The Duke basketball team was in a unique situation last season with a bunch of really good players that didn’t necessarily fit into a traditional position on the court and it worked to perfection.
The Blue Devils won the ACC regular season championship, tournament championship, and reached the Final Four behind the strength of its players and Jon Scheyer is hoping that happens again this season.
However, he is almost starting from scratch.
Duke’s entire starting five left for the NBA Draft, headlined by its freshmen trio of Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, and Khaman Maluach that helped create the biggest roster in college basketball.
While Scheyer’s team hasn’t yet been given that distinction for this season, his hope is that they will mostly have the same style of play with a few adjustments.
“We doubled down on the positional size,” he explained during his summer press conference on Tuesday afternoon. “We doubled down on the versatility and then we still doubled down on the fact of trying to paint a picture of how we have to come together as a team.”
“I think stylistically there’s still things I want to improve, things I think we can do better.”
Duke turned to Cameron Boozer, one of the most sought-after high school recruits in the country, to help fill the void along with his twin brother Cayden, 5-star forward Nik Khamenia, international prospect Dame Sarr, and Sebastian Wilkins – a reclass recruit from 2026.
They will be joined by Caleb Foster, Isaiah Evans, Darren Harris, Pat Ngongba, and Maliq Brown as the lone returners for Duke next season in hopes of taking the next step and winning the National Championship.
“At the end of the day, it’s not an individual, it’s a team,” Scheyer added. “I think it starts with having the right people and I feel we do.”