‘We’ve proven you can win this way’: Why Duke is running it back with freshmen

SUCCEEDING A COACH AS legendary as Mike Krzyzewski isn’t easy.

The final decade of Krzyzewski’s career featured 24 one-and-done prospects at Duke, including the likes of Jayson Tatum, Zion Williamson, Paolo Banchero.

But Jon Scheyer has barely missed a step, keeping Duke at the top of the recruiting rankings in three of his four years since taking over for Coach K. A season after making a run to the Final Four with a freshmen-fueled roster anchored by NBA No. 1 draft pick Cooper Flagg, Scheyer is trying to do it again: chase a championship with freshmen leading the way.

It’s not a traditional roster model anymore, though. Between the sport becoming increasingly reliant on the transfer portal and the rise of overseas professionals coming to the United States to play college basketball, the best teams in the country are skewing older.

When Kentucky won the title in 2012, for example, the Wildcats started three freshmen and had an average Division I experience of 1.18 years, according to KenPom. UConn’s back-to-back championship teams, by contrast, averaged 2.25 years and 2.43 years of experience in 2023 and 2024, respectively. The starting lineups of last year’s Final Four teams featured 11 seniors and three freshmen — all from the Blue Devils — with Florida’s title-winning roster featuring three senior starters and four transfers with an average experience of 2.44 years.

projected draft lottery pick Cameron Boozer, with the support of Italy native Dame Sarr on the wing and Cayden Boozer and Nikolas Khamenia off the bench, to get them to Indianapolis.

«In a perfect world, do I think that we would like to have a little bit more experience? Of course I would,» Scheyer said. «It was the best formula for this year. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best formula going forward. For this year, it just made the most sense to do it this way. And I think we’ve proven that you can win this way.»

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IN THE SPRING OF 2024, Scheyer had a singular focus for his 2024-25 roster: build around Cooper Flagg. Finding players to support the highly-touted freshman, already the heavy favorite to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft, was the priority. Not go-to scorers, but role players.

Scheyer told ESPN last fall that the goal was about «putting together the best team.» So he went into the transfer portal and came out with three impact veterans: Mason Gillis (Purdue), Maliq Brown (Syracuse) and Sion James (Tulane). Older, physical players who were content being a secondary option.

The approach this season was different. Sure, Duke again has the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, led by the Boozer twins, Khamenia, Sebastian Wilkins and Sarr, who has played professionally for FC Barcelona since 2023.

But the experience to balance out the talented newcomers hasn’t come from the portal. As opposed to having only two players to bring back the way he did in 2024, Scheyer had five returners — a luxury in today’s game. And without a guarantee that this group will perform like last season’s freshman class — Flagg was the No. 1 pick, and fellow freshmen Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach were both selected in the top 10 — that retention is all the more important.

«I think that’s huge,» Scheyer said. «You have a deeper relationship because you’ve been through some s— together already. You’ve gone through some adversity. They have an understanding for terminology and system, what we value as a coaching staff.»

He had the added bonus of having a group of players to help ease the transition to college basketball for the freshmen.

«Every year you [have] got to show the young freshmen what it is to be a Duke basketball player and what it is to just be a college basketball player in general,» junior guard Caleb Foster said. «I think that this year it is easier because we have five, six guys returning. We can all be a collective effort to help the young guys through struggles … to know what to expect and get ready, prepare for the environments we’re going to be in.»

To be fair, Scheyer didn’t completely ignore the transfer portal. Duke received a commitment in April from Washington State transfer Cedric Coward, one of the best wings available. But Coward also had his name in the NBA draft. After impressing in workouts and at the combine, it became clear which direction Coward was leaning.

The roster calculus quickly changed. Duke pivoted to Sarr, the international player who had also been considering Kansas, Illinois and Oregon before Duke jumped into his recruitment. The Italian wing committed to the Blue Devils a week after the combine, and Coward announced he was keeping his name in the draft two days later.

«We knew getting in with [Coward] that there was a chance he was going to go pro. He was very transparent about it. We were transparent, we weren’t going to wait the whole time either,» Scheyer said. «In the meantime, we were transparent with Dame and his representation. And so we knew we had to have one of those guys for this year’s team.»

There will inevitably be comparisons between the two freshman groups, particularly between Boozer and Flagg. Boozer is the most decorated high school player in years, winning four state championships at the high school level, three straight Peach Jam championships on the Nike grassroots circuit and two gold medals with USA Basketball, while being one of the most consistently productive players in the country.

«He’s going to go through some stuff he’s never gone through before, with the noise, with expectations, with comparisons,» Scheyer said. «You can either fight [it], or you embrace [it], and then you control what you can with how you play and what you put your energy towards.

«He’s so gifted, man. It looks different than Cooper, but it’s just as impactful. The way that he can impact winning with his passing, scoring, rebounding. It’s as good as we’ve had, genuinely.»

