Jon Scheyer opened up on the Duke Blue Devils’ loss to the Houston Cougars in the 2025 NCAA tournament. The Blue Devils appeared to be set to play for the national championship until a last-minute collapse ruined all their plans.
After entering the final minute of the fourth quarter up 67-61, the team didn’t respond and opened the door for the Cougars to take over the game. Kon Knueppel missed a layup when the game, Sion James turned the ball over, Tyrese Proctor missed a free throw, and Cooper Flagg missed a layup, while the Cougars made the right plays and took advantage of the free throws to take a 70-67 win.
Scheyer could have taken this team, in Flagg’s first and only season with the program, to the championship game. Things didn’t go their way, and Scheyer finally talked about that game and how he dealt with such a massive loss.
Jon Scheyer talks about last-minute loss to Houston
Talking with college basketball analyst Jon Rothstein, Scheyer explained how he felt watching his team let what appeared to be an easy victory slip between their fingers.
“I felt that game as deeply as I’ve felt any game in my life,” Scheyer said. “You feel, actually, in a lot of respects, way more responsibility when you’re the head coach, even though you don’t have the ball in your hands down the stretch or throughout the course of the game. You feel like you’re responsible for every decision that’s being made in the game more. You understand that there are things that happen on the court that necessarily you do not have a direct impact all the time. But as a competitor, as a teacher, you wanna control as much as that, help your players as much as possible.”
The Blue Devils have a revamped roster with intriguing prospects, starting with freshman forward Cameron Boozer, one of the best players in his class, and his twin brother, Cayden.