Jon Scheyer gets candid on "heartbreaking" March Madness exit for Duke in Final Four vs Kelvin Sampson's Houston

Duke coach Jon Scheyer was unable to lead his No. 1-seeded Blue Devils to the national championship game, losing 70-67 to the Houston Cougars in the Final Four on Saturday evening.

The Blue Devils were cruising and led the Blue Devils 66-59 with 1:26 remaining until the Cougars mounted a stunning comeback, going on an 11-1 run to stun Scheyer's team and reach the national championship game.

In his postgame news conference, Scheyer got candid about the Blue Devils' harrowing loss.

“It’s been a magical ride," Scheyer said. "We believed with everything we had that we were going to win a championship here. I feel for them because they’re competitive, and they’re going to think about plays. I didn’t help them enough. That’s where my mind goes.

“I couldn’t be more proud of them, though. This is part of it. This is part of it, unfortunately. We haven’t been in a lot of those games. That's where I wish I could’ve helped them more. But they played their hearts out. We knew it was going to be a tough game. Just really feel for our guys.”

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Jon Scheyer credits Houston for comeback

Duke, with the talents of Cooper Flagg and Ron Kneuppel, was a heavy favorite to reach the national championship game. After taking a nine-point lead with 2:15 remaining, the rest of the game should have been a procession before the Houston Cougars mounted their comeback.

In his postgame news conference, Jon Scheyer gave credit to the Cougars for their epic comeback against his team.

“Well, it’s hard to process still,” Jon Scheyer said. “I thought our guys did an incredible job the whole game. I thought we had some good looks. Didn’t finish. You have to give Houston a ton of credit.

"And still, even with that, we had the lead with under a minute to go. I couldn’t be more proud – I’m not about to hang our head. This is part of it."

Scheyer contimued:

“You’ve got to handle the wins, and you’ve got to handle the losses, too. And in a moment like this, we were this close. We felt we were the best team. The best team tonight was Houston. Hats off to them.”

Jon Scheyer will have to deal with the loss of the cream of this year's team, including Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach to the NBA via the 2025 Draft. But the Duke Blue Devils still made massive strides, winning the ACC Tournament championship and reaching the Final Four of the Big Dance.