After a 80-74 loss against Boston College last season, head coach Mike Krzyzewski knew that it was time to shake things up. The Blue Devils had won just two of their last six games and needed overtime against Miami to even secure that second win. In the loss against the Eagles, Duke shot just 3-for-16 from long range.
And so Krzyzewski moved Jon Scheyer to the point. The guard flourished at the new position, the Blue Devils won 10 of their next 11 contests--including the ACC Tournament, of which Scheyer was named MVP--and Scheyer has handled the ball for the Blue Devils ever since. In the final eight contests of the season, Scheyer dished out 19 assists and turned the ball over eight times.
Scheyer, now a senior, has done anything but slow down this year. At the beginning of the season, Krzyzewski reaffirmed the guard's role as primary ball handler but insisted that Scheyer wouldn't play like a traditional point guard—the coach went as far to say that Scheyer is simply a guard, not just a point guard or shooting guard. If the 6-foot-5 Scheyer isn't a pure point guard, though, he's doing a pretty good job faking it.
In addition to averaging 18 points per contest, though nine games Scheyer has 51 assists and just eight turnovers in 316 minutes of play. That makes for a 6.4 assist-to-turnover ratio—Scheyer turns the ball over once for every 39.5 minutes he's on the floor. The senior leads the NCAA in that mark this season, and it isn't even close. In-conference, the next closest mark is 2.3 assists for every turnover by Larry Drew II.
The last game against Gardner-Webb was—at least statistically—his finest as a Blue Devil. Scheyer had 36 points, nine assists and eight rebounds and shot 7-for-9 from 3-point range.
The Blue Devils will tipoff against Gonzaga tomorrow at Madison Square Garden at 4 p.m. Duke is both familiar and comfortable playing in New York—beyond recently defeating Arizona State and No. 14 Connecticut on that court, junior guard Nolan Smith has gone as far as playfully calling the court "Cameron North" on his Twitter feed. Under Krzyzewski, the Blue Devils are 20-6 at the venue.
If Duke wants to maintain its success in New York, it will continue to depend on Scheyer and his ability to take care of the ball.
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