The first months of Jon Scheyer’s first year as head coach were as promising and turbulent as one might have expected after more than four decades of Mike Krzyzewski and all that name means in Durham. It all came to a head in a whirlwind start to February, during which the Blue Devils followed up a stirring revenge win against North Carolina with crushing road defeats to Miami and Virginia.
That was the point in the season when Duke’s young team seemed to grow up. One month later, the Blue Devils were ACC tournament champions, concluding a remarkable turnaround for a team that looked as if it might never realize its considerable potential.
This time around, with a second-year head coach and four out of five starters back in uniform, they don’t have to grow up all over again. A basis for success already exists in that locker room.
“Everything is new, you’re filling it all out,” Scheyer said of his first year on the job at the team’s preseason media day. “And this year, the way we’re going to play is different and that’s new. But they know me, they know each other. They know what worked and what didn’t work. So at least you’re working with some sense of a core of understanding what it takes to be successful.”
When the Blue Devils came out on the wrong side of an instant classic at the 2022 Final Four against North Carolina, that was the undeniable end: Krzyzewski rode off into the sunset (on a golf cart), assistant coach Nolan Smith departed in the offseason for Louisville, and — most notably — six of the seven Duke players from that game never hit the floor inside Cameron Indoor Stadium again.
One year later, Scheyer’s first Duke team entered the Round of 32 on a 10-game winning streak only to be handily defeated by a more physical Tennessee side. Again, it felt like the end for this most recent iteration of the Blue Devils’ core, especially in the fluid, topsy-turvy landscape of college basketball in 2023.
But here Duke is, with a combination of veteran talent and elite newcomers — the four freshmen make up the nation’s No. 2 recruiting class — that seemed impossible back in March. It is a blend that has elevated an already dangerous team into the No. 2 squad in the preseason AP Poll and the team that others in the ACC are looking up at as a new season begins.
“Again, 11, 13 guys last year, they’re learning what it’s like to be a Duke basketball player, everybody on my staff is learning, me, as head coach,” Scheyer said. “And this year, just the familiarity helps a lot. So we’re off and running at a higher level … whether that translates right away, we still have a long way to go.”
‘Here for a reason’
The Duke in the NBA machine has, perhaps, never whirred stronger. It was a real possibility that the 2021-22 team would become just the second ever to field five first-round selections come draft night; still, the Blue Devils landed four first-round picks including the near-unanimous Rookie of the Year in Paolo Banchero. Two freshmen from last year’s Duke team entered the draft as early entrants and left as first-round selections themselves, with Dereck Lively II landing in the lottery and Dariq Whitehead joining the professional ranks later that evening. When the NBA season began anew in October, 24 Duke players permeated 18 rosters across the association, and that leaves out the considerable influence of Brotherhood alumni in management, ownership and the commissioner’s office.
It is not hard to imagine the pull that the NBA has on the stars that arrive on Duke’s campus each year. Even so, a number of the professional prospects on last season’s roster are back in tow for another chance to make a run into March and — if they have their way — that coveted first weekend of April.
Each of those four starters — Jeremy Roach, Tyrese Proctor, Kyle Filipowski and Mark Mitchell — has his own reason for being here on the eve of the new season. Funnily enough, though, each of those reasons boils down to a desire to fully realize the tantalizing promise they showed together.
Proctor was the first to announce his return in March. The 19-year-old Australian sophomore was not originally supposed to make his college debut until this season but is already a first-round prospect and team captain with nods to the ACC All-Freshman Team and preseason All-ACC Second Team under his belt.
“I just don’t think I was finished yet,” Proctor said at media day of his decision to return. “Obviously reclassifying, that was a big part of it as well, just having that year for improvement, I guess it was. I had chances to go and I got all my feedback and stuff like that, and it just felt like it was the right decision for me to come back.”
Filipowski, the ACC Preseason Player of the Year, also may have been a first-round choice in June. When the seven-footer instead opted to delay his inevitable professional future, some pointed to his hip injury — Filipowski underwent an arthroscopic procedure on both hips in April — as a possible reason that he did not end up as a lottery pick alongside Lively.
But Filipowski has made it clear: He wanted to be here this season, just as Proctor did.
“I loved it here this past year. And I know that there’s just so much more I can improve on,” Filipowski said. “And I wasn’t even thinking about my hips, either. I wanted to make the decision of staying or going without any factors involved, and that’s hips included.”
Perhaps nobody has been through more in this era of Duke basketball than Roach, who debuted in the COVID-19-affected 2020-21 season before breaking out en route to the Final Four the very next season. The two-time captain also had professional prospects this offseason but brushed them aside for the second year in a row.
At the team’s preseason media day, the veteran reflected on the “one vision” mindset that has helped him and Duke build the foundations of a culture in which star returners are the norm.
“If you win, everything will take care of itself,” Roach said. “You get to the Final Four, a national championship, then of course everything will take care of itself then. But if guys come in worried about their numbers or worried about what they’re doing on the floor stats-wise, then it’s not gonna work out the way they want it to.”
Among the four, the sophomore Mitchell has been strangely overshadowed. He was something of an unheralded contributor for Duke in his freshman season, starting every game for the Blue Devils until a last-minute knee injury kept him out of the season-ending loss to the Volunteers. For the Kansas City, Kan., product, the opportunity to suit up alongside his former and present teammates means a great deal.
“I think we definitely have more to do here, and obviously having two of my peers back that were kind of in the same spot as me I definitely think helped,” Mitchell said. “I think that’s kind of undermined — people talk about going to the NBA, staying or leaving, just you want to have your guys around you. And I know having them each and every day, it makes it a lot easier for me, too.”
Like Mitchell, Jaylen Blakes and Jaden Schutt are returners off the bench who have been somewhat overlooked but remain an important part of the strong position Duke is in today. For Schutt, a sharp-shooting four-star freshman on last year’s team who played in only 14 games, the possibility of hitting the transfer portal was never in play.
“I don’t think it was really a decision,” Schutt said when asked of his decision to return to Duke. “It was more, I came here to win a national championship and be a part of winning. The transfer portal is out there, it is a thing, but I’ve never left anything in my life, never transferred. This is my team, this is my home, so just wanted to contribute to winning.”
Add up each of these like-minded (yet unique) decisions, and it really does begin to feel as if Duke has a roster that is more than the sum of its parts. Maybe, as Scheyer thinks, their collective return has made them stronger in ways too difficult to fully grasp.
“They all were being recruited by other places,” Scheyer said. “NBA, a transfer, could go on and on. And they all came back for a reason, and I think that bonds you. That unifies you. I try to remind them of that from time to time: You’re here for a reason, and so follow it up now with action. Don’t be about words, be about action.”
Editor's note: this piece is one of many in The Chronicle's 2023-24 Duke men's basketball preview. Check out the rest here.
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Jonathan Levitan is a Trinity senior and was previously sports editor of The Chronicle's 118th volume.