Shabazz Muhammad to UCLA

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Originally Posted by 60's Devil

Wishful thinking is pathologic. We will have a pretty good team next year but we must face the facts. If Murphy were a game changer you can bet he would not have been redshirted this year. Everybody is dreaming of a new Quinn Cook...mainly because they can't imagine our future with T.T. at the point. I have been hoping for a Plumlee miracle for four years and am still waiting. There is no way to sugarcoat it. If Parker and Jefferson both go elsewhere, we will obviously be in a major recruiting slump.. . It would serve us all well to devote less time on the board discussing recruits like Shabazz only to be let down. Truth is that the heels are chuckling tonight
(I have talked to several) and McAdoo is probably chomping at the bit. Having said all this, UNC survived a drought (NIT) and so can we! I'm hopeful but not delusional. With a first round loss to Lehigh and only one recruit for next year I must quote from former Panthers coach John Fox...."It is what it is."

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Originally Posted by CDu

A whole lot of ridiculousness in this post. I don't even know where to begin. Let's just say that I disagree with almost everything in this post.

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Wow Cdu is right... sheesh. I will give it a whirl though.


"If Murphy were a game changer you can bet he would not have been redshirted this year." Murphy asked to be redshirted and it was his idea 100% because he should have been in high school and not at Duke this past year so he sat out and tried to get ready physically for next season.


"dreaming of a new Quinn Cook...mainly because they can't imagine our future with T.T." What do you mean dreaming of a new Cook? If you mean we expect him to get better like almost every player does in their second year then yes I agree we are "dreaming". He also will be a year removed from a major knee injury and will have more time to practice this summer with the team. As for TT, it's not we can't see him running the point because he certainly did ok the past year and it was his first year getting minutes. It's just he comes across as more of the hustle, energetic, fierceness you need in a team rather than a bonafide starting pg (Kind of like another Wojo)

"hoping for a Plumlee miracle for four years and am still waiting" What is it you want from Mason exactly? He has improved every year so far and had a good year last year. 11 ppg/9 rpg/2 assists/2 blocks/ 1stpg and 3 fouls per game in 28 minutes and thats not to mention he shot 57% from the floor! Not too many teams will be getting that kind of production out of their starting center. He also was not a focal point of the offense late in the year (Seth and Austin got the call most). Like I said he has improved every year so let's see what he can do next year to add on to those already solid results.

If Parker and Jefferson both go elsewhere, we will obviously be in a major recruiting slump Seriously?!?!?! Lets just start in 2009 for the sake of it since these guys will be seniors this year.

2009: #2 Center, #6 PF (won 3pt contest as well), A transfer who was the highest scoring freshmen in college, and Andre Dawkins who before he reclassified was ranked top 20 overall and considered the best shooter.

2010: This would have been a "down" recruiting year with the # 7 PF and # 24 PG but we wrapped it up with the best player in the entire class PG Kyrie Irving.

2011: Was huge as we got 5 players that play 4 different positions and all were top 100! # 1 SG, # 3 C, # 7 PG (was ranked higher till injury sidelined him for entire senior season), # 7 SF, and another SF who before he reclassified was a top 15 overall player.

2012: Is still not done but we got the # 3 SG and is considered the best shooter. I personally hope we get nobody else in this class and save it for next year but that's just me.

So our roster is currently:

PG- #7 and #24
SG- A top 20 guy and highest scoring freshmen and #3
SF- #7 and top 15 guy
PF- #6 and #7
C- #2 and #3

Not bad at all and what drought!!!! We just won it all in 2010!

Anyone know of a recent Duke miss- a player Duke lost in a recruiting battle- who went on to lead their team to the national championship. Wall - no, Monroe- no, Wright- no, Barnes - no, Tyler Adams- not yet. Which Duke miss had the best college career- i.e. All American caliber?

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Originally Posted by JNort

Wow Cdu is right... sheesh. I will give it a whirl though.


"If Murphy were a game changer you can bet he would not have been redshirted this year." Murphy asked to be redshirted and it was his idea 100% because he should have been in high school and not at Duke this past year so he sat out and tried to get ready physically for next season.


