If you want to be the man, you've got to beat the man. The wise words from Ric Flair undoubtedly rang in the head of Jon Scheyer when he saw the draw for the No. 1 overall-seeded Duke Blue Devils.
Duke is in the East as it hoped, but to get back to the Final Four for the second consecutive season, Scheyer's Blue Devils will have to go through a murderer's row of blue bloods coached by national championship-winning coaches.
Assuming Duke can navigate through 16-seeded Siena in the first round and then defeat either Ohio State or TCU in the second, Scheyer will have to slay some coaching legends to get further than that.
Duke's most likely opponent in the Sweet 16 will be either Rick Pitino's St. John's or Bill Self's Kansas. Both Pitino and Self are two-time national championship-winning coaches. The Johnnies are on quite a run, capturing the Big East championship with a revenge victory over UConn. The Jayhawks are led by one of the best players in college basketball in Darryn Peterson, and there would be plenty of headlines for a Peterson/Cam Boozer battle in the NCAA Tournament.
If Duke makes it to the Elite Eight, standing in the way of the Final Four could be either Dan Hurley (UConn) or Tom Izzo (Michigan State). Hurley is a two-time national championship-winning coach, and while Izzo only has the one ring, he's one of the most successful March Madness coaches in college basketball history.
Jon Scheyer can prove he's one of the best coaches in the country with Duke's March Madness draw
Scheyer is deserving of National Coach of the Year for the job he's done with the Blue Devils this season after what they lost from a year ago. Replacing five players drafted into the NBA, Duke never missed a beat.
And now Scheyer will have his opportunity to prove that he's more than just the beneficiary of the program built by Mike Krzyzewski. Duke fans already know it; now the rest of the nation could learn it, too.
He'll have to slay coaching giants to get back to the Final Four, and he's going to have to do it without point guard Caleb Foster.
If Scheyer can lead Duke to Indianapolis, doing so by knocking out two of those four elite coaches, then even the most ardent detractors won't be able to deny his place in the coaching hierarchy.