Duke men’s basketball welcomes Jacksonville to Cameron Indoor Stadium. This season marks the first for head coach Jon Scheyer, a 2010 Duke graduate and four year letter winner for the Blue Devils who spent the previous nine years on the staff under Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski. Duke is 90-27 all-time in season-opening games and has won 21 consecutive lid lifters. The Blue Devils and Dolphins are meeting for the first time.
Junior guard Jeremy Roach, a preseason first-team All-ACC pick and a member of the watch list for the Cousy Award, returns after helping lead Duke to the Final Four, a ACC regular-season title and a 32-7 mark last season. Roach averaged 8.6 points last season, but upped that to 11.8 points and 3.0 assists in Duke’s five-game run to the Final Four as he was named to the West Region All-Tournament Team. Roach is the Blue Devils’ lone captain for 2022-23. In total, Duke has 11 newcomers on the roster — seven freshmen — all recruited and signed by Scheyer which comprise the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, and four graduate transfers. In Duke’s only public exhibition game, graduate Jacob Grandison led four in double figures with 17 points, while freshman Mark Mitchell scored 15 with six rebounds and graduate Ryan Young added 12 points in an 82-45 win over Fayetteville State on Wednesday night. In preparation for the 2022-23 season, the Blue Devils also played a closed scrimmage at preseason-No. 3 Houston on Oct. 28.
Duke has signed a top-three recruiting class per ESPN in every season since Scheyer joined the staff, including the No. 1 class five times in nine seasons (2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2022). Among Scheyer’s personnel moves in June were the hiring of Jai Lucas as an assistant coach and the promotion of Amile Jefferson to assistant coach. Scheyer also added Mike Schrage as special assistant to the head coach and Rachel Baker as general manager.
About the Opponent
Jacksonville was 21-10 last season and 11-5 in the ASUN, falling in the ASUN championship game to Bellarmine, which visits Cameron Indoor on Nov. 21. The Dolphins were picked second in the ASUN preseason poll this year.
Redshirt senior guard Kevion Nolan was unanimously voted to the All-Conference team. Nolan was a first-team All-ASUN pick last season after leading the team in scoring (13.9) and assists (4.0). Kevion Nolan battled injuries during much of his early moments in a Dolphin uniform, limited to just nine games in his first season after sitting out as a transfer in 2019-20. After a knee injury in the 2021-22 season opener sidelined him again, he worked even harder to come back. A Preseason All-ASUN pick in 21-22, he scored 25, inlcuding the quarter-court, buzzerbeating three to beat FGCU in the ASUN opener, posted his first career double-double at North Alabama and scored in double-figures in 16 games, topping 20 points six times, and registering five or more assists 10 times en route to being recognized by the league’s coaches as a First Team All-ASUN performer. Now, he is back for his final year at JU, and was a unanimous Preseason All-ASUN selection this year as he looks to power the Dolphins back to the NCAA Tournament.
The Dolphins return 80 percent of last season’s scoring and 70 percent of the team’s rebounding. Jacksonville men’s basketball boasts one of the largest frontlines in program history, harkening back to the days of Artis Gilmore and Pembrook Burrows as twin 7-footers in the early 1970s. Mike Marsh and Oumar Koureissi present two different looks at 6-foot-11, with Marsh anchoring an inside-outside presence with size and mid-range game and Koureissi capable of putting the ball on the floor and shooting from the outside. Additionally, 6-foot-10 Illinois/Florida transfer Omar Payne acts as a traditional rim-protector, while athletic 6-foot-8 Osayi Osifo provides energy, defense and a deceptive mid-range game. In all, the Dolphins expect to lean heavilly on the size inside to matchup in early season non-conference games and to show an advantage in ASUN Conference play.
Second-year head coach Jordan Mincy won the 2022 Joe B. Hall Award as the top first-year head coach in the country in leading the Dolphins to their best season in more than a decade. Mincy was an assistant coach at Florida from 2015-21 under head coach Mike White — who is the son of former Duke Athletics Director Kevin White. The Gators played Duke twice times in that span.
