No. 3 Duke's romp-filled ACC start has Scheyer pushing Blue Devils to keep 'foot on the gas'

Published Jan. 17, 2025 3:40 p.m. ET

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DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Duke was rolling again against an Atlantic Coast Conference opponent. Yet Jon Scheyer wasn't thrilled with how the third-ranked Blue Devils had started the second half as Miami put together a modest spurt.

As Sion James brought the ball upcourt, Scheyer was ready for a chat with his team.

“Right here, right here,” Scheyer told James, pointing to a spot near the bench for James to call timeout.

It wasn't some game-saving moment, with Duke up 19 against a team yet to win an ACC game. But as Duke emerged with a quick flurry, the sequence illustrated what is becoming a frequent challenge amid a dominant league start. The Blue Devils are the ACC's lone AP Top 25 team, winning blowouts with efficiency metrics far and away better than any other league team entering Saturday's trip to Boston College.

And that has Scheyer pushing them to avoid even dabbling in complacency.

“Something we've talked about is: it doesn't matter if you've won your first six games or lost your first six games — it doesn’t entitle you to anything this game,” the third-year coach said. "So you have to earn a big lead first of all. You have to earn separation.

“And then once you do, for us, we just talk about having a killer instinct, having our foot on the gas. And these guys have always responded.”

Lofty numbers

By any measure, the Blue Devils (15-2, 7-0 ACC) are firmly entrenched among the national elite. They're the only team in the top five of KenPom’s adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency as of Friday. They're in the top three in analytics rankings from KenPom, Bart Torvik and Evan Miyakawa — the latter with Duke at No. 1.

They sit alongside top-ranked Auburn as BetMGM Sportsbook's favorite to win the national championship and handed the Tigers their only loss in a March-worthy throwdown featuring preseason AP All-Americans in Duke freshman star Cooper Flagg and Auburn's Johni Broome. Duke's two losses have come by a combined seven points to No. 8 Kentucky and No. 9 Kansas.

Meanwhile, the ACC stumbled badly through a rough first half with measuring-stick nonconference matchups. And now that league play is here, it sure looks like there's a significant gap between the Blue Devils and everyone else.

ACC Network analyst Luke Hancock, the Final Four most outstanding player from Louisville’s since-vacated 2013 NCAA title, credits Scheyer for a “masterful” job in bringing along the roster.

There are three freshmen starters in Flagg, wing Kon Knueppel and rim protector Khaman Maluach. Veteran help arrived through the transfer portal with James from Tulane, Mason Gillis from Purdue and versatile defender Maliq Brown ( currently injured ) from Syracuse to mix with backcourt holdovers Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster.

Duke has size, can get into the paint and averages 15.4 points off turnovers. They've been good from outside, twice hitting as many as 17 3-pointers in a game. And they share the ball, averaging 20 assists over the last six games.

“They don’t have a lot of voids,” Hancock said. “Whether you’re really talented or have a certain style, to me, you can’t beat Duke without just playing a great game all around."

The gap

The ACC standings are close with Clemson, Louisville, North Carolina and Wake Forest having just one league loss. The metrics say otherwise.

Notably, the Blue Devils are third nationally in KenPom's adjusted offensive efficiency (124.5 points per 100 possessions) and second defensively (87.9) for a net efficiency ranking of +36.60, trailing only Auburn (37.02). Yet in the ACC, that's approaching double that of Clemson (19.83) as the next closest team.

Duke has won six of seven league games by double-digits, five by 23+ points. That includes three of the league’s five other top-50 teams in the NET rankings used by the selection committee to pick and seed the 68-team NCAA Tournament: at Louisville (No. 28 NET), against Pittsburgh (31st), and at SMU (45th).

“I see the gap, the metrics see the gap, the world sees it,” Hancock said.

The outlier was last weekend’s 86-78 home win against Notre Dame, which featured Flagg scoring an ACC freshman record 42 points. Duke scored the game’s first 14 points and led by 18 in the final four minutes, but frittered away nearly all of that lead as the Fighting Irish got within four late.

“We want to play a whole 40 minutes, keeping the same intensity,” Knueppel said. “It's tough to do. We talk about not playing the score and we try our best not to do that.”

Teachable moments

Only seven teams have gone unbeaten in ACC regular-season play. The last was Duke's 1998-99 team that went 16-0 by an average margin of 24.3 points before reaching the NCAA title game; none of the others won league games by at least 20 points.

This year, Duke's average ACC margin of victory is 22.7 points through the first third of a 20-game slate.

That's added intangibles to Scheyer's challenges alongside Xs and Os, such as coaching players through the human nature of thinking things might come easily after racing to that 14-0 lead against the Irish.

Or it's that timeout in the Miami game, coming after hiccups like Duke's overpassing led to a shot-clock violation followed by Knueppel being a bit slow in recovering to defend Austin Swartz's corner 3-pointer.

Duke emerged with an 11-2 run and never let Miami closer than 25 again. That type of response must continue for the Blue Devils to have a shot at cutting the nets in San Antonio in April.

“We need to play to our standard," James said after the Miami win. "We lost that in the (Notre Dame) game. We even lost it in stretches today. ... And Coach is calling a timeout to tell us we're not playing the basketball we're supposed to be playing.

“We understand it's bigger than just what the score is. And we're on a mission to play to our standard every day.”

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