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Boozer gave a preview of his production potential in Duke’s two exhibition games, going for 33 points, 12 rebounds and 4 assists against UCF and following it up with 24 points, 23 rebounds and 6 assists against Tennessee.

His regular-season numbers haven’t taken very long to reach those heights. He had 15 points — all in the second half — and 12 rebounds in Duke’s season-opening win over Texas, averaged 20.0 points in blowout wins over Western Carolina and Army, then went for 35 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 blocks and 3 steals against Indiana State. According to ESPN Research, Boozer is the first major conference freshman since Carmelo Anthony in 2003 to post 30 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists and 1 turnover or fewer in a game.

Miami head coach Jai Lucas, who helped recruit Boozer when he was an associate coach under Scheyer, points to the big man’s singular focus on winning.

«He is wired about winning,» Lucas told ESPN. «He’s wired about getting better. He’s wired just differently in that sense. And I think that’s going to be what separates him. He has the skill, he’s got the talent, but his mentality’s going to be the thing.»

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The Blue Devils will go as far this season as Boozer will take them. They are hoping the ceiling is a national championship, like his father Carlos Boozer won for the program in 2001 alongside Shane Battier and Jay Williams. But their ability to replicate last season’s success will ultimately come down to their defense. There’s a perception that most freshman-heavy groups take some time to adapt at that end of the court, but last season’s Blue Devils were dominant. They led the nation in effective field goal percentage defense and ranked in the top five in 2-point defense and adjusted defensive efficiency, thanks in part to Maluach’s elite rim protection, Flagg’s court coverage, and the physicality and toughness of Knueppel and James.

The early signs for this season’s iteration are promising. Through four games, Duke ranks No. 14 nationally in scoring defense, giving up only 58.8 points per game, and is demonstrating similar interior defense to a year ago. Duke is No. 2 in effective field goal percentage defense, No. 8 in 2-point defense and No. 24 in block percentage.

«We all have the same goal right now of trying to make sure we’re that Duke team that’s going to still be some dogs who [are] going to get the win,» Brown said. «Everybody’s just trying to play their role and find their role.»

The transition to the physicality of college basketball is also generally easier for transfers. Take Duke’s transfer class last season. Brown had played two seasons at Syracuse; Gillis started 63 of 132 games at Purdue; James started 107 games in four full seasons at Tulane in the American. All of them knew the level of toughness needed to compete in the ACC. Fundamentally, it makes sense: 22-year-olds with three or four years of college or professional experience tend to be more physically prepared than 18-year-olds five months removed from their high school graduation.

Still, Scheyer is optimistic this group of newcomers is ready for the college game from that perspective, while also avoiding comparisons to the 2024-25 team.

«All five of them, physically, are ready,» Scheyer said. «And the hardest adjustment for freshmen is understanding that, even though they’re physically ready, they don’t know how to play physically yet.

«For us, it’s been about speeding up that process. It hasn’t been about, like, let’s catch them up to last year’s group. The reality is, it doesn’t even matter if we’re as good as last year’s group. We have to just be better than the team we’re playing this year and max out who we are.»

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FOR THIS SEASON, SCHEYER raised the degree of difficulty for his team.

In a way last season, Flagg, Knueppel and Maluach were able to ease into their college careers. They had two exhibitions against Division II Lincoln and Arizona State, and opened the regular season with home games against Maine and Army before the schedule toughened.

This season’s group doesn’t have that luxury.

Before the regular season began, the Blue Devils had a nationally televised exhibition game on the road at Tennessee. Their season opener was in Charlotte against Sean Miller and Texas. Contests against Western Carolina, Army and Indiana State were a welcome respite, but Tuesday night’s Champions Classic game against Kansas (9 p.m. ET, ESPN) begins a monthlong stretch that features top-25 matchups against Arkansas, Florida, Michigan State and Texas Tech, before conference play in a much-improved ACC.

They’re not exactly easing their way into the season, and Scheyer said his scheduling decisions stem from the fact that he felt Duke wouldn’t have been a lock for a 1-seed, had it lost to Georgia Tech in its first ACC tournament game — despite finishing the regular season at 28-3 overall and 19-1 in the ACC.

«For a young group, there’s going to be some rocky waters,» Scheyer said before the season. «But as long as it makes us better at the end and we win enough games where we put ourselves in a position to be there, I’ll have no regrets. I would be the first to say we did not set our schedule up to go undefeated. … But I can tell you we’re going to learn a lot more in those games than we would if we weren’t playing them.»

Despite the youth, despite the schedule, expectations are high for this Duke team — especially with the early performances from Boozer. Scheyer sought to strike the right balance with his roster construction in the offseason, but leaning on talent has been a successful formula at Duke dating to his predecessor. And the Blue Devils have that this season.

«I’ve seen great hunger, which is what gives me great confidence for this team,» Scheyer said. «So do I wish we had a little bit more experience? Yeah, of course. But at the end of the day, you want the best combination of skill sets complementing one another. But then also, you need really good talent that fits how we’re going to play. Which I believe we have.»