their engine on both ends of the floor, and the race for the conference title appeared more open than it had all season.
Duke, however, remained steady.
With a severely reduced margin for error, Scheyer navigated his squad through fierce battles against Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Louisville. The Blue Devils twice overcame a first-half deficit, and the Flagg-less group even fended off a 45-point second half from the Tar Heels.
Then, with the return of the “Maine Event” in the NCAA Tournament, Duke seemed invincible for all of four games and 38 minutes. In those final moments against Houston, everything that could’ve gone wrong did go wrong — a near comedy of errors. I won’t dispute that Scheyer deserves criticism for the No. 1 seed’s Final Four collapse, yet the brutal breakdown shouldn’t erase a season of his best coaching thus far. Although his roster was laden with talent, figuring out how that same talent fits together is a much more difficult task than many realize.
Furthermore, the former national champion has proven himself more than capable as a leader. Past players such as Jared McCain and Jeremy Roach have spoken glowingly about Scheyer, even after a difficult loss to N.C. State in 2024. While McCain credited the coach and his staff for believing in the then-freshmen after a slow start, Roach simply stated, “I love him.”
Scheyer is not simply a coach: He has also proven to be one of the nation’s top recruiters. With him as roster architect, the Blue Devils have brought in four consecutive top-ranked recruiting classes filled with big names from Dereck Lively II to Flagg to now Cayden and Cameron Boozer. It will certainly be interesting to see if Duke’s recruiting success changes after the departure of assistant coach and renowned recruiter Jai Lucas — I am of the opinion that Scheyer’s body of work speaks for itself.
I don’t pretend to claim that Scheyer is the best coach in college basketball. His tenure has indeed yet to produce a championship, and the past season felt like the Blue Devils’ best shot in years. However, ring six has only drawn closer. Succeeding Coach K and inheriting his legacy was a colossal task, yet Scheyer has thoroughly demonstrated an ability to win, as well as draw talent to Durham — a versatility that easily merits his standing as a top-five coach in the NCAA. -Alex Min
Counterpoint: Scheyer is not a top-five coach in college basketball
I’ll get this disclaimer out of the way quickly — Scheyer is undoubtedly the best recruiter in the country. However, for me, that isn’t enough.
I think that a lot of Duke fans are living in a bubble of college basketball fandom, especially Duke students. We’re living in a world in which Rick Pitino, Tom Izzo, Bill Self, John Calipari, Rick Barnes, Mark Few, Kelvin Sampson and Dan Hurley are coaching college basketball. Those legends alone are on the shortlist of the top coaches in the collegiate game right now, and I wouldn’t hesitate to rank Scheyer behind any of them.
When looking at the numbers, Duke’s leading man’s career .802 winning percentage is impressive, stacking up ahead of all of the aforementioned legends besides Few. However, I’m skeptical that this pace is reflective of the Glenbrook, Ill., native’s coaching talent, and more so a product of small sample size. Scheyer has only held the reins of the program for three years and hasn’t had a “down” season yet.
I hate to be the one to hate to break it to the Blue Devil faithful, but one is coming — they’re inevitable. If Scheyer is the first head coach to avoid a down year, then I’ll happily eat crow and celebrate him as one of the greatest college coaches ever.
In my eyes, Scheyer’s 89 wins in three years are objectively impressive, but when diving deeper into them, only 12 came against ranked squads. In his tenure, those 12 ranked victories look significantly less impressive compared to nine losses at the hands of top-25 squads. When bringing the looking glass even closer, two of those 12 wins were against early-season highly ranked teams who quickly fell out of the national picture in victories against Michigan State and Ohio State.
Of the other 77 wins, many came against ACC squads during a lull in the conference’s power. Over half of Duke’s conference opponents during Scheyer’s tenure simply haven’t been able to hold a candle to the Blue Devils’ talent.
However, in my estimation, the teams that have been able to give the Blue Devils a run for their money have often done so successfully. The Chronicle’s Dom Fenoglio wrote an article before March Madness on how to stop this most recent edition of Duke, outlining the importance of matching Scheyer’s team’s intensity and playing your own game.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.
Email Address
Your email address
When reading Fenoglio’s keys to beating the Blue Devils, I can’t help but notice how a team whose identity is intensity-first sticks out as a favorable matchup. In Scheyer’s first trip to the big dance as head coach, his young team got molly-whopped by a physical, tall and experienced Tennessee group.
Last season, the Blue Devils got outworked by a ferocious N.C. State defense and out-physicaled on the inside by DJ Burns and co. This past season, despite having one of the greatest offenses in college basketball history, Duke got sent home by Houston.
The Blue Devils certainly had the talent to shoot more than 39.6% from the field in their matchup — their top three scorers in Kon Knueppel, Tyrese Proctor and Cooper Flagg are certainly better than shooting a combined 15-for-36 from the field. However, when watching the game, it was pretty clear the trio was unprepared for the ferocity of the Cougars’ defense.
The fact of the matter about the vaunted Houston point prevention unit is that the group isn’t about talent and doesn’t care about how many five stars its opponent has. This lineup of stalwarts will simply outwork you because that is the team’s culture.
A team that works this hard at fighting for loose balls in practice is going to get them in games, and the Blue Devils found themselves physically outmatched.
Duke was unprepared to face a team of this mettle, and when the rubber met the road in the final minute, Scheyer’s team choked on a level previously undreamt of.
In my eyes, this is a result of Scheyer’s coaching in multiple arenas. First, he must put his players in a position to succeed. Sion James was clearly struggling to inbound the ball, and Scheyer should have switched to a viable inbounds play or put the ball in another player’s hands. Secondly, on the topic of having the ball in another player’s hands, Scheyer must have it drilled into his team’s heads to get the rock to its top free-throw shooters in a late-game situation.
A college coach has not only the responsibility to build a team and plan its schemes, which Scheyer is undoubtedly incredible at on a broad scale, but to build its culture as well. Unfortunately for the Blue Devil faithful, for the third straight year, their team got simply outworked in March again — and they’d better hope Scheyer looks himself in the mirror and learns from his mistakes.
If he does so, I’ll happily crown him a top-five coach in the country. At the moment, I’m seeing a coach who can only build incredible regular-season teams.
When it comes to being elite, whether it be as a coach, player or program, the proof is in the championship pudding. -Myles Powicki
Read more
Duke men’s basketball 2024-25 player review: Caleb Foster
Duke baseball starts homestand with 8-4 win against Appalachian State
Tracking the departures and additions for Duke men’s and women’s basketball this offseason
Discussion
Share and discuss “Point-Counterpoint: Is Jon Scheyer a top-5 college basketball coach?”
