St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino was eliminated by the Duke Blue Devils in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament over the weekend. Just days later, Duke suffered a devastating loss with a Final Four berth on the line.
In a showdown against the UConn Huskies — a team St. John’s beat two of three times this season — Duke squandered a 19-point lead and turned the ball over in the final seconds, allowing UConn guard Braylon Mullins to sink a game-winning 3-pointer with just 0.4 seconds left, giving the Huskies a 73-72 victory.
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This marks the second consecutive season the Blue Devils have blown late leads in the NCAA Tournament, fueling criticism of Duke head coach Jon Scheyer through his first four years as the Duke coach.
However, that criticism hasn’t sat well with Pitino, who came to Scheyer’s defense Monday evening. In a post, he congratulated UConn while praising Scheyer as a young coach and even predicted that “championships will be in his future.”
“Much congrats to a gritty UConn team that wouldn’t give up. For all those people out there trying to criticize Jon Scheyer, he is one helluva coach and one of the class acts in our game,” Pitino posted on X. “He played the toughest schedule and ended as the #1 overall seed. Championships will be in his future. UConn players and coaches, you have my utmost respect”
Scheyer spent nine seasons as an assistant coach under Mike Krzyzewski at Duke and played four years for Coach K during his collegiate career.
After Krzyzewski retired in 2022, he handed the program over to Scheyer, who has since done a remarkable job — winning back-to-back ACC regular-season and conference championships and securing No. 1 overall seeds in March Madness each year.
At just 38 years old, Scheyer has certainly faced some tournament heartbreaks over the past two seasons, but there’s no question he’s one of the best coaches in the sport, and it seems Pitino firmly believes that as well.
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