But Miami, Boise and Butler didn't just keep promoting from within. They hired good coaches, most of them (Stevens an obvious exception) with experience other than just there. A coach buying into the program's culture and keeping former players involved is different than hiring a coach whose only experience is that culture.

Like someone else said, the fact that some of the K assistants haven't worked out at other schools would give me at least some pause if I was a Duke fan.

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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Prime candidate Brad Stevens is burned out, and will replace Ainge in the front office of the Celtics.

Calipari and Self have baggage. Mark Few isn't leaving the West Coast.

Quin Snyder has the Mizzou baggage and is on a roll in Utah.

None of the other family tree: Capel, Amaker, Hurley, Collins, Wojo have been consistent winners. Brey was deemed too old, although he may come back to be an Associate/Assistant Coach.

Scheyer and Nolan Smith have been doing the recruiting for the last few years and landed the 2018 (Zion, Barrett) and 2021 classes.

It's a risk, but following a legend is always problematic. Duke kicked AD White to the curb and let Coach K make the decision. Jon Scheyer is probably the smartest AC Duke has had since Quin Snyder

I like Scheyer better than UNC's internal choice of Hubert Davis. Interesting seasons ahead.

This was 100% Coach K's decision. IIWII.

bobinator said:

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But Miami, Boise and Butler didn't just keep promoting from within. They hired good coaches, most of them (Stevens an obvious exception) with experience other than just there. A coach buying into the program's culture and keeping former players involved is different than hiring a coach whose only experience is that culture.

Like someone else said, the fact that some of the K assistants haven't worked out at other schools would give me at least some pause if I was a Duke fan.

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Fair point. Of those, I think Quin Snyder and Scheyer are potentially the best X's and O's guys. Scheyer has proven his mettle recruiting. But there's a lot more of that brand to bear as a HC. We shall see.

mikesyracuse1 said:

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He got out on his terms, chose his successor and will get a year long farewell tour.

You won't see too many coaches get the opportunity to finish their careers like this.

Mikesyracuse1

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With a top 3 recruiting class and good balance across the lineup. K has a puncher's chance at an NC at that 6th ring and banner.

Bunk Moreland said:

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Nobody wants to be the guy after the guy anyway.

Scheyer taking over helps continuity with recruiting now in the short-term...then you give him a handful of years to see if he's got what it takes.

If he doesn't, then plenty will line up to be the guy after the other guy after the guy.

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Recruiting was a major reason behind the coach in waiting decision.

I really wish it was Grant Hill or maybe Jay Williams and make bobinator's head really explode.

Maybe they'll all flame out and we don't have to worry about any of them taking players out of Texas for a while.

Scheyer could recruit when he could say, among other things, "Hey, come to Duke and play for Coach K." To be honest, that doesn't seem that hard and it's something many assistants have done. Question is, can he recruit effectively by saying, "Hey, come to Duke and play for me," and then add quality coaching to that mix? That remains to be seen.

Duke could have chosen nearly anyone in the country they wanted outside of Cal and probably Bill Self. I understand going internal, but I also won't be surprised if they're in the market again in 5-6 years.

And just curious, but what makes you like Scheyer more than Hubert Davis? On paper it looks about the same to me. Former player who is "in the family," never been a HC, decent to above average recruiter with 0 skins on the wall.

Topher17 said:

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Scheyer could recruit when he could say, among other things, "Hey, come to Duke and play for Coach K." To be honest, that doesn't seem that hard and it's something many assistants have done. Question is, can he recruit effectively by saying, "Hey, come to Duke and play for me," and then add quality coaching to that mix? That remains to be seen.

Duke could have chosen nearly anyone in the country they wanted outside of Cal and probably Bill Self. I understand going internal, but I also won't be surprised if they're in the market again in 5-6 years.

And just curious, but what makes you like Scheyer more than Hubert Davis? On paper it looks about the same to me. Former player who is "in the family," never been a HC, decent to above average recruiter with 0 skins on the wall.

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Closer to "Come to Duke because we're Duke." Duke was in the NC game just 2 years before Coach K arrived, and before that 3 times Final Four team under Vic Bubas. After Coach K's first mega recruiting class (1982 HS) matured (victory over UNC in the 1984 ACCT semi-finals), he took it to the next level.

