Duke Basketball Head Coach Gains Extra Motivation From NC State Banner

In Jon Scheyer's first NCAA Tournament at the helm, Duke basketball reached the Round of 32 as a No. 5 seed before falling to No. 4 seed Tennessee in Orlando. And last year, the 2010 national champion point guard, also a 2015 national champion assistant coach, guided his No. 4 seed Blue Devils to the Elite Eight before their journey ended at the hands of No. 11 seed NC State in Dallas.

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Fresh off the program's second ACC Tournament title under Scheyer's command, the 2024-25 Blue Devils (31-3) bring a No. 1 seed and lofty sights to the East Regional Round of 64 versus No. 16 seed Mount St. Mary's (23-12) in Raleigh at 2:50 p.m. ET Friday (CBS).

Ironically, Duke begins its 2025 Big Dance under the Lenovo Center's 2024 NC State Final Four banner. Of course, from a Blue Devil point of view, those threads in the rafters represent the crushing conclusion to Scheyer's third season.

As the 37-year-old Scheyer admitted to Duke Blue Devils On SI during his press conference in Raleigh on Thursday afternoon, he hadn't considered the significance of that Wolfpack banner hanging over his head this week. However, he now intends to use it as yet another fuel source.

My pre-Round of 64 question to Jon Scheyer this year: pic.twitter.com/r2Dspnxvx9
— Matt Giles (@MattGilesBD) March 20, 2025

"Yeah, I didn't think of that," Scheyer, currently 85-21 overall (80.2 percent) as a head coach and 4-2 in NCAA Tournament action, said about State's banner while also explaining where he's grown the most from one postseason to the next since the loss to Tennessee two years ago. "No, it's going to give me even extra motivation being here.

"You know, it's interesting when you start, there's always things along the way, at least for me, that help motivate me. So, you just gave me one more, which is great.

"But I would say, I think the best thing you can do as a coach is give clarity. And so, as you go on, at least for me, I think it's very clear what we're asking our players to do. We're not asking them to do 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 things. You know, my thing is more simplicity and really focus on how tough and connected we are — in addition to, of course, you want to win the details of the game.

"And in the details, I think clarity is a big thing.

"So for me, I think if I was evaluating myself in that moment to now, there's a lot of things I would say, but I think a big one for me is clarity with making sure, not just what you know, but most importantly, what your players know that you're asking them to do. And that's been a big point of emphasis for me with what we've done...

"When I'm in this tournament, I always take what happened last year, and in the back of my mind, I just use it as a motivator. And that's never going to change. That's only going to help."

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