Carolina Crossroads: Has UNC fallen behind Duke in the post-K era?

If there’s one thing people will take from this game, it’s whether North Carolina has been surpassed by Duke as a program since Jon Scheyer replaced Mike Krzyzewski as head coach.

Scheyer is 109-23 overall and 57-12 in ACC play since taking over in the 2022-23 season. This season, the Blue Devils are 21-1, ranked No. 4 in the country and are the favorites to win the ACC once again.

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He already has two ACC tournament titles and led Duke to the Final Four last season; the Blue Devils likely should have reached the national championship game if they had not blown a late lead to Houston. Scheyer is 5-2 against North Carolina since he took over, including a three-game sweep of the Tar Heels last season.

But what really has set Duke apart from Carolina is its recruiting. Scheyer, who was the No. 2 on the bench and the lead recruiter under Krzyzewski, has landed the nation’s top recruiting class in two of the last three cycles. The one year Duke didn’t finish No. 1, it finished No. 2.

North Carolina, meanwhile, has brought in solid classes — ranked No. 5 and No. 7 nationally the last two seasons. But the Tar Heels haven’t signed the same caliber or depth of elite talent as Duke, and that showed last season, when the Blue Devils beat Carolina all three times they met.

Since Scheyer took over, Duke has also embraced the business side of modern college basketball. The Blue Devils hired Rachel Baker, a former Nike and NBA executive, as the first general manager in program history. Given Duke’s recruiting and transfer success under Scheyer, it’s hard to argue she hasn’t been a difference-maker.

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North Carolina didn’t hire a general manager until this past offseason, when the school turned to former sports agent Jim Tanner. His impact has been real: He helped bring in key players such as Luka Bogavac and Henri Veesaar.

But Tanner’s arrival also underlined how far behind UNC had fallen in the modern age of college sports. He should have been hired…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/carolina-crossroads-unc-fallen-behind-175727119.html

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Publish date : 2026-02-04 17:57:00

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