Jon Scheyer shares Duke had an 'honest, heartfelt' meeting after UNC loss

Losing to a rival isn’t an easy pill to swallow for any team. It’s especially difficult for Duke when it comes to North Carolina, though, considering what it means in both Durham and Chapel Hill.

After their following game against Notre Dame on Wednesday, Jon Scheyer spoke about how the Blue Devils responded following their defeat to the Tar Heels last weekend. He said that it bothered him as much as it did their players – so much so that he brought them in first thing this week in order to let them all be heard by one another.

“I mean, look, for me? I was anxious to hit our team right away,” said Scheyer.

“Sunday is an off day. For me, it was important to bring them in as early as we could on Monday. I didn’t want to wait until practice at two,” Scheyer explained. “We brought them in early. Had a very honest, heartfelt meeting – I guess you could call it that. They had a great response.”

That expression in that meeting then led to a quality practice that afternoon.

Rather than competing against anyone else, Scheyer made a switch where their players competed against each other. That got all of their respective energies going and, as such, gave him the answer that he was looking for from his team.

“We have a scout team usually and, on Monday, we just went blue versus white,” explained Scheyer. “We had our 10 guys that can play go against each other. Saw different groups in there, see who wanted it.”

“The good part as a coach? I’ve told you guys this before. They always respond. This group always responds. Monday was no exception,” Scheyer said. “I thought the competitive edge that we had brought out some things in us. I thought that was a good step.”

All of this carried over to last night where the Blue Devils won by a score of 71-53 over the Fighting Irish. They took control after the first few minutes and led by double digits for the duration from that moment on. Most of that success came on the defensive end as they held Notre Dame to under 34% shooting, outrebounded them by eight, and posted 16 combined steals and blocks on the night.

Again, a rivalry loss, especially down on tobacco road, sticks with you more than others. However, this last one brought around a day and some progress that Scheyer thought his team could use moving forward.

“For me? Monday was one of those old-school Duke days that we needed,” Scheyer said.