Tag: Scheyer

Duke head coach Jon Scheyer will miss Saturday’s road game at SMU due to an illness, the program announced. Associate head coach Chris Carrawell will serve as the acting head coach.

Scheyer, 37, is expected back for Duke’s home game vs. Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

This is the first game Scheyer has missed since becoming head coach in April 2022 and only the third game he’s missed in over 15 seasons at Duke.

Scheyer didn’t miss a single game when he played for the Blue Devils from 2006-2010, and in 12 seasons on Duke’s bench, he has missed only two games — both due to appendicitis in February 2020. Prior to Saturday, he played or coached in 543 out of 545 possible games with the program.

Scheyer has led No. 4 Duke to an 11-2 record so far this season. The Blue Devils are one of three teams — along with Auburn and Marquette — with a top-15 adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency ranking, per KenPom.

What Scheyer’s absence means for Duke

For Scheyer — Duke’s de facto iron man, even dating back to his playing days — to miss a game, he has to be seriously unwell. That’s especially so given the context of Saturday’s contest: Duke’s first-ever conference game against SMU, which has the ACC’s highest-scoring offense.

The most important thing here, obviously, is that Scheyer is OK. In that regard, it sounds like his absence on Saturday is due to a one-off sickness, rather than anything that could linger. For a Duke team with legitimate national championship aspirations, that’s the only news that really matters. Scheyer has built arguably the best team of his three-season tenure — largely behind one of the nation’s best defenses and 18-year-old phenom Cooper Flagg — and the Blue Devils cannot afford to be without him for long.

On a separate note, it is interesting but perhaps not surprising that Carrawell — who was a Mike Krzyzewski assistant alongside Scheyer — will serve as acting head coach, rather than fellow associate head coach Jai Lucas, who coordinates Duke’s defense. Carrawell is the only coach on Scheyer’s staff who has been around since the Krzyzewski era, and he has a close personal relationship with Scheyer to boot. But Lucas, 36, is considered a rising star in the coaching world and should soon be receiving offers to run his own program. It would’ve been interesting to see Lucas step into that role for one game before he becomes a head coach, but Carrawell’s familiarity with the program and longstanding position make him the natural choice.

(Photo: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)