Duke’s Depth, Guard Play Will Change Things In Jon Scheyer’s Second Season

Speed kills

Over at the News & Observer, Steve Wiseman has a piece up about Duke’s potential starting lineup this season, focusing on speed, pressure and the backcourt.

Obviously Duke has Jeremy Roach and Tyrese Proctor back, but there are guards galore with Jaylen Blakes, who was surging before his nose injury last season, Jaden Schutt, who has the potential to develop into a very good player, and freshmen Caleb Foster and Jared McCain.

Last year’s defense was really good but this year, the pressure should be relentless. Coach Jon Scheyer is quoted here as saying he’ll be using a three guard lineup at at least some points, which makes sense. Obviously Kyle Filipowski will start and Mark Mitchell gives you a lot of flexibility up front. With Ryan Young, Christian Reeves, Sean Stewart and TJ Power in reserve, he can tweak the lineup to deal with almost anything this side of Purdue’s Zach Edey and as Farleigh Dickinson proved last spring, speed can take down even a giant team like the Boilermakers.

Of all the videos we’ve watched this year, one that really stands out is of McCain just dogging someone on defense. The kid hit the floor about six times on one trip. Coaches are going to love that. We don’t know much about Foster’s defense yet, but Blakes is also an outstanding defender, as are starters Roach and Proctor. Duke is going to wear some people out on that end.

As Roach says in this column, it’s a deep team that should push pace. It’s looking like a lot of fun in Cameron this year.