Where will Duke’s Final Four collapse fit into Jon Scheyer’s legacy?

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SAN ANTONIO — Two minutes before midnight, the steady purr of a golf cart grew louder and louder, sound materializing before any sight.

Then, from around a bend in a back hallway of the Alamodome, it appeared: a four-wheeled white chariot, taking Duke coach Jon Scheyer on one final ride back to his locker room. How agonizingly long — and also painstakingly short — it must have felt.

As the cart slowed to a halt, Scheyer’s wife, Marcelle, was the first to unload, the shock of Duke’s 70-67 Final Four loss to Houston still evident on her face. How could it not be? There was no real-time processing late Saturday night what just transpired in San Antonio: an all-time NCAA Tournament collapse by the best team in college basketball this season, Duke choking away a nine-point lead with two minutes left to snatch defeat from the claws of victory.

The view from the bottom of a spiral isn’t pretty — nor a vantage point that Scheyer and his team expected to see. Duke was the betting favorite entering this weekend for good reasons. It had the best player in the country in freshman superstar Cooper Flagg, plus four other future NBAers in its starting lineup. And analytically speaking, at least, it had the best balance of elite offense and suffocating defense of any team left. It was Duke’s title to lose. And after 33 of the most painful seconds in Duke basketball history — a 9-0 Houston run, and Flagg missing a potential game-winner — that’s exactly what transpired.

“I’m heartbroken for our team that did everything for 38 minutes or 39 minutes, and came up short,” Scheyer said from the postgame dais. “Obviously as a coach, I’m reflecting right now what else I could have said or done. I’m sure there’s a lot more that I could have done to help our guys at the end there. That’s the thing that kills me the most.”

And the raw reality of Saturday night must now be squared with Scheyer’s budding coaching stardom. This season, the 37-year-old became the first coach in ACC history to win two league titles in his first three seasons as head coach. Beyond that, his 89 wins in his first three seasons tie Brad Underwood and Brad Stevens for the most in Division-I history. He delivered Duke to its first outright ACC championship sweep since 2006. The improvements he made — as a tactician, especially — were innumerable, and the achievements of this team are a testament to his growth.

But this loss? This one never leaves you. The pain will dull with time, but not the regret — especially not for the uber-competitive Scheyer. It doesn’t have to be defining, but will be an inescapable piece of whatever Scheyer’s coaching legacy becomes.

Of Houston’s late-game pressure, which got the better of the Blue Devils, Scheyer said, “I feel like I let our guys down in that regard.” It was something he felt they had prepared for, but after romping through the worst ACC in modern memory, lacked experience against.

“I’ll cross that bridge the next couple days,” he said. “Right now, I’m just hurting for our guys.”

There are two natural inclinations when sifting through the wreckage. First, how?

Without going full Zapruder on the game tape, Duke’s defense fell apart over the final eight minutes. It had held Houston to a measly 28 points in the first half, which took away the Coogs’ patented potency on the offensive glass and left them settling for tough turnaround Js. Duke had ballooned its lead to 14 in the second half, a coronation seemingly imminent for a team that Scheyer spent 18 months so carefully constructing. But from that point on, Duke’s defensive backbone disappeared. Houston scored a staggering 25 points on seven made baskets and nine free throws, none bigger than J’Wan Roberts’ game-winners with 19.1 seconds left. Of those seven makes, four were second-chance baskets, part of Houston’s 19-12 edge over Duke in that respect.

But this did not happen in a vacuum. Scheyer danced with the ones who brought him, for better or for worse. He played 7-foot-2 center Khaman Maluach for 12 second-half minutes, despite the future lottery pick not recording a single rebound. He went away from sophomore guard Caleb Foster, too, whose four first-half rebounds were critical to limiting Houston’s second (and sometimes third) attempts.

And when graduate guard Sion James struggled inbounding the ball in the final minute — even being gifted a second opportunity after JoJo Tugler’s administrative technical foul — Scheyer chose not to defer to another inbounder, ultimately resulting in a pivotal turnover.

