Jon Scheyer was the perfect pick to succeed Coach K and has done the unthinkable: remade Duke in his own image

NEWARK, N.J. — It was the spring of 2021 and Jon Scheyer was on the precipice of a life-changing job opportunity.

But not the way he expected. Not anything close.

We know Scheyer now as the head coach of Duke men’s basketball. 

But around four years ago at this very moment, Scheyer was waiting on two job opportunities, practically convinced one of them — if not both — would go his way.

Scheyer, who is a Chicago native, chased the DePaul job. He interviewed there and loved his chances. But that wasn’t the only one he was eying. This has never been publicly revealed until now: Scheyer told CBS Sports he also interviewed at UNLV in 2021. He thought he had a real shot at that one, too. DePaul was intriguing, because of Chicago, but UNLV was the one he and his wife, Marcelle, actually got excited about.

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He’d been a seven-year assistant at Duke by that point. Helped the program win a national title as a player in 2010 and did it again as one of Mike Krzyzewski’s lieutenants on staff in 2015. 

It was time. He was ready. Though still plenty young (in his early 30s), he was desperate to be a head coach.

“It got crazy the last couple weeks,” Scheyer told CBS Sports about that moment in time. “I thought I was going to be the coach at DePaul.”

The school hired Tony Stubblefield instead. UNLV also turned him down, hiring Kevin Kruger. Scheyer was deflated.

Later that spring his life — and Duke’s program — changed forever.

“Duke wasn’t even an option or a reality then, and to think, you miss out on those, and then two months later … you can’t even fathom it,” Scheyer said.

Scheyer’s telling me the story as a piece of white twine tickles his forehead. It’s tied around the closure of his 2025 Final Four hat, which he’s wearing backward. 

At 37, Scheyer has taken Duke to the Final Four and done so in just his third season on the job. When Krzyzewski decided in 2021 that Scheyer should be the one to succeed him in 2022, the decision came as something of a surprise. But there was nearly a year to ramp up to it. Krzyzewski’s farewell tour also received criticism.

But it was the course of action that best set up Duke, and Scheyer, to succeed. Seeing Duke throttle Alabama 85-65 to win the East Regional on Saturday night was the last result needed to confirm that the right man, in the right way, was picked for the job. 

Truth is, ever since Scheyer got the gig he’s made one of the toughest assignments look entry-level in its lack of difficulty. Following a legend is infamously one of the most difficult things to do in sports. Most fail. Some do well enough while falling well short of the standard set by whichever all-time great preceded them.

“Knew he had it, I knew he was special,” Duke assistant Chris Carrawell told CBS Sports. “He’s grown so much this year, so proud of him and what he had to go through. There’s a learning curve because you take over for the greatest coach of all time, and it’s not easy.”

Scheyer sure makes it look easy, though. 

“X’s and O’s, he had that from the beginning, but his leadership has taken over,” Carrawell said.  

Scheyer was intentional about the roster makeup. What specific players. He brought in transfers from Tulane, Purdue, Syracuse to mesh with one of the strongest recruiting classes in Duke history.

What could have been a terrific East Regional final between the top-seeded Blue Devils and No. 2 Alabama was instead a laugher. Duke took a 15-5 lead on Bama a little more than four minutes into the game. The Crimson Tide missed 18 of their first 25 shots. Duke was never truly threatened. 

A game removed from making an NCAA Tournament-record 25 3-pointers on 51 attempts, Alabama wound up 8-of-32 (25%). It was playing catchup from the get-go. The Tide never held a lead and never put together a run. Duke held Alabama scoreless for more than five minutes in the second half, choking out any hope for a run to make the game interesting.

Duke’s defense was tremendous, holding Alabama more than 26 points under its season average going into the night (91.4), the 65 points amounting to the second-fewest the Tide scored this season.

Mark Sears, who his previous time out sank 10 3-pointers and scored 35 points, didn’t make his first basket until 2:16 remained in the first half. He finished with six points on 12 shots, a brutal finale to an otherwise tremendous college career.

That’s the Duke effect. 

“Cooper would run through a brick wall for that man,” Kelly Flagg, Cooper’s mother, told CBS Sports. “I’m kind of gushing, obviously, but Jon really is the greatest.”

This team — built by Scheyer, with specific intention — is a machine. It has one of the best one-and-done players ever in Flagg, but also a switchable terror in fellow freshman Khaman Maluach who, with a 9-foot-8 standing reach, is a carnival of terror everywhere on the floor.  

Scheyer is overseeing a team that is barely interested in making games competitive. Duke’s trailed for a total of 5 minutes and 35 seconds through four games. Saturday night was the 89th win of Scheyer’s career, tying him with Brad Stevens and Brad Underwood for the most wins to start a career through the first three seasons.

Even the most optimistic of Duke fans couldn’t have expected this. Scheyer has made the complicated seem seamless. He does it with a down-to-earth touch that permeates throughout the program. He’s a lot different than Krzyzewski, which was exactly what Duke needed when Coach K opted to retire.

“It starts with something that any great relationship has, human to human, person to person, coach to player: a relationship starts with honesty,” Flagg told CBS Sports. “Never hiding anything, telling me what I wanted to hear, but just giving me the truth and nothing but the truth.” 

The 18th Final Four in Duke history is its first under Scheyer. Given how great this has started and the fact this is Duke, this surely won’t be his only trip.