The Duke Blue Devils under their head coach Jon Scheyer are having a horrendous time in the 2023-24 NCAA season. At one time Scheyer was applauded for his recruiting tactics. But there hasn’t been an impressive climax after the noteworthy buildup.

And the team seems to be lacking in one department or the other despite their persistent efforts. But what exactly is going wrong for the Devils? And how can Coach K’s protege improve it? 

What’s with the Duke?

The Duke were amongst the top 2 teams in the country in the major preseason polls, however, things don’t seem to be working out for them. They have lost major games against the Arizona Wildcats before falling consecutively to the Arkansas Razorbacks and the c Yellow Jackets by 80-75 and 72-68.

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The Duke are now positioned at the 12th spot with a 5-3 tally and are not looking in a state to recover from this setback.

Their forward Mark Mitchell seems to have lost his ability in shooting the ball. He is being relied upon by their head Jon Scheyer a lot more than he has performed this season. He averages a decent 24.7 minutes in the game but has only scored 11 points per match with 4.7 rebounds per clash.

He averages a lackluster 7.7% in the average three-pointer percentage. The number is enough to tell a story of its own. Apart from that, his assists and blocks per contest also don’t seem to support his place in the team since he has a solitary assist per game and 0.4 blocks per match. He seems to be too unreliable for their spacing plans.

The Duke returned four starters this season including Mitchell, their center Kyle Filipowski, and guards – Tyrese Proctor and Jeremy Roach. Although Filipowski has performed well in the points tally and also has contributed his fair share in the rebounds, he too lacks in the three-pointers with 26.9%.

The situation is similar for Proctor who is trying his best to assist his teammates but has an average 5.6 assists per game. Moreover, Proctor was a ray of hope for the team but injured his left ankle early in the game against the Georgia Tech. He was their lead guard.

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Roach has also struggled with his field goals and has been inconsistent which doesn’t make him a very reliable case for the Duke. Though, their forward TJ Power is decent enough, he can’t be trusted with the responsibilities only in his freshman year.

How can the Duke recover?

The Duke might recover from the situation but at this time has set off the panic buttons because of the expectations they had leading up to this NCAA season.

For the Scheyer, things will become more complicated as the season progresses and the downfall continues because he will always be compared with his mentor Coach K.

Taking over the position from such a reputed coach is not an easy job for Scheyer. Scheyer needs to time to figure it out and will have to understand his anchor and personality as a coach instead of relying on the meters set by Krzyzewski.

Pressure on Scheyer has mounted because he had the number one recruiting class. Apart from Power, he had incoming top rated prospects in Caleb Foster, Sean Stewart and Jared McCain.

While Stewart has averaged only 6 points in the limited opportunities he has been presented with, Foster averages 8 while McCain tried to make the most by averaging 10 points. Nonetheless, the stats do not tell a very rosy story for the Duke and Scheyer will ultimately have to narrow it down to who he his as a coach.

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Hopefully, Scheyer will assess his situation better this time and make a comeback in this season proving his critics wrong while instilling his fans with the confidence he has lacked.