Duke basketball coach Jon Scheyer had a deep bag in his playing days. And he wants his current Blue Devils players to know it, too.
A clip from Patrick Beverley'sThe Pat Bev Podcast with Rone went viral this week because Beverley said Scheyer "never ducked any smoke" and was called the "White Mike" as the two rose to basketball stardom out of Chicago. Scheyer's players aren't old enough to remember his playing days, so they have been quite skeptical of the nickname.
Even Cooper Flagg, Duke's freshman phenom and the likely top pick in the NBA draft, needs more background before he can get comfortable calling his coach by the old moniker.
"I mean, I don't know if I'd call that a nickname," Flagg said after Duke's second-round win over Baylor on Sunday, via Blue Devil Nation. "I don't think anyone's ever actually called him that, I think it was a made-up instance. Unless I see some proof of somebody calling him that, I'm going to say that's not his nickname."
Scheyer was a great three-point shooter for the Blue Devils, helping Duke to the 2010 national title back in the day. He drained five three-pointers in both the Elite Eight against Baylor and the Final Four against West Virginia. No Duke player has made five or more threes in consecutive tournament games until Sunday, when Tyrese Proctor matched the feat. Proctor made seven treys in Duke's round of 32 win over Baylor, which followed his six threes from the team's first-round win.
Flagg also said he and Scheyer have played both HORSE and one-on-one together. Flagg said he owns the all-time HORSE series two games to one, while the pair are tied at one game apiece in one-on-one. Pretty good results for the 37-year-old coach against the NBA's next young phenom.
Still, the head coach will have to do a little bit more to earn the "White Mike" designation from Flagg, even though he has had it across Chicago for decades, apparently.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Cooper Flagg Comically Questions Jon Scheyer's 'White Mike' Nickname.
