Duke men's basketball head coach Jon Scheyer did not win the ACC Coach of the Year award despite getting his program out to a 28-3 regular season record, 19-1 record in the ACC, the #1 ranking in the AP Poll, and a likely 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament. Instead, the award went to first-year Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey.
Kelsey absolutely deserved to be in contention for the award and maybe deserved to win it, but many will also say that Scheyer was snubbed with all of the success that the Blue Devils have had this season.
Duke basketball went to social media to express Scheyer's snub of the award, releasing a statement following the ACC Coach of the Year award going to Kelsey.
The post compared Scheyer to the man he was the successor for, Mike Krzyzewski, and how Coach K seemed to be endlessly snubbed of the award for a lot of the back half of his time with the Blue Devils.
"Haven't seen a coach snubbed for ACC COTY like this since Coach K didn't win it once over his final 22 seasons, which included 3 national titles, 10 ACC Tourney titles, 5 ACC RS (regular season) titles and 11 30-win seasons," the post on X said.
The post then included some of the accolades this year's Duke squad earned with Scheyer at the helm, such as winning 10 ACC games by 25 or more points, the most all time, a +434 point differential against ACC teams, the largest by a power conference team over the last 70 years, and the best adjusted offensive rating by an ACC team in the last 30 years (129.1).
Duke came into this season ranked #7 in the preseason AP Poll with a lot of hype riding on the squad bringing in the #1 2025 recruiting class mixed with veteran returners and a slew of talented transfers. Scheyer has delivered, as Duke is potentially the best team in the nation and the odds-on favorite to win the national title.
Now, it's not like Kelsey didn't deserve the award at all. In his first year with the Cardinals, he took a team that went 12-52 overall and 5-35 in ACC play across the previous two seasons before his arrival out to a 25-6 overall regular season record and the program's first NCAA Tournament berth since 2019.
Whether Scheyer was snubbed or not, both he and Kelsey had fantastic seasons for their respective programs and are certainly two of the top coaches in the sport.