- Brad Stevens
This is the easiest ranking. A no brainer. Brad Stevens has proven to be among the elite coaches at the college level. In just six years as the Head Coach at Butler, he brought Butler to two National Championship games which also happened to be in back to back years. He also quickly established himself as one of the premier coaches in the NBA when he made the jump to coach for the Boston Celtics. Stevens is simply an incredible coach and is the dream choice to replace K.
2. Chris Beard
Beard is the premier up and coming college basketball coaching superstar. He is establishing Texas Tech as an upper tier program. Not exactly an easy thing to do in Lubbock, Texas. High school recruits are taking notice of Beard as well. Following a trip to the Final Four, Texas Tech had the 16th best recruiting class in 2019 and the 9th best class in 2020. A rising star converging with the Duke brand and all that comes with it would be an excellent match.
3. Jon Scheyer
Scheyer is the most ideal candidate from within The Brotherhood. He has had a long time to learn under Coach K, serving on his staff since the 2013-2014 season. What’s better than being under the wing under the best to ever do it? Another appealing aspect of Jon Scheyer is his recruiting ability. He has been ranked among the top five on the 247Sports Recruiting Rankings for each of the last two years. He has a reputation of being one the smartest players to ever play at Duke. There is a lot to like with Scheyer and Duke must do all it can to keep him at Duke.
4. Jeff Capel
Speaking of recruiting, Jeff Capel has shined on that front. In his time at Duke, he helped land 12 Mcdonalds All-Americans. Capel is an experienced head coach at the college level. He was the Head Coach at VCU from 2002-2006 and at Oklahoma from 2006-2011 where he led Oklahoma to two NCAA Tournament appearances. While he was already a good coach before joining the Duke coaching staff, he too obviously benefited from being under K for so long. He is extremely well liked by players is a natural leader. He has what it takes to become the next Duke Men’s Basketball Head Coach.
5. Quin Synder
Another Duke alum, Quin Synder is another rising coaching star. While his recent success has come at the NBA level, he had an impressive head coaching stint on Missouri from 1999-2006 where he led the Tigers to four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, including the Elite 8 in 2002, matching the the deepest run ever by Missouri in the tournament. The fact he is a proven successful coach and also a Duke alum makes him an ideal candidate.
A running theme about all of the guys mentioned here is they are all relatively young. Synder is the oldest at 53. The most ideal candidate would be someone who would become “Duke for life” and has many years left to spend coaching. Any of the coaches listed could coach for at least 20 more years if they wanted to.
An argument can be made that the Duke head coaching job is the most prestigious position in the coaching profession. Duke should have no problem bringing an exciting coach, whoever that may be.