Here’s some hard truth for Duke haters who take delight in portraying Jon Scheyer as a March choke artist: He’s going to shed that label someday.
Maybe not this year. Maybe not even next year. But rest assured, Scheyer’s crowning moment is coming. An elite coach who keeps assembling star-laden rosters and molding those teams into powerhouses is eventually going to break through.
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After back-to-back seasons of winning 35 games and sweeping the ACC regular season and tournament titles, Duke is poised to pick up where it left off. A Blue Devils team featuring a mix of heralded freshmen and March-tested veterans enters Tuesday night’s Champions Classic matchup against Michigan State as the No. 2 team in the AP Top 25 and oddsmakers’ co-favorite to win the national title.
Scheyer won’t have another chance to silence his critics until the brackets are unveiled this March, but the Michigan State game is a significant early barometer for his Blue Devils. A neutral-court win over the fifth-ranked Spartans would validate Duke’s preseason hype and solidify the Blue Devils as a leading title contender.
The best possible outcome for Scheyer might be Duke having to protect a narrow lead against a quality opponent on a big stage. That’s exactly the scenario that has exposed Duke’s shoddy decision making and issues executing late-game offense in March the past few years.
Scheyer has mostly made the impossible task of replacing a coaching icon look easy throughout his four-plus seasons as Duke’s head coach, but there’s no denying that Mike Krzyzewski’s handpicked successor has underwhelmed on the NCAA tournament stage. Cooper Flagg, Cameron Boozer, Kon Knueppel and eight other NBA draft picks have all passed through Durham during Scheyer’s tenure without experiencing the thrill of playing on the first Monday night in April.
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Three years ago, a 27-win Duke team needed only to fend off 11th-seeded NC State to advance to Scheyer’s first Final Four. The heavily favored Blue Devils shot miserably and surrendered 55 second-half points to turn a gift-wrapped opportunity into an Elite Eight gut punch.
In his four seasons as Duke’s head coach, Jon Scheyer has led the Blue Devils to a 126-25 record.
(Jared C. Tilton via Getty Images)
Two years ago, the Flagg-Knueppel Blue Devils faced Houston in the Final Four and famously led by 14 with 8:17 left and by six with less than a minute to go. Duke then unraveled when facing game pressure for one of the few times all season and Flagg misfired on a short pull-up jumper when given a final chance to preserve his team’s title hopes.
Last March, Duke built a 19-point lead late in the Elite Eight against UConn and still led by two with possession of the ball and 10 seconds to go. A Cayden Boozer turnover led to a highlight that will be replayed for decades — a 35 footer from UConn’s Braylon Mullins that sent the Huskies to the Final Four and ended another promising Duke season in heartbreak.
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The blowback after the UConn collapse was immediate and overwhelming. Observers who sought a common denominator among Duke’s NCAA tournament meltdowns found only one.
“Duke officially has a Jon Scheyer March problem,” SiriusXM host Adam Schein told his audience.
“Of course, he’s to blame,” podcast host Mark Titus said. “He sits there and watches it happen, watches it unfold.”
In the most scorching take of all, college sports reporter Matt Fortuna posted to X, “Jon Scheyer has underachieved more at Duke than Hubert Davis did at North Carolina.”
To compare the tenures of Scheyer and Davis, of course, is laughable. Scheyer has a 126-25 record as Duke head coach and amassed five ACC regular season or tournament titles in his first four seasons. But aside from Carolina’s run to the title game in Davis’ first season, three of his five seasons as North Carolina head coach ended with the Tar Heels either missing the NCAA tournament or failing to advance beyond the round of 64.
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It’s also important to remember how many elite coaches faced a similar narrative to the one now foisted upon Scheyer.
Jay Wright was known as an NCAA tournament underachiever until Villanova steamrolled its way to national championships in 2016 and 2018.
Bill Self once faced similar criticism before Kansas broke through in 2008.
Virginia was “built to fail in March” right up until Tony Bennett guided the Cavaliers to a redemptive 2019 national title. So was Purdue until Matt Painter coached the Boilermakers to the 2024 championship game. Gonzaga, too, even as Mark Few reeled off nine consecutive runs to at least the NCAA tournament’s second weekend, including title game appearances in 2017 and 2021.
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The lesson is that the untrustworthy-in-March label isn’t permanent. Elite teams don’t always advance in a single-elimination tournament known for chaos and upsets, but the best coaches keep knocking on the door until they bust through.
That’s not to suggest that there’s nothing Scheyer can learn from Duke’s recent stretch of March flameouts. Maybe there’s more he can do to help his players get an easy basket when the game pressure intensifies or to prevent a bad stretch from becoming an avalanche.
Duke may not have a national player of the year frontrunner in its starting five this season like it did the past two years, but the Blue Devils make up for it with exceptional height and depth. Who else in college basketball could have a rotation with no players shorter than 6-foot-4? Or a second unit that features multiple five-star recruits and could easily be a Top 25-caliber starting five elsewhere?
Four of last year’s six leading scorers are back, a rare luxury for a program that has chosen to sacrifice roster continuity to chase one-and-done talent. Big man Patrick Ngongba has gradually expanded his offensive toolbox. Onetime 3-and-D specialist Dame Sarr has also developed into a more complete offensive threat.
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Scheyer complemented that core group of returners by adding another highly rated freshman class led by 17-year-old Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje, a skilled 7-footer who earned MVP honors while leading the U.S. U-17 World Cup team to a gold medal this past summer. Boumtje Boumtje is not eligible for the NBA Draft until 2028 and is expected to develop for two seasons in Durham.
Perhaps unsure if there was a clear go-to scorer on the roster, Scheyer went out and added a player via the transfer portal who has experience in that role. Six-foot-5 shooting guard John Blackwell started every game for a 24-win Wisconsin team last season and averaged nearly 20 points.
Is this year’s team capable of ending Duke’s 12-year championship drought? Yes, especially if Scheyer can manage the egos of the five-star recruits who will be coming off the bench and turn the Blue Devils’ depth into a weapon.
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Will Duke’s championship window close if this team falls short? No, not even close. With Boumtje Boumtje expected back and three more heralded recruits already signed for next year, the Blue Devils once again will be loaded.
That’s why those who poke fun at Scheyer’s NCAA tournament meltdowns should get in their jabs while they still can. Under Scheyer, Duke is operating at an even higher level than it was at the end of Krzyzewski’s tenure.
As long as he doesn’t get tempted by an offer to coach an NBA team, Scheyer is going to win that elusive national title sooner or later.
It’s a question of when, not if.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
