Glenbrook North Grad Scheyer To Take Over Duke Basketball Program

NORTHBROOK, IL — When Jon Scheyer left Glenbrook North for Duke in 2006, the talented four-star recruit likely never knew how engrained he would be become in the Blue Devils’ program.

But now, 11 years after leading Duke to the national championship in 2011 when he was the team’s leading scorer, Scheyer is poised to take over the program from the Hall of Fame coach that brought him to Durham in the first place. On Wednesday, after Mike Krzyzewski announced that he would retire after the upcoming season, Scheyer was named as his replacement.

Scheyer, 33, is currently Krzyzewski’s top assistant, a position that has groomed him for a high-profile role that former Duke star and ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas said Wednesday is the toughest job to take over after Krzyzewski went from a no-name coach at a small private school to turning the program into one of the nation’s best.

In a year, it will be Scheyer’s to take over.

Dream big! pic.twitter.com/jeJkNhi8f4
— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) June 2, 2021

Scheyer was a four-star prospect coming out of Glenbrook North by 247Sports and was a two-time Illinois Gatorade Player of the Year. The McDonald’s All-American quickly made his mark with Duke. He averaged 12.2 points per game as a freshman and went on to play in 144 career games for the Blue Devils. He ranks 10th on Duke’s all-time scoring list with 2,077 points in his career, which he culminated with a national title his senior year as Duke held off Butler, 61-59, in the 2010 NCAA championship game.

Eleven years later, his appointment as Duke's coach waiting has caught some by surprise — including his former coach Dave Weber, who said Thursday he is still trying to wrap his head around the news.

"I think if you asked him back when he first went (back) there if he was going to be the head coach, he would have laughed," Weber told Patch on Thursday. "There's so many other guys in line for that job, but I think it just shows what Jon proved to everyone about how good of a coach he was as an assistant and how good of a recruiter he was. I think he proved himself in his tenure there.

"That journey at Duke has been incredible. I think it's where he always wanted to be."

The 6-foot-5 guard played in the NBA’s D League and overseas after finishing his collegiate career and joined Krzyzewski’s staff in 2013 as a special assistant and helped to develop game plans, planned practices and helped to break down game film, according to CBS Sports.com.

At the time, he was happy to make his return to his alma mater where he would go onto the help develop some of the program’s biggest stars while learning under Krzyzewski.

Now, he is charged with taking over a program from Krzyzewski, who has led Duke to five national championships and 12 Final Four appearances. In 46 years of coaching, Krzyzewski has won 1,170 games, the most in men’s college basketball history.

The Chicago native who played and coached at West Point before being named the coach at Duke in 1980 before making a legendary run in Durham before announcing Wednesday next season would be his last. The school announced shortly after that Scheyer would be taking the reins after serving as Krzyzewski’s associate head coach since 2018.

At a news conference Thursday when Krzyzewski made his retirement after next season official and appointed Scheyer as his replacement, the 74-year-old coach said that continuity played a major role in his former star guard landing the job.

"Jon has done everything, and in the last few years, we've taken it up to another level," Krzyzewski told reporters on Thursday. "He's one of the smartest coaches in the country, to be quite frank. Nobody knows that as much as I know it. ...."It's ironic. He's 33, I was 33 when I was here. My main wish is for him is to not replicate my first three years. That wouldn't be good."

Now, Scheyer is ready to keep things rolling in Durham to build him on the experience he has built and the knowledge he has acquired under his Hall of Fame mentor.

“I’m secure in who I am, Coach K is one of one, he’s one of a kind, and I would be unsuccessful if I tried to be him,” Scheyer told reporters on Friday. “Nobody can be coach K. Now with that said, I’m not stupid, if there’s something that I can go to him and talk to about, I have the best resource in the history of college basketball that I could ever have. I’m going to go to him. Our relationship, stands on its own. So I feel excited about it, I think it’s an incredible advantage, I think it’s an amazing thing for the university to have in here, and I’m frankly not worried about that at all."

While Weber agrees with Bilas and others that Scheyer has big shoes too fill, there's no doubt that his former star is the right person to step in after Krzyzewski's career ends after next season.

"He's the most competitive person I've ever been around," Weber said. "He's going to compete as a coach during the game, he's going to be a relentless recruiter and he's got great resources there. ...The whole package is there for him, but now he has to move to the next seat and he'll have to make all the decisions.

"He'll learn as he goes along but I think he's ready for it."