BREAKING: Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has decided to retire after this coming season, multiple sources told @stadium. Official announcement expected soon.

The leading candidate to replace K is assistant and former Duke player Jon Scheyer.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) June 2, 2021

Replacement is 33 years old. This may setup for another longterm coach or a disaster. I doubt it will be anything in between.

Yeah. That's an interesting choice. Coach K was 33 when he took over at Duke so he's probably not worried about the age thing

So, we have a chance to get him to come here ?

Leeman said:

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So, we have a chance to get him to come here ?

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tu has first shot.

bobinator said:

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Yeah, why hold a national search and interview candidates for what might be the best basketball job in the country when you can just promote an assistant who's never been a head coach or coached anywhere else.

Surely Duke is smarter than that right?

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Keep it in the family. Just as UNC didn't do a national search and hired a coach that has never been a head coach or coached anywhere else. You can bet both Coach K and Roy Williams had a lot of say in their successors.

Just like Michigan hired a coach in the family who had never been a head coach.

Honestly I don't think kids these days are choosing Duke because of Coach K's recruiting pitch, but because of the program he built. I think whoever takes over will still recruit at a very high level.

I know 'why' I just think it's dumb as hell and I hate it.

I bet Duke does better under Scheyer than they have the last 5 years.

Well they were terrible this year, but I dunno, maybe.

I think when you do the long-tenured-coach-to-assistant changeover there's usually at least a couple of years of success where there's a sense of freedom and freshness in the program. Then you see if the foundation has been rotting away.

And I know I've beaten this drum a lot, but I just hate that so many schools are doing this kind of "search." I want to see head coaches with fresh ideas move up the ladder to the highest levels, I want to see assistants learn from multiple head coaches to develop their own style before becoming a head coach on their own, I want to see that kind of stuff rewarded.

Instead, this offseason we're looking at Indiana, Duke, North Carolina, and Arizona; traditional blue bloods of the game, all making coaching hires (or soon-to-be hires), and between the four of them their hires have a combined ZERO years of head coaching experience at the college level.

'Keep it in family' seems very limiting approach to programs like Duke and North Carolina. They are top of the top jobs that can attract the very best candidates in the country. But you deliberately say right off the bat, out of the entire pool of candidates, we'll only consider pulling from this very very small pond of people whose first and foremost important criteria met is 'in the family'.

I think Coach K was worn down and not in great health. I think having young motivated fresh blood will be good for the program.

What are the odds he actually coaches through the end of next season?

Pumpkinhead said:

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'Keep it in family' seems very limiting approach to programs like Duke and North Carolina. They are top of the top jobs that can attract the very best candidates in the country. But you deliberately say right off the bat, out of the entire pool of candidates, we'll only consider pulling from this very very small pond of people whose first and foremost important criteria met is 'in the family'.

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UNC has done it our entire lifetime. Dean Smith was family, then Guthridge, then Doherty, then Roy Williams and now Hubert Davis.

This will be Duke's first time really going down that road in last 45 year. I think everybody always knew it would be somebody from the Duke tree, I think the more interesting thing is did any of the other Duke guys really have a shot?

If the season isn't going incredibly I could easily see him start letting Scheyer 'lead' some of the games from the bench.

bobinator said:

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What are the odds he actually coaches through the end of next season?

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I think he is in poor health. But I don't think he wants to end on the note like he did this year. If he had a good season last year and they made the Elite 8 or better I bet he wouldn't have come back. He looks to have a solid team on paper so I bet he sticks it out unless health issues just don't allow it. I think even if they struggle he will stick it out if he can. I don't think he pulls a Lebron and leaves the arena with 6 minutes left on the floor when things go bad.

Bunk Moreland said:

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Nobody wants to be the guy after the guy anyway.

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We say this a lot, but the guy who is the guy wants to tbe guy after the guy Cause he wants his shot and he doesn't know if it will ever come again so I'm sure Scheyer is super excited to take it over. Plus if you are say Roy Williams and don't want to follow the guy, if you do end up being the guy later then you have to clean up Matt Doherty's mess.