And perhaps most importantly? In the most critical two moments of the game, his calls resulted in a turnaround jumper against a sixth-year senior and a failed Hail Mary that kept Duke from getting one last good look. For as much high-quality, five-out offense as Scheyer incorporated this season, it’s impossible not to question the plays Scheyer went to in those situations. The spacing on Flagg’s jumper that came up short, especially — Duke’s four other players all to one side of the nail — left much to be desired.

“Obviously when Jon called timeout, everybody knows who’s going to get it,” said Houston coach Kelvin Sampson. “Wan, I thought, did an awesome job of getting his hands up high enough that it wasn’t an easy look.”

Then comes the second sentiment, anytime something goes as horribly wrong as Saturday night did for Duke: Is this a one-of-one incident? Or are there other historic collapses that adequately stack up?

A few come to mind — starting with the first Final Four that Scheyer’s predecessor ever made it to. Back in 1986, after years of toiling, resurrecting Duke’s program in the shadow of Dean Smith and Jim Valvano, Mike Krzyzewski finally broke through and made his first final weekend. Those Blue Devils even made the national title game and held a six-point lead over Louisville with just over seven minutes to play. But as was the case for Scheyer on Saturday, an extended scoring drought for Krzyzewski’s first Final Four group proved fatal, as Louisville came from behind to win.

Or perhaps 1998-99 Duke is the better example? The clear-cut best team in the country, which lost only once heading into the final Monday of the season, was similarly built like an NBA breeding ground: Shane Battier and Elton Brand, Will Avery and Trajan Langdon. The gravitas of that loss — the best team ever in KenPom’s 29-season analytical database — is much more on par with this Duke team’s defeat.

In terms of game-pressure parallels, two others come to mind: 2003-04 Duke and 2007-08 Memphis. The former — three seasons before Scheyer committed to the program he now coaches — saw an eight-point lead disappear in the final three minutes of the Final Four, to a UConn team that (much like Houston) refused to quit.

As for John Calipari’s best Memphis team, the comparisons are almost too on the nose. A one-of-a-kind freshman star — Derrick Rose, in Memphis’ case, and obviously Flagg — willing his team to the brink of history in San Antonio. Then a key misstep late by said star: Flagg’s missed middy and Rose’s missed free throw in the final minute, which meant Kansas’ Mario Chalmers’ miracle 3 forced overtime. And lastly, that same nine-point lead with two minutes left.

Seemingly enough, until it suddenly wasn’t.

“It’s been one of the best seasons ever,” Scheyer said, almost as if trying to convince himself. “I told (the team) I’m sorry, because we truly believed that we were going to be playing Monday night — and we’re capable of doing that.”

Given Scheyer’s meteoric start, it feels natural to assume that he’ll be back here one day, maybe as soon as next season. And given his acumen, his recruiting prowess and the infrastructure at Duke, there should be ample opportunities. But for every coach who finally breaks through — Smith, Krzyzewski — there are also those who get only one shot. Look at Matt Painter, one of the best coaches of his generation. Or Brian Dutcher, who has built San Diego State into a West Coast powerhouse. Tony Bennett, Mick Cronin, Shaka Smart. There is no guarantee you ever get back, no matter how good you are.

For Scheyer, in spite of all his accomplishments — and even more still to come — that is the line he now must straddle. He will, like so many before him, get saddled with the sentiment that he can’t win the big one. Can’t close. Can’t climb all the way to the top of the mountain.

Until he does, that is.

If he does.

Back outside Duke’s locker room, Scheyer paused for half a beat before disembarking the golf cart, his hand gripped tight on the black metal railing in front of his seat. Then, without saying a word, he followed Marcelle into Duke’s locker room, out of sight.

And for the rest of the Final Four — including Monday night’s championship game, the one he was seconds from coaching in — out of mind.

 (Photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

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