There's no question that Scheyer and Nolan Smith can connect with today's Gen Z ballers. I believe a strong 2022 class will be the proof in the pudding. Scheyer is incredibly bright and adapted to playing 1-4 during his 2007-2010 player career, including the NC 2010 squad. High A:TO ratio. Unlike Collins, Capel, even Wojo, Jon rarely made mistakes as the PG (Frosh and Sr. years) under pressure. However, we'll see how this translates into in-game adjustments under pressure. JS served as HC for a few games during COVID. I expect him to take a few test drives this season as the lead coach.

bobinator said:

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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.

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Your system would have not only missed out on Roy Williams being hired at Kansas but also arguably John Wooden at UCLA as well. Wooden did coach at Indiana State for 2 years prior to the UCLA job, and had success, but it was an NAIA school at the time ('46-48). In football, though I'm not a big fan of him, the football board loves Mike Leach. He hung on to Hal Mumme for a long time and only spent a year with Stoops (so, its to a lesser extent here too) before taking over tech. You could say much the same thing about him.

Coaches attend so many clinics now that they do learn from more than one coach. They've usually played for one or more in college, plus several more in lower levels. They are around many assistants in their time. I think you're extrapolating "one coach = one idea" a little too far here. Plus, I've attended a lot of college basketball practices. I all but lived at them during Shelby's last year. The assistants ran them with seemingly minimal input from Shelby sometimes. They were assertive and coached like their teaching ability came naturally (whether it was good or not, or got through to the players, is a different issue). They may have been implementing the head coach's plan, but my point is that they knew how to run a practice, get players to do what they wanted them to do, and (hopefully) get the team ready to play. It is just a matter of whether they're effective at that or they can get the team ready to play WELL or not.

To me, the issue is, can the coach change his "system" (or whatever you want to call it) when it isn't working? That is an issue whether you're hiring someone who's never been a head coach or who's a 10x NCAA champion.

With all that said, I do agree with you to an extent. We don't know that what worked for K will work his assistant. And I think it would be more prudent to not make a specific choice NOW -- leave your options open until you need to make the choice.

Yeah I admit there are times it works, just seems like for every time it works there's like ten times it doesn't.

But hey it's not my school so maybe I should just hope all these schools keep making uninspired hires.

I lived in Durham for a while. Duke alumni seemed like prep school yankees. They care now. But how many bad seasons would it take for them to stop caring? Maybe it'll never happen.

Another consideration is what happens when the players can get paid, local/state ads are going to be stronger for big state schools than niche privates. Zion can monetize his national fame; he would've done that anywhere. But even Tre Jones level players would be able to make more money at UNC than Duke probably. Duke is much more famous nationally than locally. And people are only watching college basketball in March.

Examples:
I was waiting in line to pick up pizza in a shop when Seventh Woods walked in and people freaked out. This was a bench warming rarely used UNC player. Meanwhile I've seen Vernon Carey walking around a Durham grocery store and no one recognized him or cared. Carey is an actual drafted player on an NBA roster. Who knows perhaps my examples are outliers.

Fans still packed Cameron when the team sucked in the mid 70s...and in Coach K's 2nd and 3rd year.

If I was NC State I would make a big push on basketball because for the first time in 30 years, the door is open for the Wolfpack.

I think Scheyer has had a very active role already. Not saying hes pulling all the strings from behind the scenes, but he is leading the recruiting and I bet he leads a lot of practices from things I have read.

MarcAg said:

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I think Scheyer will do extremely well. I think kids are going to Duke these days because it's Duke, not because of Coach K. Of course Duke has become Duke because of Coach K, but I think Duke will continue to be Duke after Coach K.

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Scheyer is proving he doesn't need Coach K to get kids to come to Duke. Duke's recruiting actually seems like its picked up since the Coach K retirement announcement.

PascalsWager said:

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Examples:
I was waiting in line to pick up pizza in a shop when Seventh Woods walked in and people freaked out. This was a bench warming rarely used UNC player. Meanwhile I've seen Vernon Carey walking around a Durham grocery store and no one recognized him or cared. Carey is an actual drafted player on an NBA roster. Who knows perhaps my examples are outliers.

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You only get so many opportunities in life to meet someone named Seventh. There's a number of Vernons still running around