Duke basketball: Thank JJ Redick for Jon Scheyer choosing Blue Devils

JJ Redick's Duke basketball greatness helped deliver Jon Scheyer to Durham.

Duke basketball guard JJ Redick (Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports)

According to Jon Scheyer in his recent chat with On3's Joe Tipton, his two visits to Duke basketball home games as a recruit coincided with JJ Redick's two highest scoring totals in Cameron Indoor Stadium: 38 points against Wake Forest in February 2005 and 40 points against Virginia in January 2006.

And Scheyer implied that those two memorable performances from the program's all-time scoring leader (2,769 points) sealed the deal in his recruitment.

"I chose Duke because I loved it when I visited," Scheyer said to Tipton, "but also the more that people told me that I wouldn't be good enough to go to Duke, the more it made me want to go there. I came here on a visit, and JJ Redick had 38. Second game I came to, he had 40. And then I said, 'alright, this is the spot for me.'"

In other words, without Redick's sizzling displays when he was in the stands, it's conceivable Scheyer might not have ever become a Duke basketball player and that the Blue Devils might now be under the direction of a different first-year head coach.

That said, Scheyer verbally committed to Mike Krzyzewski in May 2005. So perhaps the 2006 game he attended merely cemented his signature on his national letter of intent a few days later.

Jon Scheyer's career-high as a Blue Devil was 36 points at home against Gardner-Webb. That came during his senior year in 2009-10, months before Duke captured its fourth of five NCAA titles.

Speaking of Scheyer's brilliance as a player, particularly as a senior who averaged 18.2 points and 4.9 assists as the team's starting floor general, he seemed to sell himself short when answering Tipton's question as to whether that version of himself would be in the starting lineup for the 2022-23 Blue Devils.

"I don't know that I would," Scheyer said. "Honestly, our teams have been more talented in the last few years than it's been when I was here [as a player]. I don't think that I would start."

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