Tag: Jon Scheyer

Duke offers Shelton Henderson, a four-star 2025 forward

Shelton Henderson, a four-star freshman in the Class of 2025, said on social media that the Blue Devils offered him a scholarship.

The 2024 Duke basketball recruiting class has only been on campus for a few days yet, but head coach Jon Scheyer already has an eye on 2025.

Shelton Henderson, a four-star forward from the Class of 2025, announced that the Blue Devils extended a scholarship offer to him through social media on Tuesday.

Henderson, a 6-foot-6 product of Bellaire High School in Texas, currently ranks as 247Sports’ 49th-ranked player in the cycle. He’s even higher on the site’s Composite Rankings, where he is the 41st overall player.

“Henderson is a physical specimen from the wing position who arguably has the best long-term tools in the national class,” 247Sports recruiting analyst Brandon Jenkins wrote in the site’s scouting report. “He operates as a playmaking wing who is loaded with intangibles that are off the charts…Henderson has the build to overpower defenders on his drive at the collegiate level and should draw fouls with ease when looking to drive the basketball.”

Last season with Bellaire, Henderson averaged 21.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game, leading the Cardinals in both categories. He added 3.9 assists, 2.9 steals, and 1.4 blocks per game, according to MaxPreps.

The Blue Devils don’t yet have a commitment for the 2025 recruiting class.

ESPN says Jared McCain is the best prospect in the NBA draft for this category

ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo handed out some NBA draft superlatives on Monday. Which category did they honor Jared McCain in?

Longtime ESPN draft analysts Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo released an article handing out 20 superlative awards among the NBA draft prospects on Monday and Duke star [autotag]Jared McCain[/autotag] earned a nomination in one category.

Givony and Woo said McCain holds the ‘Best intangibles’ in the draft class because of his work ethic.

The 41% 3-point shooter already proved he can elevate himself on the biggest stages with two 30-point games in the NCAA Tournament while leading Duke to the Elite Eight. Givony said people in the sport only respect the former Blue Devil more.

“(McCain) has been revered behind the scenes at Duke and elsewhere for his work ethic,” Woo wrote. “While notorious to an extent for his huge following on social media, McCain’s actions when the cameras are off back up the notion that he’ll get the most out of his talent in the long term.”

The article also said that Duke head coach [autotag]Jon Scheyer[/autotag] called the one-year star the most disciplined worker he’d seen with the Blue Devils.

McCain gets to discover his NBA destination when the draft begins on June 26.

Duke basketball coach Jon Scheyer meets up with Jayson Tatum before Game 2 of the NBA Finals

Duke basketball coach Jon Scheyer linked up with Jayson Tatum, a former Blue Devil, ahead of Saturday’s second game of the NBA Finals.

The NBA Finals served as a Duke basketball reunion this year.

[autotag]Jayson Tatum[/autotag] and the Boston Celtics took a second straight game from the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday night, getting the better of [autotag]Kyrie Irving[/autotag] and [autotag]Dereck Lively II[/autotag] to take the 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

The Blue Devils weren’t only on the court in Boston on Saturday, however. [autotag]Jon Scheyer[/autotag], the third-year head coach of the Duke men’s basketball program, showed up on the sidelines for the second game. The NBA shared a short social media clip of him embracing Tatum ahead of the contest and posing for a photo with him and assistant coach Amile Jefferson.

Scheyer, who won a national championship with the Blue Devils as a player in 2010, took over as the program leader ahead of the 2022-23 season. However, he joined Mike Krzyzewski’s staff back in 2014, so he would have worked with Tatum during the Boston star’s freshman season in 2016-17.

Tatum finished with 18 points, 12 assists, and nine rebounds in the 105-98 win.

Jon Scheyer teases tougher summer to help new Duke basketball team bond

Duke coach Jon Scheyer told Jay Bilas in a Tuesday podcast that he has a plan to help his new team build camaraderie this summer: hard team practices.

During Tuesday’s episode of The Brotherhood Podcast, former Duke basketball player Jay Bilas sat down with head coach [autotag]Jon Scheyer[/autotag] to ask about how a coach builds camaraderie on a team with two returning players.

