Duke Basketball: Impact of Blue Devils landing No. 1 prospect Cooper Flagg
By Bryan Mauro
Coach K turned the Duke Basketball program into a powerhouse basketball program. He also turned the program into the most polarizing program in America. There are diehard Duke fans who bleed blue and who will root for Duke basketball over everything and everyone. Then there are those of us who watch Duke to watch them fail and want to see them lose. It brings that subset of fans joy. When you have a program that can elicit those types of reactions in fans then you have done something right.
Coach K retired two seasons ago and the new head coach of the Blue Devils is someone that Duke fans know very well and was part of the “The Brotherhood” at Duke. Jon Scheyer enters his second season as the coach of Blue Devils and has not missed a beat from what his former coach and mentor built. Duke is still the premier program in the ACC, they are still ranked in the top 5, and they are still one of the most recognizable brands in the sport. There is something else that everyone is going to be talking about now and it is Duke and their continued success in the transfer portal.
Scheyer was officially named the successor at Duke 18 months ago and in that time the Blue Devils have had some of the best recruiting classes the school has ever seen. In those 18 months Scheyer has gotten Four top 5 players, 10 total five star recruits, has the number 1 class in the country in 2022 and 2024, and finally the number 2 total class in 2023. The momentum has never faltered for Duke on the recruiting trail and that led to them securing the top player in the country for 2024.
Just to put this in perspective coach Scheyer has been the head coach at Duke for one season and his first year in 2022 had the Blue Devils playing as one of the best teams in the country heading into the tournament. The Duke name will always mean something as long as they are winning and coach Scheyer still has a ton to learn but he is making the transition from Coach K easy to live with in Durham. This commitment sets him apart from the rest of the blue bloods and shows Duke is here to stay but why?