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Mike Schrage resigns as Elon Phoenix men's basketball coach; expected to join Duke staff, per sources

Elon head coach Mike Schrage resigned from his position on Tuesday afternoon, the school announced. He's expected to join Jon Scheyer's staff at Duke, sources told ESPN.

Schrage was the head coach at Elon for three seasons, leading the Phoenix to a 33-52 record during his time at the helm. His best season came in 2020-21, when he guided Elon to a 10-9 record and an appearance in the CAA tournament championship game.

The Phoenix went 10-22 overall and 7-11 in conference play this past season.

"I would like to thank Mike for his three years leading our program," Elon athletic director Dave Blank said. "Mike, his wife, Amanda, and their children have been great Elon supporters during their time at Elon and we wish them the best of luck. Although they have decided to move in a different direction, we are confident we have a foundation in place to continue to build a very successful program at Elon. This is a position that is extremely appealing, and I anticipate a strong pool of candidates."

Schrage has strong Duke ties dating back to his nine seasons in a support staff role under Mike Krzyzewski from 1999-2008. He started out as the Blue Devils' academic and recruiting coordinator before spending six seasons as the program's director of basketball operations.

Scheyer, Duke's new head coach following Krzyzewski's retirement, overlapped with Schrage during his playing career in Durham. Scheyer was there from 2006-10.

Duke lost assistant coach Nolan Smith to Kenny Payne's new Louisville staff on Monday, with Smith leaving to become Payne's associate head coach. Smith was promoted last spring from an operations role to a full-time assistant position, helping recruit the No. 1 class in the country in 2022.

Schrage was a longtime power-conference assistant coach prior to getting hired by Elon in 2019. He started his career as a student assistant under Bob Knight at Indiana, before spending one season at Ole Miss as director of operations. After his time at Duke, Schrage spent eight seasons as an assistant at Stanford and three seasons as an assistant under Chris Holtmann -- the first year at Butler and the last two at Ohio State.