No evidence of assault on Duke staff during court storm, district attorney says

Jane Winik Sartwell, The News & Observer (Raleigh) on Feb 17, 2026

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RALEIGH, N.C. — Duke men’s basketball coach Jon Scheyer said a Duke staff member got punched in the face and trampled during the court-storm chaos following the Duke-UNC game. But did that really happen? District Attorney Jeff Nieman doesn’t buy it.

Scheyer reported a Duke staff member being punched and trampled, his lip bloodied, looking like he had been in a “complete brawl.” When Nieman first heard this, he said he was alarmed.

“If someone got punched in the face, that’s a crime, and that’s in my jurisdiction,” Nieman, the prosecutor for Orange and Chatham counties, said in an interview with The News & Observer on Monday. “A ‘punch in the face’ is clearly an accusation of intentional assault. That’s something I take seriously and would want to unearth.”

At an event where seemingly everyone has their phones out recording, Nieman said on social media that there would have to be video evidence of any such violence. On Feb. 9, two days after the rivalry game, Nieman asked on Facebook if any attendees of the game had proof of the assault Scheyer described claims to have witnessed.

“There were at least 20,000 recording devices at this event and it’s impossible to imagine that these assaults would not have been captured on one or more of them,” Nieman wrote.

No one offered up any videos, Nieman told The N&O.

In a new post, he suggested that is what he expected all along.

“A week has passed, and what seemed likely is now patently obvious,” Nieman posted Monday. “There is zero evidence that anyone from Duke’s basketball program was ‘punched in the face’ at the Smith Center last week. Nor is there any evidence that a staffer was ‘trampled on the floor’ or ‘in a complete brawl,’ for that matter.

“Some have asked why I’m talking about this. It’s certainly not because of a sports rivalry. That’s no business of the DA’s Office. But I’ve seen firsthand how reckless accusations of violence incite more violence, and that is my business. Someone with the power and influence of a major men’s basketball coach should exercise more discretion before just saying things that can have real-world consequences.”

Nieman said Scheyer, in that postgame moment of extreme attention, had a responsibility to not speak before knowing all the information. The mention of violence — whether real or perceived — can lower the threshold for violence in future situations, Nieman worries.

“I took it on face value that he’s got some guys that have been punched,” Nieman said. “Now, it seems like nothing close to that happened.”

Scheyer, for his part, is standing by his statements.

“I know what I saw,” he said at a postgame press conference on Monday. “I know what happened with our staff after the game, and that’s the bottom line. ... I could have even said more, and I’m not going to do that.”

While Nieman hasn’t formally investigated Scheyer’s claims, he says he is confident that police have, and they haven’t brought any cases or evidence to his office.

UNC beat Duke, 71-68, when Seth Trimble sank a game-winning 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left. That brought the first court storm. Then, that fraction of a second was added back to the clock. That expired, cuing the second rush of fans to the court. Because court storms violate the league’s security policy, the ACC fined UNC $50,000 after the game.