Jon Scheyer once again brings in new blood into the Duke coaching ranks with the apparent hire of Oklahoma Associate Head Coach Emanuel Dildy. Dildy will replace Amile Jefferson who departed to work as an assistant for the Boston Celtics. Coach Scheyer added William Avery to fill one assistant spot earlier this summer.
Dildy will be Scheyer’s second bench coach hire outside of “the brotherhood” adding Jai Lucas last season. Dildy brings a lot of experience in both player development, recruiting and coaching on the floor having worked under Porter Moser, Chris Collins and others.
Playing for two seasons at New Mexico State before transferring to Eastern Illinois, he was an All-Ohio Valley Conference selection as a senior. After earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from EIU in 2005, he played professionally in Germany for two years and stateside for one season in the International Basketball League before embarking on his coaching career.
Dildy began his coaching career at Kennedy-King College in Chicago, serving as an assistant from 2008-10 and then as the head coach from 2010-12. KKC went 35-27 in his two seasons at the helm and appeared in the 2012 NJCAA Region IV tournament championship game. He spent the 2012-13 campaign as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Eastern Illinois, as he broke into the Division I coaching ranks. While at EIU, Dildy was instrumental in the development of Sherman Blanford, who led the team in rebounding and earned 2012-13 All-Ohio Valley Newcomer and the 2013-14 All-OVC Second Team honors. Dildy also was key in the recruitment of transfer Reggie Smith, who was named to the 2013-14 OVC All-Newcomer Team, and transfer Chris Olivier, who became the team’s leading scorer and finished his career fifth on EIU’s all-time blocked shots list.
The 2016-17 season saw Dildy on the sidelines at Missouri where he helped forward Jordan Barnett become one of the SEC’s top perimeter threats. Before joining the Missouri staff, Dildy worked under Porter Moser at Loyola from 2013-16. He helping to develop 2014 MVC Freshman of the Year Milton Doyle, who went on to score over 1,000 career points for the Ramblers. He also was instrumental in mentoring Devon Turk, who became Loyola’s all-time leading 3-point shooter in 2015.
Dildy arrived in Norman to coach under Porter Moser again from Northwestern where he spent the past three seasons as an assistant under Chris Collins. Known as one of the nation’s top recruiters, he was instrumental in building the highest-rated recruiting class in Northwestern history, which included a pair of top-100 signees in the 2021 class.
The hire of Dildy rounds out a coaching staff that includes Head Coach Jon Scheyer, Associate Head Coaches Chris Carrawell and Jai Lucas, Assistant Coach William Avery and Special Assistant Mike Schrage.
