Unless Scheyer was commanding his players to turn the ball over, I can’t see how he was the one crapping the bed. I think Scheyer is one of the brightest coaches in college basketball and I’m willing to take the insults for saying it.
He has a record of 124-25, a winning percentage of 83.2%. He’s been to R32, E8, F4, E8. Some will point he has had a ton of talent — and I agree. But so did John Calipari at Kentucky and he won 76.9% of his games.
If boosters came to the Village Idiot tomorrow and said, “It’s your call. You can keep Kentucky basketball as it is right now or trade it all for 20 years of Jon Scheyer”, I’d take them up on it faster than they could finish the sentence. He’s among the best coaches in the land and under 40. I hope he goes to the NBA eventually — otherwise I’d be shocked if he doesn’t wind up with MULTIPLE national championships. It’s hard to win a title in college, especially with a high concentration of freshman. Yet, year in and year out, he has teams capable of cutting down the nets.
The college basketball fan in me is always going to call a spade a spade even when it isn’t what I PREFER it to be. Duke is killing it, so is Jon Scheyer. It sucks to say it but the only reason to deny it is blue goggles. I’d rather mean what I say.
I appreciate you candor and objectivity. I too am a CBB fan and like to think I see the landscape with an open mind.
That said, while I think he's a young, blossoming coach, I'm not fully sold quite yet. You say he can't stop his players from turning the ball over, but coaches are responsible for a number of things that could identify in advance and rescheme, shift rotations, regroup. A top coach could anticipate during halftime and gameplan. When you stand back and realize that CBB coaches with a 1 seed up 15 at the half were 134-0 prior to that loss, that has to register. I don't care if the other side was Hurley.
The Houston loss was a labotomy and three minutes of ringling bros.
He's been knocked out up really big late to lesser teams two years running, previous year lost to an 11 seeded NC St in the E8. And yes, his talent levels have been absurd. 25 he had a generational top pick of the draft, NBA ROY and Runner Up, 3 top ten picks. Last year he had the most efficient NPOY, in the history of the metric. He's done some winning, a lot of it in a horrendous ACC down UNC & Louisville. That conference has been a breeze.
His 2023 team had Jarred McCain, Kyle Filipowski, Mark Mitchell and Jeremy Roach. Pedestrian level recruits for Duke standards, but 4 top 20 recruits, two now successful NBA players. That is rich for many programs.
I have it on good accord from a Duke campus resource their operating budget is north of 30mm. This years roster is so extremely rich in talent, if he can't get close to the championship game with it, I would call it a tragic disappointment. The IronDuke's are doing all they can to insure his success.
He's hard to evaluate. I wouldn't say his in game is all that impressive, his adjustments don't show. His offenses are pedestrian - he's generally run the offense through two hyper-studly PF's the last two years, hasn't had a guard with over 3 assists. How many times in close games did we see his set out of a T/O simply be hand it to Flagg. I haven't seen him really improve any multi-year player. Did Tyrese Proctor, Caleb Foster, anyone really "develop" under him where you've seen pronounced improvement? I haven't seen it if so. I didn't see a lot of improvement in Isiah Evans, 13th recruit, sent into the second round after sophomore year.
He recruits over good players at such a level it feels like he's on the constant quest of simply finding the better player. Cameron Williams cannot be happy - he came to Duke as a top 5* and sees them recruit JBB over him in the spring. Right now, he's a talent stacker that sounds decent at a mic. I haven't seen anything demonstrating close game grit or toughness. They wack so many bad teams in the ACC with their abundance of talent, it makes it really hard to assess.
Scheyer almost left Duke for the DePaul job in 21. Had he done that, would you still be a big believer? I personally find him a bit forced, canned and a tad dorky. He works for Duke and he fits their image perfectly, but I don't sense a guy that elevates a set of players as much as he corals some amazing recruits. That said, his talent level is so high, I expect him to win one soon. I think he wins one in the next two years.
Separately, Village Idiot qualifies as a top 5 poster on RR.