Jon Scheyer starts rebuilding roster

Big addition from out west

Jon Scheyer picked up his first player from this year’s portal earlier this week and it was a significant one.

Cedric Coward is a veteran wing, 6-6, 205 pounds or so. He’s a native of Fresno who played one season at D-3 Willamette College, two seasons at Eastern Washington and six games at Washington State before a shoulder injury ended his 2024-’25 season.

Yes, Duke will be his fourth school. Welcome to 2025.

Coward checks lots of boxes. He’s got good size for a wing. He helps Duke get older. He can shoot and defend and even facilitate a little. He had 22 assists in those six games at Washington State, which is four more than Isaiah Evans had in 36 games last season for Duke.

There are some question marks. Coward averaged 17.7 points and 7.0 rebounds last season, shooting 55.7% from the field, 40% from beyond the arc, 83.9% from the line.

What’s not to like? Well, he only played one game against a power-conference school,. a nine-point, eight-rebound effort against Iowa. He did have 18 points against Bradley, a Missouri Valley Conference School and he had 21 points against Cincinnati and 16 against Ole Miss the season before.

Still, asking if big games against Portland Bible and Northern Colorado will translate to ACC ball seems like a legitimate question.

The other question is counterintuitive. Coward has done the paperwork for the NBA draft. He says he’s looking for more feedback and he needs to prove himself after missing most of last season. He’s not showing up on the more credible mock drafts and I can’t imagine Jon Scheyer being held hostage the same way he was when Trevor Keels waited until the final minutes to stay in the 2022 draft.

It should be noted that Isaiah Evans also is in the draft but is believed to be solid for Duke next season.

Hopefully, Coward is that sweet spot, someone good enough to help Duke win championships but not good enough to be a flight risk.

Ditto for Evans.

For what it’s worth, Coward has been praised by non-Duke sources who cited his toughness, poise and versatility.

Coward told The Field of 68 that Duke valued the same things he valued, family first and foremost.

Is Coward it for the portal? Definitely not and maybe.

Say what?

It’s likely that Duke is done shopping in the high-impact portal district. There’s just not enough PT available to go around. Despite the fantasies of some portions of the fan base, Duke isn’t going to go after someone like Memphis point guard P.J. Haggerty.

Scheyer seems comfortable with Caleb Foster and Cayden Foster sharing the point-guard duties and he has more information at his disposal than anyone outside the staff.

But there is a need for some depth pieces. Walk-ons Spencer Hubbard and Neal Begovich used up their eligibility and Stanley Borden hit the portal. Coward gives Duke 10 players and they’ll need a few more.

One tight needle that needs to be threaded is the third center. Patrick Ngongba and Maliq Brown should be more than enough.

If they can stay healthy. Ngongba missed most of his senior season in high school with foot problems and Brown missed games last season with toe, knee and shoulder injuries.

Can Duke count on both remaining healthy? If not, a third big is needed. But who wants to come to a school with the expectation that they’ll likely sit in the bench and twiddle their thumbs unless there’s an injury.

Maybe a really smart, not totally inept Ivy League role player who wants an MBA from Fuqua?

Duke also is looking to add a high school player to replace Shelton Henderson, who decommitted and followed Jai Lucas to Miami.

As far as I know Duke is still involved with Sebastian Wilkins, a combo forward who needs to reclassify from the class of 2026 to be relevant for next year’s roster.

But a new name has entered the mix. Braydon Hawthorne is a 6-8, 175-pound stringbean from West Virginia. He originally committed to his home-state school but de-committed when Darian DeVries left to take the job at Indiana. Most recruiting sites have Hawthorne listed as a 70ish or so recruit. But he had a big spring and is a poised to take a big jump in the rankings.

The assumption is that Wilkins and Hawthorne are mutually exclusive and the latter seems likely to decide first.

More whenever there’s more/