Jon Scheyer: Recruiting Has Changed Dramatically

Duke assistant discusses recruiting during the pandemic

Like most of the world, Duke basketball has been impacted by the coronavirus shutdown this spring. Associate head coach and former Blue Devil player Jon Scheyer appeared on North Carolina radio on the Adam Gold Show this week to discuss how Duke is coping with the changes in routine due to the pandemic.

“Like everyone else, I’ve been trying to stay up to date as best as possible with current information about when we may be able to get back to our guys,” Scheyer said. “We’re communicating with them constantly. We have staff calls every day where we stay in touch. This thing—I never anticipated I’d be on Zoom so much with Coach K.”

While the crisis has caused stress, the changes may allow the Duke coaches to improve the way they were doing things in the past.

"It's been a great thing for our staff, and I think we'll find a couple new things when we get back to quote-unquote ‘normal life', hopefully sometime in the near future," he said.

One of the biggest impacts of the stay-at-home orders around the nation has been on recruiting.

“It’s changed dramatically,” Scheyer said. “We have our 2020 class solidified, and we have those guys coming in, but I think if you look forward to the class of 2021 or beyond, which are juniors, going to be seniors in high school, we would've seen these guys two or three times in person already. Now, obviously, you take away the opportunity to see them play in person and evaluate them. And then you get a lot out of meeting someone in person or doing a home visit or a school visit. We've done Zoom visits, just like everybody else, and we've had to make some decisions without seeing guys in person and I think vice versa. It works for the recruit as well, where some decisions may need to be made without necessarily going through the normal recruiting process of meeting in person and watching someone play in person."

Scheyer still remembers his own recruitment during high school, and he feels for the seniors who are missing out on so much of their final year before college.

“It's hard to imagine,” he said. “I don’t know if you consider 14 or 15 years ago a long or short time, but the recruiting landscape has changed so much with how you’re able to communicate with these guys compared to when I was in high school. Some of my best memories and moments were going for a state championship in high school and playing AAU. I’m still in touch and have close friends from both situations. Now, you take both those things away. I remember playing in the McDonald’s All-American Game. I feel for particularly the seniors. We have several guys that would’ve played in multiple All-American games. Those events, you can’t get back. I feel for those guys. It’s hard to imagine being in that spot.”