Jon Scheyer isn’t sugarcoating the early stretch for Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje, but he also isn’t hiding how much he likes what he’s seeing.
Through Duke’s first couple of games, the bigger picture has been hard to miss: this looks like one of the best teams in the country by a wide margin. The Blue Devils have flashed it on both ends, and Scheyer has made sure the younger players get their share of the credit too.
Boumtje Boumtje has been part of that conversation from the start. The 17-year-old entered the year with plenty of buzz, and even with the expected freshman bumps, he’s shown why people were so high on him.
That doesn’t mean every night has been smooth. Against Coastal Carolina on Friday, he finished with nine points in 19 minutes, going 2-of-5 from the field and getting four of those points at the free-throw line. He also turned it over three times.
Still, Scheyer’s message has been more about development than disappointment. The Duke coach praised how coachable Boumtje Boumtje has been and said the work is exactly what the player and his family signed up for.
“It’s the reason he’s here, to continue to expand his limits," Scheyer said. "He’s doing really good things, but we’re coaching him hard.
That’s what he came here for; that’s what his family wanted. He wants to be great.
…He’s hard on himself. So I want him to continue to work through a game of not being perfect and getting to the next play.
He’s done that; he’s been really coachable.
"We want to continue to help him speed up the process of what an impactful player he can be. I’ll tell you what: he’s even further ahead of schedule than I thought of where he’d be.
What he’s doing at the youngest player ever for us, the impactful minutes he’s playing, has been terrific. But we want to continue to just speed up that process, and he wants the same thing,” Scheyer said of Boumtje Boumtje, per FanSided.
Scheyer has built a reputation for being direct, and this sounds like a coach who sees the talent clearly while still demanding more. Boumtje Boumtje may already look ready for this level, but Scheyer’s point is that readiness and polish aren’t the same thing.
That’s especially true for a player who is only 17, even if his path to Durham included overseas experience. The talent is obvious.
The adjustment is still real. And for Duke, the early signs suggest Boumtje Boumtje is already giving them plenty to work with while he keeps figuring out the rest.
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