Duke Blue Devils legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski will be stepping aside at the end of the 2021/22 season in order to make way for Israeli-American Jon Scheyer, the former Maccabi Tel Aviv player, who will assume the top position at the ACC school after the spending the upcoming campaign as the coach-in-waiting.
Scheyer, a former Duke University standout guard has been part of Coach K’s staff since 2014 and was promoted to Associate Head Coach in 2018 as he honed his skills on the sidelines under arguably the greatest college basketball coach of this generation.
“Duke University has been a central part of my life for more than a decade, and I could not ask for a better place to continue my career,” Scheyer said. “This is absolutely humbling. First, I offer extreme gratitude to the greatest coach of all time whose career is unrivaled in basketball. Coach K has built the premier program in our sport thanks to his unwavering competitive edge, a tireless attention to detail, a family-first approach and a remarkable compassion and care of his players, coaches, and staff. He has set a standard that every coach at every level should strive to achieve.”
Coach Krzyzewski spoke about turning the reins over to Scheyer.
“The continuation of our culture at Duke is paramount to future success. That is why I am so grateful that President Vincent Price, Kevin White and Nina King determined that Jon Scheyer represents our best path forward. He is clearly ready for this opportunity and has shown it repeatedly throughout his playing career and as a coach on our staff the past eight seasons.
“Jon is a rising star in our profession and Duke Basketball could not be in better hands in the future.”
Krzyzewski, who joined Duke in 1980 after five seasons with Army University, has amassed an NCAA-record 1,170 win over his illustrious career which includes five NCAA National Championships with the most recent coming in 2015 with Scheyer already on the sidelines.
Overall, Krzyzewski is tied with John Wooden for the most Final Four appearances with 12 and is second to Wooden with five national championships. All of Duke’s Final Four berths under Krzyzewski came with at least a 64-team tournament bracket. (The men’s tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 and to 68 teams in 2011.)
As a player under Krzyzewski, Scheyer was part of the 2010 National Championship squad capping off his senior season with the Final Four title to go along with a multitude of personal awards over the course of the college career.
After graduating, Scheyer went undrafted and played with the Miami Heat Summer League team but suffered a career altering injury when he was poked in the eye by Joe Ingles and had to have a tear in his retina surgically reattached.
Following one season in the G-League, Scheyer signed a deal to play the 2011/12 campaign under coach David Blatt at Maccabi Tel Aviv. Due to his Jewish heritage, Scheyer was able to obtain Israeli citizenship and was part of the yellow-and-blue squad that won the Israel State Cup as well as the League Cup in his one year in the Holy Land.
Last year, one of Duke’s worst since the 1994/95 season as they ended the campaign with a 13-11 record and failed to advance to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 24 years.
Scheyer has been credited with being the primary recruiter for a number of top talents to Duke, including current NBA stars Jayson Tatum, Zion Williamson and Cam Reddish while also developing Tyus Jones, Luke Kennard, Frank Jackson and Grayson Allen.