NEWARK, N.J. — It was the spring of 2021 and Jon Scheyer was on the precipice of a life-changing job opportunity.
But not the way he expected. Not anything close to what he would become.
We know Scheyer now as the head coach of Duke men’s basketball. It’s hard to see him as anything else; it’s sort of crazy how quickly he’s made that a true statement.
But around four years ago at this very moment, Scheyer was waiting on two job opportunities, practically convinced one of them — if not both — would go his way.
Scheyer, who is a Chicago native, chased the DePaul job. He interviewed there and loved his chances. But that wasn’t the only one he was eying. This has never been publicly revealed until now: Scheyer told CBS Sports he also interviewed at UNLV in 2021. He thought he had a real shot at that one, too. DePaul was intriguing, because of Chicago, but UNLV was the one he and his wife, Marcelle, got really excited about.
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He’d been a seven-year assistant at Duke by that point. Helped the program win a national title as a player in 2010 and did it again as one of Mike Krzyzewski’s lieutenants on staff in 2015.
It was time. He thought he was ready. Though still plenty young (in his early 30s), he was desperate to be a head coach.
“It got crazy the last couple weeks,” Scheyer told CBS Sports about that moment in time. “I thought I was going to be the coach at DePaul.”
The school hired Tony Stubblefield instead. Shortly thereafter, UNLV also turned him down, hiring Kevin Kruger. Scheyer was deflated.
Later that spring his life — and Duke’s program…
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