Scheyer, entering his third season as Duke’s head coach, laid out a simple plan: grueling workouts.

“What I’ve learned in my time at Duke,” Scheyer said. “You really bond by doing hard things together.”

The Blue Devils coach said previous summers at his program focused on individual work and easing back into form and shape. Instead, Scheyer said the offseason ahead of the 2024-25 season will revolve around harder work and conditioning and team exercises.

“We’re going to do things differently this summer,” Scheyer told Bilas.

“We’re going to challenge these guys.”

Scheyer has spent the entire offseason praising the competitive nature of his incoming recruits, especially No. 1 prospect [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag]. The Duke head coach already mentioned that no player was promised minutes or playing time ahead of the 2024-25 season.

Duke fans got their first look at Scheyer’s new squad during K Academy social clips last week.

Jon Scheyer details his ideal offseason path on a new episode of The Brotherhood Podcast

This Duke basketball offseason contained more turmoil than most with 10 departures, but head coach Jon Scheyer expanded upon his ideal summer this week.

Duke basketball fans enjoyed(?) a particularly tumultuous offseason this spring and summer. With 10 players leaving for either the professional world or a different school, six members of the incoming recruiting class, and four incoming transfers, the Blue Devils bring back two contributors from last season.

Head coach Jon Scheyer, obviously, doesn’t want every offseason to look quite like that.

In a new episode of The Brotherhood Podcast published on Tuesday, Scheyer sat down with former Duke player Jay Bilas and talked about what a perfect offseason looks like in the transfer portal era.

“Going forward, it’s probably not going to be a class of six freshmen,” Scheyer told Bilas. “More so four, or three, or maybe the (maximum) would be five.”

“Ideally, you have three to five players returning,” he continued. “Although some years it may be two, some years it could be six. And then one or two transfers.”

Scheyer said this process would be Duke’s plan going forward, so the Cameron Crazies might get a glimpse of that after the 2024-25 season.

An updated look at Duke basketball’s place on EvanMiya’s transfer class rankings

The Blue Devils brought in four transfers in the offseason, and they’re close to EvanMiya’s top 10 incoming classes.

The Duke basketball team lost seven players to the transfer portal this offseason, but they welcomed four more as head coach Jon Scheyer rebuilt the program around [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] and the 2024 recruiting class. Popular basketball analytics site EvanMiya thinks Scheyer did a good job.

The site, founded by Evan Miyakawa, considered Duke’s four incoming transfers as the 12th-best class in the country with three of the four new Blue Devils given five-star grades.

Mason Gillis, who won Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year last season with Purdue, and Syracuse’s Maliq Brown ranked as the 24th and 25th overall players in the portal on EvanMiya’s big board, respectively. Sion James of Tulane came in 54th.

The Blue Devils have the second-best transfer portal class in the ACC, according to EvanMiya’s site rankings. The Louisville Cardinals, in the first season of a rebuild with new coach Pat Kelsey, sit in second.

Scheyer’s been efficient with his time, too. The Blue Devils are the only team within the top 24 of EvanMiya’s class rankings to sit below the top 300 in transfer portal activity.

Duke basketball teases some big upcoming guests for The Brotherhood Podcast

The Blue Devils shared some photos through social media on Thursday to get fans excited for future episodes of the team’s podcast.

The Brotherhood Podcast, a Duke basketball production that lets current and former Blue Devils talk about themselves and the team, might have some big guests in the near future.

The men’s basketball social media account shared two photos from the recording booth on social media Thursday, one of head coach Jon Scheyer and ESPN’s Jay Bilas and another of current Duke guard Caleb Foster and the Orlando Magic’s Paolo Banchero.

Bilas, who played for Duke from 1982-86, has become one of the biggest voices in college basketball over his last decade with the network.

Banchero, the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NBA draft, played one season for the Blue Devils in 2022. He helped guide Duke to the Final Four in legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final season.

The first episode of The Brotherhood Podcast was released last July. Banchero and Bilas have not yet appeared on the program, but former Blue Devil stars like Grant Hill, Dereck Lively II, and Quinn Cook all have episodes on the channel.

