With The Roster At Least Mostly Set, What Will We See From Jon Scheyer’s First Duke Team?

We all got so used to how Mike Krzyzewski did things at Duke that we knew some absolute basics. Use all his scholarships?

Nope. Well, some walk-ons might earn some scholarships to push the roster total higher, but they wouldn't be major factors.

Well, with the addition of Northwestern transfer Ryan Young Saturday, Scheyer is up to 12. None of the NBA applicants are likely to come back with the possible exception of Trevor Keels.

The only player who you could see still transferring is Jaylen Blakes, who didn’t play a whole lot as a freshman.

So, barring changes by Keels or Blakes, Duke is just about set player wise. What we don’t know is what changes Scheyer is contemplating.

Oh, and Reeves is likely to redshirt so conceivably Scheyer could fill the last roster spot, regardless of what Keels ultimately decides to do.

Still, we have some idea now. Here’s our best early guesses.

Starters: Roach, Lively, Filipowski, Whitehead and Schutt. We’re not totally sure about Schutt but his work ethic and his shooting may do it. Mitchell could start too and give Duke a huge starting lineup.

It’s also worth noting that Coach K rarely tried to run two big guys at the same time, preferring athleticism over size. Lively’s athleticism may make that work with Filipowski and Scheyer may be more flexible on that point anyway. We’ll know soon.

We see a couple of potential challenges from here. First, depth at point guard. It’d be great if Blakes were ready to step in as needed. If he develops a pit bull mentality about defense, we could see a Jordan Goldwire-type role emerge. Otherwise, Whitehead or Schutt are the likely next candidates.

And second, three point shooting.

Roach showed an improved touch but as point guard he’ll be kind of busy. Baker can heat up or go silent.

Among the freshmen, Schutt is the best marksman. Whitehead is said to be solid and Mitchell improving. Lively and Filipowski both can shoot but we haven’t seen enough to know if they can hit threes. We fully expect Scheyer to make three pointers a major focus.

We haven't mentioned Catchings only because we don’t have a good enough sense of his game yet but we’re sure he’ll find a role. Let’s say, hypothetically, that he came off the bench as a defensive stopper. That’s a great role. But who knows?

That’s always true. However, most of us are so used to how Coach K did things that it’s hard to imagine anyone doing them differently.

Scheyer will though. He’s already said as much. So we really can’t know how the pieces fit together until we get a better idea of the players and the coach.

As Duke fans, that’s so weird to say.