Down 54-31 early in the second half last night against North Carolina State, first-year head coach Jon Scheyer made an eyebrow-raising decision in benching his point guard and captain, Jeremy Roach. Roach would not return to the court for the final 16:50 of what ended as an 84-60 drubbing of the #16 Blue Devils. The junior from Leesburg, VA had been battling a foot injury since an early season loss to Purdue, and it'd be easy to point to that when explaining Scheyer’s decision. More likely, however, is that Scheyer finally conceded to the truth that those who’ve been following Duke all season long have noticed: Jeremy Roach has been bad.
It would be easy to label the first two seasons for Roach as “up-and-down”. In both, he spent significant time as the starting point guard, only to lose the mantle with his inconsistent play. To his credit, he was able to win the job back both years and had some of his best moments in a Duke uniform during last season’s run to the Final Four – Duke's first since 2015. He propelled the Blue Devils to multiple nail-biting wins with crucial shots down the stretches of games, and his back-to-back 15-point performances against Michigan State and Texas Tech were perhaps the best two-game stretch of his young career, given the circumstances.
Many believed Roach's tournament success would be a sign of things to come as an upperclassman. He was named to the Preseason All-ACC First Team by the media, and The Athletic’s Brendan Marks highlighted his success in his ACC preview: “If [Roach] plays like he did in March, Duke will be as lethal as ever.” I don’t think many people have taken the time to reflect on the entirety of Roach’s play during the tournament run, so allow me: For the 2022 NCAA Tournament, Jeremy Roach averaged 11.8 points, 4.0 assists, 2.8 rebounds, and 3.0 turnovers per game. He shot 21 of 48 (43.8%) from the field – slightly above his season average of 41.0% – and 2 for 13 (15.4%) from behind the three-point line. In the Final Four loss to North Carolina, he scored just 8 points on 2 of 11 from the field and 0 for 5 from three. He was also one of the primary defenders on both Caleb Love and RJ Davis, who combined for 46 of UNC’s 81 points and shot 17 for 33 (51.5%) from the field. The end result ended up being a microcosm of Roach’s career to date at Duke: a mixed bag.
Flash forward to this season, and the inconsistencies that have plagued Roach’s entire career are not only still in the picture, but they’re front and center. After tying a career-high with 22 points against Iowa in Madison Square Garden, Roach’s last three games have looked so far from what many in the media expected from him this season that it’s almost time to start revoking credentials. He made just 5 of his 25 field goal attempts in the three games and turned the ball over more times than he’s assisted his teammates. As you might expect, Duke has taken two losses in that stretch, both of which were convincing.
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| The leader Duke needs has not shown up in Duke's last three games. (Source: WRAL Sports Fan) |
Much of the problems with Roach can simply be traced back to who he is as a player. He was a consensus top-twenty recruit coming out of Paul VI High School and was ranked the #4 point guard by both ESPN and 247 Sports, but he simply isn’t a point guard. His size certainly indicates that he should be one, but he’s just not. In his first two seasons at Duke, Coach K partitioned many of the playmaking duties Roach should’ve burdened to guys like Wendell Moore and Jordan Goldwire. This year, despite it being “his team”, the same is happening with Jaylen Blakes and Tyrese Proctor. Defensively, his size is always going to be a problem. In each of his first three seasons, his team has been staggeringly better defensively with him on the bench. Despite the coaching staff lauding his efforts on this end of the floor in the past, these are facts that are impossible to ignore.
Shooting just 33.3% from three-point range to date this season, despite being a career best, is far too low for a guard. He’s also shooting a career-low 40.9% on two-point field goals, highlighted by numerous attempts around the rim being swatted away by bigger defenders. Barring an unforeseen growth spurt, Roach’s decision making will need to improve in this area for his offensive efficiency to recover. When Roach has been at his best for Duke offensively this season, it’s been operating in what many analysts have dubbed “the floater range” – roughly 1-2 dribbles further away from the basket than what would be considered a shot at the rim. Whether it’s getting him the ball there via a pin-down screen or by beating his man off the dribble, Roach has shown flashes this season as a reliable offensive engine in this area.
During Duke’s most recent three games, we haven’t seen nearly enough offensive actions getting the ball to Roach in this area of the court. Instead, he’s either been taking the ball one dribble too many and being rejected at the rim, or he's settling for a pull-up jump shot one step inside of the three-point arc. Even in the blowout win over Florida State on New Year’s Eve, Roach was forcing too much of his offensive involvement, instead of just letting the game come to him. He did hit two threes against the Seminoles, but shot 0 for 5 from inside the arc and just 2 of 10 for the game overall.
It should go without saying that Duke needs Jeremy Roach to be good in order to reach the idealized version of this year’s team. With that said, if Jeremy Roach actually is Duke’s best player this season, the ceiling of the 2022-23 Blue Devils is incredibly low. He simply isn’t good enough to be “the guy” on an elite Duke team, but Duke will need multiple young freshmen to step up in order to slot Roach into the complementary role that he’s meant for. Getting pulled for almost the entirety of the second half wasn’t some jedi mind trick by Coach Scheyer, nor was it a sign that his injury is worse than what is being let on. It was the rookie coach’s realization that #3 in blue wasn’t one of the five best players on the team that day. It’s too early to count this year’s youthful team out, but a lot needs to go right if this group of players has any hopes of making Scheyer’s first season at the helm a memorable one in a positive way.
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