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.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.
