A Look At This Year’s Very Different Duke Team
This is going to be pretty fascinating to watch
We’re still catching up a bit after a rough few days and wanted to link to this article from the News & Observer as Jon Scheyer begins to reveal his plans for a very different sort of team from last year’s model.
In the end, Duke built around Kyle Filipowski and Dereck Lively and the defense was superb.
This year, Duke has a very deep backcourt with starters Jeremy Roach and Tyrese Proctor back, along with junior Jaylen Blakes, sophomore Jaden Schutt and freshmen Jared McCain and Caleb Foster.
That’s phenomenal depth and it gives Duke a ton of options, which extend when you add in the highly versatile Mark Mitchell. Well, really, everyone brings a certain level of versatility. Coach Scheyer said this in late September: “No matter what, you win with great guards. For our team, we have a lot of work to do, a lot of work we need to put in, but we have a great backcourt. I think that can compare with anybody in the country.”
The nice thing is that they all seem to have great chemistry. We’ll know soon how it translates, but from the cheap seats, it’s looking pretty good.
Speaking of catching up, we also missed the start of the Duke Chronicle’s annual player profiles. The first three are listed below.