The UConn Huskies stunned the Duke Blue Devils with a last-second game-winner from Braylon Mullins. This win sent the Huskies to the NCAA Final Four for the eighth time in their history. While most people celebrated Duke’s downfall, some also targeted their head coach, John Scheyer, with their criticism.
Rick Pitino, the legendary head coach, came to Scheyer’s defense while also crediting UConn for their resilient comeback in the clutch moment of the game.
“Much congrats to a gritty UConn team that wouldn’t give up,” wrote Pitino on X. “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. 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🫡,” Pitino concluded.
After arguably the toughest schedule of the year, the Duke Blue Devils finished their NCAA season with a 35-3 record, and the three losses all came within a combined difference of five points, including last night’s one-point loss to the Huskies in March Madness.
Mike Krzyzewski, who is Duke’s legendary former head coach, also reacted to the devastating loss for the Blue Devils and admitted that he was so heartbroken that he could not sleep after this loss.
“I think Jon’s primary concern, and he does a great job of this, he and his staff make sure you take care of those young men. They had a magnificent season, one of the best, and you lose. It’s brutal, it’s so abrupt, and from the joy to the agony, and to especially make sure that you embrace collective responsibility, that you win and you lose together, so that no one individual player bears the burden of that alone.”
“And I felt so bad for Cayden Boozer because I felt the interviews afterwards, he was man enough to do the interviews, and he took individual responsibility for it,” said Coach K while mentioning Cayden Boozer’s comments after the game.
“Hopefully, I’m sure his teammates and his coaches hugged him afterward and said, ‘Listen, man, we were there. Hey, your 15 points in the first half were the reason that we were up by 15 points at halftime.”
“He played an outstanding game, and it’s that one turnover, but it wasn’t one play. I’m telling you, we turned the ball over too much because of Connecticut’s defense. And what happened? Connecticut had a hard time scoring.”
“But when you get live ball turnovers, you have numerical superiority going down to the offensive end, and you take it to the hole better, and they got their offensive mojo going, and really two of the biggest shots were from Demary.”
“Duke was up 10, and he hit a corner three. One of our kids, Nick, trumped it with another, you know, to go back to 10, and boom, he trumped that by hitting two threes. And those were, you talk about huge shots. Those were amazing shots.”
After describing in detail what went wrong for the Blue Devils down the stretch, Coach K circled back to talk about the final shot and its impact on him personally.
“It was heartbreaking. I’m telling you, I haven’t coached for four years now, but again, it was a great, great basketball game. Not a good one. It was a great game, and I had a hard time; I could not fall asleep last night.”
“I felt like I was part of that. And then you’re thinking about all these individual kids and how you’re going to take care of them, and there’s such great empathy for our guys. I mean, I’m obviously a Duke guy and have concern for them and still do because that’s a tough one to get over.”
“For my entire year and time as a coach, I love being in the moments with those players. You know, the highs, the lows, they kept you young. Because you were in their moment. You weren’t watching their moment; you were in their moment.”
“And Danny and Jon Scheyer are in the moment with their players. So, what Danny was doing after the game, I’m going to send them a few diapers as they go forward. That’s in the moment, and Jon Scheyer was in his moment taking care.”
“And so that’s the kind of thing I kind of relived last night. And, even though it was bad, it felt good to be in that moment, with our team,” concluded Coach K.
The Huskies are now set to face the Illinois Fighting Illini on April 4 for their Final Four matchup. Their winner will face the winner of the Arizona Wildcats vs. the Michigan Wolverines for the NCAA championship on April 6 at the Lucas Oil Arena in Indianapolis, Indiana.
