Jon Scheyer dismisses excuse of short turnaround from Saturday to Monday

Jon Scheyer isn’t making any excuses for his Duke Blue Devils.

He recognizes a quick-turnaround from Saturday to Monday after their high-intensity victory over North Carolina wasn’t easy. Still, it doesn’t matter — getting blown out against Miami on Monday was unacceptable, as Scheyer explained during his post-game press conference.

“It’s tough. It’s not easy. But it’s what you have to do. At the end of the day, they played Saturday too,” started Scheyer. “So there’s no excuses. That’s part of playing in the ACC. That’s part of playing big time college basketball. If we’re able to — we have to earn our way there. We have many games to win and go. If you have a chance to play in March, you’re playing a Thursday-Saturday game. You’re playing a Friday-Sunday game. So it’s part of growing up. Learning how to prepare the same way, no matter who you’re playing. No matter who your game is at. That’s what this game was all about. It wasn’t as much to me about executing. To me, it was about the focus. The fight. The energy. To come out against a really good team.

“You know, we have two road games this week against two of the best teams in our league. It’s a great opportunity. But you have to come out with the same level, no matter where you are.”

At the time, it seemed like their victory over the Tar Heels could have been used as a launching pad for the rest of February. Instead, after splitting the series with Miami, Scheyer and the Blue Devils are headed back to the drawing board as they now prepare for a second straight difficult road trip this weekend to No. 8 Virginia.

Jon Scheyer addresses Duke’s turnover issues against Miami

Continuing, No. 19 Miami burst Duke’s balloon on Monday night with their 81-59 blowout win. After the Blue Devils just handled business against their rival North Carolina, they were incredibly sloppy last night in Coral Gables in a game that they never led in.

Jon Scheyer said after the game that every point about what went wrong began and ended with their turnovers. It’s difficult to beat anyone in your league on the road to begin with. If you give them 21 extra possessions on top of a rough night on the glass, though, things can get out of hand just like they did for Duke inside the Watsco Center.

“It starts with the turnovers. If you give any team, but a team as good as Miami, 21 turnovers for layups and dunks in transition? It’s gonna be a heck of a night for you,” said Scheyer. “Some of them were aggressive where they were in the passing lanes. But other times we just lost the ball. I mean literally just lost the ball. That’s gonna make it difficult.”

“Then you add in the offensive rebounds and second-chance points?,” Scheyer added. “Those are the two things against these guys that you have to do very well. And, obviously, we didn’t execute that.”

Duke doubled their turnovers from the first time these two teams met in Durham just over two weeks ago. They went from 10 to 21 and, therefore, the Hurricane’s points off turnovers shot up from eight to 23.

Once you pair that with their 16 offensive rebounds and 24 second chance points? We’re looking at several extra possessions and baskets that helped Miami’s lead bloom from the jump and reach as much as 26 points.

On3’s Sam Gillenwater contributed to this article.