As they meet in the Sweet 16, what Duke learned about Houston in their 2022 scrimmage

As Duke plays its first game beyond the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend under second-year head coach Jon Scheyer, the Blue Devils will battle the first team they faced after Scheyer became their coach.

In October 2022, the Blue Devils traveled to Houston to scrimmage coach Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars on their home court.

Having taken over the program from retired Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski, as had been planned since summer 2021, Scheyer wanted his young team to experience playing against an older, established team like Houston.

The Cougars had advanced to the Elite Eight the previous season, where they lost to Villanova.

“It was a big, big day for our team to go against them,” Scheyer said.

It being one of the secret scrimmages the NCAA allows Division I teams to participate in every preseason, no official stats were released and no outside observers were able to watch. But Houston scored more points than Duke in the exercise, outscoring the Blue Devils by 10 points as Duke struggled with its shooting against the Cougars’ physical defense.

“They kind of imposed their will on us and were very physical with us,” Duke senior guard Jeremy Roach said Thursday, one day before the No. 4 seed Blue Devils face top-seeded Houston in the NCAA Tournament South Regional semifinal at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. “It definitely was a pretty good game, but they just kind of out-physicaled us.”

Though that scrimmage was nearly two full seasons ago, Duke expects more of the same on Friday night from Houston (32-4) in the first game the two programs have ever played against one another. The Cougars allowed the fewest points and were the toughest team in Division I to hit a shot against this season.

“It’s crazy how it circles back around and we’re playing them,” said Duke sophomore guard Tyrese Proctor, who was participating as a college athlete against another team for the first time that day in Houston. “I think the biggest thing that I took away from it, looking at it now, was just to win this game, we’re gonna have to limit turnovers. They get a lot of points off transition turnovers and try to out muscle you and out tough you.”

For Scheyer, in addition to what he saw on the court, he still remembers a long conversation he had with coach Sampson prior to the scrimmage. Here was a veteran, successful coach who had led two programs to the Final Four (Oklahoma in 2002, Houston in 2021) giving Scheyer advice as he approached his first season succeeding Krzyzewski.

“He’s as good as it gets,” Scheyer said. “He’s a good coach as there is and a purist. He’s a guy that’s all about basketball and helping young people. For me, starting my career and doubling down on the program that we want, our culture and all that, I just thought here’s a great test for our team to play against.”

Some of the main players are the same from that scrimmage, including starters Roach, Proctor, Kyle Filipowski and Mark Mitchell for Duke. Houston’s main contributors this season who played in that scrimmage include Jamal Shead, J’Wan Roberts, Ja’Vier Francis and Emanuel Sharp.

It was a long time ago, but the lessons learned are real for Duke.

“Even if you have some of the same players,” Scheyer said, “you’re talking about two years, two seasons ago now, basically. But the thing that they have, they have their style of play and the core group and all that is similar.”

That style of play is what the Blue Devils are girding themselves to handle, something they remember about that scrimmage so many months ago.

“Just knowing how they’re coming, the level of fight they’re bringing,” Mitchell said. “Coach Sampson’s a great coach. He’s going to have them prepared.”

Last year’s Blue Devils didn’t learn that lesson well enough as a physical Tennessee team beat them, 65-52, in the NCAA Tournament’s second round. This year’s Duke team surpassed that level, taking the fight to James Madison to pound the Dukes, 93-55, in a South Region second-round game last Sunday in New York.

Now Duke must do it again against a team they have first-hand knowledge about.