Given the present state of faculty basketball, phrases like “roster retention” and “tradition continuity” being omnipresent for years to return appears to be about as protected a guess as there may be.
For Duke, nonetheless the game’s most ascendant model, attaining each targets got here pretty simply in Jon Scheyer’s first two offseasons on the helm.
Following a 2022-23 season that included an ACC Event championship, the Blue Devils have been the one energy convention workforce within the sport to not lose a single participant to the switch portal. A yr later, following a run to the Elite Eight, Duke misplaced seven gamers to the portal, a reality fueled by an incoming top-rated recruiting class and the return of gamers like Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster who had already served as main contributors for Scheyer.
Scheyer was additionally capable of keep away from dropping the core of his workers, with high confidantes Chris Carrawell and Jai Lucas sitting subsequent to him on the bench for the primary three years of the journey. That each one modified when Lucas was employed to be the brand new head coach at Miami, and made the bizarre choice to go away Duke following the tip of the common season.
Following Lucas’ departure, the Blue Devils rolled to an ACC Event title, rolled to an East Regional championship, after which appeared poised to roll to a spot within the nationwide championship recreation. As a substitute, a workforce two wins away from cementing a spot among the many biggest in faculty basketball historical past will now perpetually be remembered, at the very least largely, for its end-of-game collapse in opposition to Houston.
At a spot like Duke, this isn’t the kind of poltergeist that may be jettisoned via lesser means. It’ll take the win on the primary Monday night time in April for the whispers about Scheyer not being an enormous recreation coach or being in over his head or not being the best alternative to interchange arguably the best sideline walker in faculty basketball historical past to vanish perpetually … at the very least to cool down for just a few years.
12 months 4 additionally appears like essentially the most distinctive take a look at for Scheyer but in his ongoing quest to fill the biggest of footwear.
On one hand, Scheyer as soon as once more didn’t lose a single scholarship participant to the switch portal. On the opposite, he’ll be requested to interchange all 5 starters — NBA certain Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, Khaman Maluach and Tyrese Proctor, in addition to graduated Sion James — for the primary time since taking on in Durham.
Whereas Scheyer has cleared many bars in his first three seasons, this recent scenario will give the 37-year-old a possibility to reply a pair of latest questions.
Can he actually develop?
If Duke is as soon as once more going to be within the nationwide title combine in 2026, a handful of bit gamers from final season are going to should turn into major contributors. If gamers like Foster (5.1 ppg), Isaiah Evans (6.8 ppg) and Patrick Ngbonga II (3.9 ppg) don’t appear ready to be at or close to the core of a workforce poised to make one other Remaining 4 run by subsequent March, persons are going to justifiably ask why not.
Can he make it work with a switch as a major star?
There’s no purpose to imagine that incoming freshman Cameron Boozer will likely be something lower than sensational for Duke subsequent season. However there’s a distinction between “regular freshman sensational” and “Cooper Flagg sensational.” Which means Boozer will want some backup within the star division.
The participant best-equipped to deal with that function is Cedric Coward, who — assuming he ultimately places off an early leap to the NBA — will arrive in Durham by means of Washington State. Coward solely performed six video games for the Cougars final season, however averaged 17.7 factors, 7.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 1.7 blocks a recreation on 55.7 p.c capturing from the ground. He’s a three-level scorer and a refined defender; exactly the kind of participant Duke wanted to spherical out one more youthful roster.
Coward might additionally wind up being among the best tales of the 2025-26 faculty basketball season. A participant who started his faculty profession at Division III Willamette College ending it by serving to the mighty Duke Blue Devils make a run at a nationwide championship is an anecdote that doesn’t want a ton of further particulars.
However can Scheyer make it work?
He’s had success with transfers earlier than — Sion James began and was the workforce’s fourth-leading scorer final season after enjoying 4 years at Tulane — however Scheyer has by no means been as reliant on the manufacturing of a seasoned newcomer because it appears he’ll have to be with Coward this season. If it really works, it might open the door for a brand new roster building route for Scheyer to take shifting ahead.
In any case, everybody within the sport remains to be within the “adjusting and making an attempt to determine one of the simplest ways to go about this” section.
“By far I really feel my largest job is roster building,” Scheyer mentioned again in March. “That’s at all times been an enormous factor in faculty basketball, however particularly now. After we received (the nationwide championship) in 2010, the beginning 5 performed in 100 video games collectively. You’re not going to have that now. So for us, the best complimentary gamers with skillsets that stability one another out — however extra importantly, their motivation and who they’re as individuals.”
After all, making all of those selections and determinations isn’t a one man job.
Lucas was instrumental in serving to Scheyer lure the very best younger expertise within the sport to Durham over the previous three years. Whereas Scheyer was capable of hold the Boozer twins in blue, Lucas flipped fellow five-star recruit Shelton Henderson who’s coming with him to South Seashore.
Tasked with making his first main assistant hiring at Duke in a few years, Scheyer took a little bit of an unconventional route. To fill the function Lucas left behind, Scheyer employed Evan Bradds, who most just lately served because the participant improvement coach for the Utah Jazz. After a adorned enjoying profession at Belmont, Bradds instantly jumped into the teaching world with a stint as an assistant with the Boston Celtics earlier than making the transfer to Salt Lake Metropolis in 2022. He has by no means coached on the faculty stage.
Not like the previous two seasons, Duke doesn’t determine to start out the 2025-26 season at or close to the highest of the checklist of the groups most anticipated to chop down the nets in April. That reality, coupled with the opposite important modifications going down in Durham, present Scheyer with a possibility.
Cross it with flying colours, and the discuss surrounding the three straight disappointing NCAA Event exits will dissipate. Wrestle, and … effectively, Scheyer and everybody else already is aware of the remaining.
Is any of this truthful for somebody with an 89-22 total document, 4 ACC championships and eight NCAA Event wins in three seasons? After all not. However nothing about changing Mike Krzyzewski was ever going to be truthful.