Jon Scheyer encourages Duke to have 'killer instinct' even when facing lesser competition

Jon Scheyer believes Duke had a “killer instinct” during the Blue Devils’ 89-54 win over Miami on Tuesday.

Led by their star freshmen Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel, who scored a career-high 25 points on 9 of 11 shooting during the contest, the Blue Devils never eased up on the ailing Hurricanes and build a 24-point lead by halftime. The final score appeared academic coming out of the second half, and the Blue Devils came out and outscored Miami by 11 points in the second half.

“Something we’ve talked about is doesn’t matter if you’ve won your first 16 [games] or lost your first 16, it doesn’t entitle you to anything this game,” Scheyer said. “You have to earn a big lead. First of all, you have to earn separation. And then once you do, for us, we just talked about having a killer instinct, and these guys have always responded there.

“We talked about it last game, and I thought they showed great maturity, which is being able to follow through when we had a little bit of separation, and how to create even a bigger, bigger lead there.”

Scheyer’s message appears to have gotten through to his squad, as they’ve won nine of their 11 games during their win streak by double-digits. The only time this wasn’t the case was last weekend’s eight-point win over Notre Dame, and the 84-78 win over a then-undefeated Auburn team inside Cameron Indoor Stadium.

The latter serves as one of the most impressive victories so far during the 2024-25 college basketball season.

Even before the late November loss to Kansas, Duke won its first four games by an average of 35.5 points, which includes a 14-point win over a ranked Arizona squad.

Duke will look to continue its 7-0 start to ACC play when they travel to Boston College for a Saturday night prime-time matchup against Boston College on ESPN. Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. ET.

Looking ahead, the Blue Devils won’t have another opportunity to play a Quad 1 opponent until the Feb. 1 matchup against North Carolina at home. While the Tar Heels have fallen out of the AP Top 25 poll, they’re off to a hot 5-1 start in ACC play and have won their last four games.