No Coach K, no problem.
Just a week after Mike Krzyzewski’s final game as head coach for the Blue Devils, Duke has landed not one but two five-star commits in the class of 2023 in Tyrese Proctor and MacKenzie Mgbako.
That gives Jon Scheyer, Krzyzewski’s successor, three five-star commits for the class as well as Sean Stewart, a top-30 four-star. Duke currently has the No. 1-ranked class for 2023 by a large margin, per 247Sports’ composite score.
Proctor, a combo guard from Australia, chose Duke on Thursday over Arizona and the G League, among others. The 6-foot-4, 170-pound scorer comes from the NBA Global Academy.
Mgbako, the third-ranked player nationally, is from Gladstone, N.J., and played his high school ball at Gill St. Bernard.
It’s worth noting, too, that Duke’s 2022 class also ranks No. 1 in the nation, with four five-stars: Dereck Lively II, Kyle Filipowski, Dariq Whitehead, Jaden Schutt and Mark Mitchell.
Lively and Filipowski are ranked Nos. 1 and 3 in the nation, respectively. Mitchell has yet to sign a letter of intent, though he committed verbally in December.
Scheyer, 34, was the handpicked successor to Coach K, beating out Tommy Amaker, who was pushed out of the job by Krzyzewski, per reporting in The Post’s Ian O’Connor’s new book.
Scheyer has been on Duke’s staff since 2013 and been in an associate head coaching role since the 2018-19 season. He filled in for Kryzyzewski for a game in January 2021, with the Blue Devils beating Boston College, but that is his only head coaching experience in college.
Stepping into the Hall of Famer’s shoes was always expected to be tough, even before Duke went to the Final Four before losing to archrival North Carolina in this year’s NCAA Tournament.
But if stars matter, then Scheyer is off to a good start.