Jon Scheyer praises freshmen for stepping up in rivalry game vs. North Carolina

The Duke Blue Devils jumped out to an early lead on the North Carolina Tar Heels and ended up running away in the second half. It was a performance that Duke head coach Jon Scheyer knows wouldn’t have been possible without his young stars.

Scheyer praised the Duke freshmen and other newcomers following the rivalry game for stepping up in the win against North Carolina.

“They sure met it [the moment],” Jon Scheyer said. “You always worry, just when you see different moments or environments, how is your team going to respond. We’ve really been focused this season on what you can control at the end of the day. We focused on our defense. We feel, if our defense is there, our offense is going to come.”

One player, in particular, who Jon Scheyer praised in particular was Sion James. A graduate student, he spent his career at Tulane before making the move to Duke. So, even with his experience, the rivalry with North Carolina was going to be a new experience. In the end, the guard scored 13 points and had three assists in 32 minutes during the win.

“Sion makes so many plays, man. He makes so many plays and makes it easier for everybody on the court. Our freshmen did not look like freshmen,” Scheyer said. “They didn’t even know you burned benches, actually. They didn’t even know that happens. I love the fact they were focused on the task at hand of coming ready, not just to play, but to compete.”

As usual, Cooper Flagg had another notable performance. In 38 minutes, the star freshman had 21 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists. Then, Kon Knueppel led the Blue Devils in scoring with 22 points, five rebounds, and five assists.

Over the course of the season, Duke has relied heavily on those players in their first season with the program. That’s going to continue into February when Duke plays its next game against Syracuse before continuing ACC play.

Jon Scheyer reacts to Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel joining him in rare category vs. North Carolina

The win over North Carolina was the first time a pair of Duke players scored at least 20 points and five assists against the Tar Heels in the same game since Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer himself did it 15 years prior. That prompted Scheyer to shower the pair of Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel in praise.

“They absolutely feed off of each other. I think it starts with their competitiveness. They’re just really good competitors. They play both sides of the ball, and they have a high-level feel. You put it together — competitiveness, feel — that’s in the highest level of both, that’s a pretty good starting point,” Scheyer said.

“And then you add in their skill and their versatility, like for Kon in tonight’s game, he’s posting, he’s shooting, he’s in pick and roll. He’s really doing everything. Obviously, I think everybody knows Cooper is already doing everything, but they have a great thing with them. They’ve also checked each other at different points. Kon has gotten on Coop to get going in games. Cooper got on Kon a couple of games ago to shoot the ball. That interaction and checking each other as freshmen, I think there’s a lot of maturity with both of them to do that.”