Duke basketball fans were disappointed, but head coach Jon Scheyer was upbeat.
“I feel more optimistic tonight losing than I did even before, because you find out in this game the character of your team, the heart that they have. And this team has got a lot of heart,” Scheyer said.
He’s a known competitor and hates losing. So why this answer after Duke’s 77-72 loss to Kentucky in November?
Because he understood the reality of the situation. It was his young team’s first game on the biggest stage, competing against a starting lineup of all upperclassmen. He threw his three freshman starters into the fire for a reason, to test them against the best in the country. The same thing happened in a loss against Kansas, another all-upperclassmen starting lineup.
“We're asking a lot of our 17-, 18- and 19-year-olds, we are, and that's what they want,” Scheyer said postgame.
The late-game execution was subpar in both losses, but Scheyer knew that winning the war is more important than the battle. Having his team figure out how to handle the pressure of the moment, combined with a coaching style defined by doling out the hard truth and promoting self-confidence, would lead this team to greater future success. And he was right.
“The reason we've done this schedule is to make us stronger for the end of the season and to get better,” Scheyer said. “We’re not running from anybody. We're not avoiding playing any top team.”
More than two years ago, when Scheyer first took the job with the Blue Devils, he decided to put his team’s toughness to the test — against Kelvin Sampson’s Houston squad.
In then-freshman Tyrese Proctor’s entrance to basketball, the Sydney native remembers getting “knocked on his ass,” in a grueling scrimmage against the Cougars. And while Scheyer said his team probably didn’t win the game — it’s hard to officially tell with the scrimmage format — he learned a lot about his team’s toughness, and came away with a better group for it.
This year, following those early-season blemishes, Duke went on its tear.
There’s a distinction between an eagerness to learn and a constant satisfaction with performance. The latter teeters dangerously into complacency. Especially with a massive 16-game win streak and mostly cruising through ACC play, it would be easy to become overconfident and lose the desire to improve. But Scheyer’s message about learning after every game from the beginning of the season — win or loss — carried over to the players.
“I think for us in this whole year, it's been a learning experience. We take it step by step, game by game, day by day, of just trying to get better with every experience that we've gone through, every game of that,” Flagg said after a 110-67 thrashing of Illinois in Madison Square Garden.
There’s a lot of firsts for this group this season. And March Madness was the cherry on top for this bright-eyed group.
Duke is the only team in the Final Four to start any freshman, much less three essential ones. The Blue Devils are competing against teams featuring grad transfers galore — much like the Wildcats and Jayhawks in November. Plus, Scheyer’s experience as a player and his understanding of how to coach freshmen versus his upperclassmen helps them maximize their potential on the biggest stage.
“You have to hit them right between the eyes, but also, at the same time, you have to give them really good confidence. They're going through something they've never experienced before,” Scheyer said.
It’s a hard balance to strike. And the pressure to meet and exceed the expectations of the No. 1 seed exacerbates the battle of March.
Scheyer said on “The Dan Patrick Show” that he remembered feeling jittery as a freshman in his first tournament game; a 79-77 upset loss to No. 11-seed VCU. But this year, Scheyer wants his team to be the hunters, not the hunted. Duke is the best version of itself come April, just how its head coach planned it out.
He’s raved about the maturity and level-headedness of his freshman core. While some of it is inherent, a sizable reason for that mentality comes from experience; the belief that a player can compete against anyone in the country and perform on the biggest stages gives a sense of calm. Sampson might have put it best.
“Those guys stopped being freshmen somewhere around Thanksgiving. By Christmas, hell, they might have been sophomores. Now they're just pros,” he said. "I think [Scheyer] had a plan. Let's throw 'em out there. If we have some success, fine, if we have some failure, that's fine, too."
“Coach did a great job in nonconference, getting us to play a bunch of good teams, so we'll be ready for any game that's close,” freshman guard Kon Knueppel said before the NCAA Tournament first round in Raleigh.
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Coming into a tough Final Four matchup against a hungry, experienced Houston squad looking for revenge, the “veteran freshmen” will face their toughest test yet. Three of the starters on the Cougar roster felt the heartbreak of the Sweet 16 and know the ups and downs of the NCAA Tournament.
“I've thought about if I'm crazy for the schedule we've had for our first six games, but I did it with this group because I felt they could take it,” Scheyer said after the Kansas game. “I felt that they're wired the right way. They have toughness about them.”
He probably doesn’t have doubts anymore.
Ranjan Jindal is a Trinity junior and sports editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.