Duke men's basketball under-staffed against Syracuse due to Scheyer and Smith's absences

SYRACUSE, N.Y.—Duke was short-staffed in Saturday night's contest against Syracuse. 

Assistants Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith wereabsent from the Blue Devil bench, with Scheyer hospitalized due to an emergency appendectomy and Smith not making the trip due to a family illness, according to the team's Twitter. This left Nate James and Chris Carrawell to assist Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski in leading the team Saturday.

"This has been a hell of a day for my assistant coach Jon Scheyer," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said postgame. "He had the scout of the game, he was the guy who was responsible. We were going through stuff this morning and he had amazing pain. We took him to the ER and thought it might be a kidney stone. But, it was appendicitis and he had an operation at 2:15 this afternoon."

Both Scheyer and Smith were on the Blue Devils' title-winning 2010 squad, with the former joining the Duke staff in 2013 and the latter in 2016.