Keeping Duke fans happy in May might be the hardest part of Jon Scheyer’s job.
Until the Blue Devils hang their next National Championship banner, every fan will have their own perspective on how best to build the next year’s team to accomplish that goal. In the era of social media, many of those fans will express those opinions loudly to anyone who cares to hear.
This spring, Scheyer may have somehow found a way to quiet all of them.
Broadly speaking, there are three paths to building a roster in the modern era of college basketball: retention, transfers, and freshmen. Using all three strategies is near-impossible as NIL expectations rise exponentially and impact freshmen expect a clear and immediate role. But the teams that find a balance tend to be best positioned for success in March. Case in point: each of this year’s Final Four teams included immediate impact transfers, five-star freshmen, and multi-year retained players in their rotation.
In his first four seasons, Scheyer has struggled to match that balance. His first team was led almost entirely by freshmen alongside junior Jeremy Roach, with transfers playing only complementary roles. His second team relied almost entirely on retained players alongside freshman Jared McCain, but whiffed on filling holes via the transfer portal. Last year’s squad was similar, again bypassing the transfer portal while relying on a mix of retained players and star freshmen.
Scheyer best found a balance with the Cooper Flagg-led Final Four team, but even that squad had flaws. As Caleb Foster fell out of favor, Tyrese Proctor was the only rotation player who had worn a Duke uniform the previous season. Meanwhile, transfers Sion James, Maliq Brown, and Mason Gillis all played key roles, but none matched the star power that many recent National Champions found in the transfer portal.
This offseason, it’s hard to find a similar issue in Scheyer’s roster construction.
Duke still brings in the top ranked recruiting class, including a consensus projected lottery pick in forward Cam Williams. This fall, though, the Blue Devils’ success won’t depend as strongly on those freshmen dominating at the college level, which may be pivotal given the relatively weak class. If Scheyer secures an additional power forward (as seems to be his desire given his reported pursuit of high-level transfers Milan Momcilovic and Allen Graves), Williams may need only play a key bench role—much like 5 star freshman Trey McKenney did for this year’s National Champion Michigan Wolverines.
The Blue Devils have also kept key contributors in the fold. Pat Ngongba spurned being a likely first round NBA draft pick to raise his stock during his junior year. Cayden Boozer will have the chance to build on his stellar stretch run as a sophomore. Perhaps most importantly, Scheyer will have his first fourth year senior since Roach in Caleb Foster to lead the team. (Oh, and Dame Sarr is still widely expected to return as well, even if the defensive stalwart has yet to make that decision official.)
What could differentiate this Duke team, though, is Scheyer finally hitting a home run in the portal. John Blackwell is the type of experienced addition that the Blue Devils have either eschewed or missed on in each of Scheyer’s first four seasons, but who have been key for most recent Final Four squads. He’s a known quantity (nearly 20 points per game on almost 40% three-point shooting on a good Big Ten team) who Duke can pencil in as their leading offensive option. Even the less celebrated transfer commitment, Belmont’s Drew Scharnowski, has been consistently listed in the recruiting industry’s Top 100 Transfer lists, a luxury for a backup big.
The 2026-27 Duke Blue Devils will have 5 star freshmen, returning upperclassmen as leaders, and one of the transfer portal’s biggest prizes. Somehow, Jon Scheyer has built a roster using each of the three major strategies for building a modern college basketball team. He’s having his cake and eating it too—now, all he has to do is make sure there’s still reason to celebrate come next April.
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