It remains to be seen whether Banchero and Bilas appear separately or together, but all indications from channel history say they’ll each get their own turn in the spotlight.

Duke basketball all the way down to ninth in Andy Katz’s 2024-25 Power 36

College basketball writer Andy Katz shared a 2024-25 power rankings after the draft withdrawal deadline, and Duke nearly dropped from the top 10.

After the NBA draft withdrawal deadline passed, college basketball writer Andy Katz shared an updated Power 36, his ranking of the top three dozen teams in men’s college hoops.

Despite the No. 1 recruiting class in the country and multiple top transfers, Katz slid the Blue Devils all the way down to ninth in the rankings.

Duke, who opened the early projections as Joe Lunardi’s top overall seed for the early 2025 bracketology, didn’t even earn the top spot in the ACC in Katz’s rankings. North Carolina came in one spot above them in eighth.

CJ Moore of The Athletic also released an updated ranking on Thursday, and he also dropped Duke from his top five because of the team’s inexperience. Moore wrote that he believed in Duke’s ceiling but didn’t feel confident betting on freshmen.

Alabama took the top spot in Katz’s rankings, the same team that finished atop Moore’s rankings. Katz followed the Tide with Kansas, Gonzaga, Houston, and two-time defending champion Connecticut for the rest of his top five.

Baylor, the new home of former Duke senior captain Jeremy Roach, slotted in two spots ahead of the Blue Devils in seventh.

Duke basketball coach Jon Scheyer says there are no ‘guaranteed minutes’ for 2024-25 roster

Despite loads of star power, Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said on Tuesday that no player got a guaranteed role on his 2024-25 locker room.

Between No. 1 overall prospect Cooper Flagg, five other top-50 freshmen, and a top-20 transfer class, there won’t be a shortage of star power in Durham next season.

However, just because guys like Flagg and five-star center Khaman Maluach seem like locks for the 2025 NBA draft lottery and transfers like Sion James and Mason Gillis have one year of eligibility left, head coach Jon Scheyer isn’t willing to dole out minutes out of obligation.

In a Tuesday article from The News & Observer’s Steve Wiseman, Scheyer said no player on the 2024-25 roster will get his spot handed to him.

“There wasn’t going to be promises or assurances for anybody in terms of guaranteed minutes or guaranteed starting,” Scheyer said in the story. “Our programs are built on competition. And we’re doubling down on that at a time where the environment makes you or puts you in a position to promise things.”

Entering his third season at the helm of the men’s basketball program, Scheyer has routinely praised his incoming class of players for their competitive nature. He talked up Flagg’s motor in an ACC Network segment earlier this month. It seems like every player on the Blue Devils knows the deal ahead of next season.

Jon Scheyer praises ‘consistent’ Dereck Lively amid his breakout playoff run with the Mavericks

Former Duke basketball star Dereck Lively earned many fans for his performance this NBA playoffs, and Jon Scheyer couldn’t be more impressed.

The NBA world fell in love with former Duke star Dereck Lively after he pulled down 15 rebounds to close out Oklahoma City in the second round of the NBA playoffs just weeks after his mother passed away.

Blue Devils head coach Jon Scheyer thinks no one deserves the adoration more.

“If you want to play with anybody, you want to play with Dereck,” Scheyer said in a CBS Sports article published on Wednesday.

Lively spent his one season with the Blue Devils during Scheyer’s debut season in 2022, and Travis Branham’s piece detailed that he worked closely with coach and former player Amile Jefferson. Scheyer praised his consistency and accountability as he pursued improvement.

“We had multiple meetings where he just doubled down on what he needed to do, and he didn’t make any excuses,” Scheyer said. “That’s what you love about him, and that’s why he got better.”

Lively ended his freshman season averaging 2.4 blocks per game.

“He was the most impactful defensive player in the country by the end of the season,” Scheyer said.

The Mavericks won the first game of the Western Conference finals on Wednesday night, and Lively contributed 11 rebounds and nine points to the win. In his last three playoff games, the former Blue Devil is averaging 10.6 points, 12.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 1.3 blocks.