Jon Scheyer claims Duke has not played its best basketball yet after Michigan State win

The Duke basketball team is off to a rip-roaring start to the 2025-26 season, at 10-0 and cruising. Four of the wins have come against ranked opponents, including each of the last three.

A win at No. 7 Michigan State this week gave Duke a new feeling of sorts. A feeling like it can win anywhere.

“I think it does,” coach Jon Scheyer said. “And I’ve never experienced 10 games — it’s really 12 games in my mind, because we learned a lot playing UCF and Tennessee in the exhibition games — but those 12 games, seven Power Four schools. Only one of the games was at home, the rest were neutral or on the road.”

In the past three games, Duke has dusted Arkansas, defending national champion Florida and Michigan State. That’s a heavy lift for any team, much less one led largely by freshmen.

Scheyer knows his Duke squad is still finding itself. That should scare the rest of the country.

“Even though our program has had a lot of great success, every team is new,” Scheyer said. “So I think when you go through this and you realize, no, OK, we can win while also understanding I don’t think we’ve played our best yet. I really don’t. And that’s on me and our staff to continue to bring that out. But this is definitely going to be a great lesson and a great reference point to look back to as we go on on this year.”

Duke drawing insane viewership

With NFL games anchoring the Thanksgiving sports slate, FOX and CBS looked to capitalize with college basketball following those matchups. It paid off.

Duke’s win over Arkansas averaged 6.8 million viewers on CBS, becoming the most-watched college basketball game on any network in more than 30 years, the network announced. The previous high mark was in 1993 when Purdue vs. Indiana averaged 7.23 million viewers on CBS.

Additionally, FOX benefited from the Thanksgiving schedule. Michigan State’s victory over North Carolina averaged 6.499 million viewers to become the network’s most-watched college basketball game on record. It also peaked at 14.4 million viewers, FOX announced.