Doherty and Williams at least coached somewhere else first. Williams obviously proved himself as a great coach before coming back to Carolina and Doherty was an assistant at a couple other places and then a head coach at Notre Dame for a season.

For me it's not so much the 'in the family' thing as it is the lack of experience and variety of experience.

If someone in the family has gone out and proven themselves, then yeah, absolutely hire them, but Scheyer hasn't proven anything.

I understand where you are coming from but I disagree.

The most important thing is organizational culture. That's far more important than any technical teaching or game management skills.

If you think you have an exceptional culture, you do what you can to keep it. That often means keeping hires within "the family", keeping former players close to the program, etc.

If you need to reset the culture, you hire an outsider.

This is how most businesses operate. Some successfully promote insiders and maintain corporate culture for decades.

But that is kind of the trend in all sports. Head coaching experience is not as important as it once was.

I believe this in a major corporation, I don't believe it in sports. The 'organizational culture' of any sports program is just the head coach themselves.

We've seen it time and time again that just because you coach in that culture doesn't mean you can carry it on yourself.

You can coach for Nick Saban, but that doesn't make you Nick Saban.

I would want one of two things if I was hiring a head coach.

1 - Collegiate head coaching experience - Have they proven they can do the job? That's obviously the thing you'd really like to have. Texas went out and hired Chris Beard, he's proven he can do the job at a high level. Now, that's an 'in the family' hire because he want to Texas, but he's gone out and proven himself.

But if you can't get that, at least:

2 - Has been an assistant for multiple coaches. Do things Coach K does work because they're good practices or do they work because it's Coach K and he has so many skins on the wall that players trust him? Can you replicate that?

I'd want a guy that's learned from multiple coaches so they can see the differences and see how things work. They don't just know one way of doing things, because if that way doesn't work, what do they have to fall back on?

There are some exceptions that make sense, and if you're a smaller program maybe sometimes it makes sense to go ahead and roll the dice on someone without one of these two things in the hopes that you find a coach that's better than you could normally hire.

But Duke? North Carolina? At least bring in some guys and do some interviews.

And I think it's a mistake.

I always thought it would be Tommy Amaker. Other than Michigan, he has always done a great job.

Mark Few has done okay as a successor with no prior head experience.

Brad Stevens in 3 years when he's sick of being Celtics President of basketball ops and Scheyer falls flat. Calling my shot.

misterguinness said:

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Mark Few has done okay as a successor with no prior head experience.

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What about Scott Drew?

He had one year of experience when Baylor hired him

Roy Williams didn't have any head coaching experience when Kansas hired him.

I know you don't like it Bobinator, so give us a list of guys you would have hired. Like others have stated, not many would want to be the guy after K...

My point isn't that it never works, it obviously can work, and sometimes it makes sense. Every situation is different, I just don't like it in general.

As for the candidates, I dunno, it's a weird time of the year but you also don't have to announce a successor. You have a whole year. You could at least take the time to bring in some coaches and see what their vision might be for the program. And who knows who might be interested in that job.

And maybe Scheyer is the best candidate, maybe of all of the assistants that have come through there he shows some special level of promise. But I just don't like the lack of even going through the process of interviews or the idea of letting the outgoing coach pick their successor.

At least he's not K's kid or something tho.

Baylor also would have fallen into the category of "lesser program that might as well roll the dice."

University of Miami football had a culture that survived several coaching changes. It was maintained in part by former players etc. Boise state football has maintained a culture through coaching changes. Butler basketball. There are others.

Keeping a culture is easier than building a new culture, even with a coaching change. I think duke and unc both think they have an exceptional culture and value cultural stability over coaching experience. I think that is a reasonable approach.

I think the general plan was probably to have Woj go out and get the experience you're talking about and then come back to take over. Only thing is, he went out to get the experience and turns out he wasn't very good. If I was a Duke fan, seeing Woj and Capel's lack of success would make me a little nervous about just handing it over to Scheyer.