"dreaming of a new Quinn Cook...mainly because they can't imagine our future with T.T." What do you mean dreaming of a new Cook? If you mean we expect him to get better like almost every player does in their second year then yes I agree we are "dreaming". He also will be a year removed from a major knee injury and will have more time to practice this summer with the team. As for TT, it's not we can't see him running the point because he certainly did ok the past year and it was his first year getting minutes. It's just he comes across as more of the hustle, energetic, fierceness you need in a team rather than a bonafide starting pg (Kind of like another Wojo)

"hoping for a Plumlee miracle for four years and am still waiting" What is it you want from Mason exactly? He has improved every year so far and had a good year last year. 11 ppg/9 rpg/2 assists/2 blocks/ 1stpg and 3 fouls per game in 28 minutes and thats not to mention he shot 57% from the floor! Not too many teams will be getting that kind of production out of their starting center. He also was not a focal point of the offense late in the year (Seth and Austin got the call most). Like I said he has improved every year so let's see what he can do next year to add on to those already solid results.

If Parker and Jefferson both go elsewhere, we will obviously be in a major recruiting slump Seriously?!?!?! Lets just start in 2009 for the sake of it since these guys will be seniors this year.

2009: #2 Center, #6 PF (won 3pt contest as well), A transfer who was the highest scoring freshmen in college, and Andre Dawkins who before he reclassified was ranked top 20 overall and considered the best shooter.

2010: This would have been a "down" recruiting year with the # 7 PF and # 24 PG but we wrapped it up with the best player in the entire class PG Kyrie Irving.

2011: Was huge as we got 5 players that play 4 different positions and all were top 100! # 1 SG, # 3 C, # 7 PG (was ranked higher till injury sidelined him for entire senior season), # 7 SF, and another SF who before he reclassified was a top 15 overall player.

2012: Is still not done but we got the # 3 SG and is considered the best shooter. I personally hope we get nobody else in this class and save it for next year but that's just me.

So our roster is currently:

PG- #7 and #24
SG- A top 20 guy and highest scoring freshmen and #3
SF- #7 and top 15 guy
PF- #6 and #7
C- #2 and #3

Not bad at all and what drought!!!! We just won it all in 2010!

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Agree for the most part...One thing though, Quinn played on his bad knee his Senior year which is likely why its taken longer for him to get to 100%

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Originally Posted by dukelifer

Anyone know of a recent Duke miss- a player Duke lost in a recruiting battle- who went on to lead their team to the national championship. Wall - no, Monroe- no, Wright- no, Barnes - no, Tyler Adams- not yet. Which Duke miss had the best college career- i.e. All American caliber?

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Michael Jordan comes to mind :P

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Originally Posted by dukelifer

Anyone know of a recent Duke miss- a player Duke lost in a recruiting battle- who went on to lead their team to the national championship. Wall - no, Monroe- no, Wright- no, Barnes - no, Tyler Adams- not yet. Which Duke miss had the best college career- i.e. All American caliber?

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Tyler Hansbrough

Man, what a dumb question to ask. Why self-flagellate ourselves even more?

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Originally Posted by dukelifer

Which Duke miss had the best college career- i.e. All American caliber?

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In recent memory, probably Jared Jeffries.

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Originally Posted by dukelifer

Yep- time for you to find another team to root for. UCLA has a bunch of ex-Carolina players and the top high school player in the Country. You can probably start there. By the way- if McAdoo was a game changer- why could he not beat out John Henson for a starting role.

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Because he was playing behind a top 20 draft choice? I think McAdoo will be terrific next year. His athleticism certainly matches up with anyone on Duke's front court.

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Originally Posted by MaxAMillion

Because he was playing behind a top 20 draft choice? I think McAdoo will be terrific next year. His athleticism certainly matches up with anyone on Duke's front court.

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Let's see if McAdoo can make it past mediocre before we crown him.

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Originally Posted by duke09hms

Tyler Hansbrough

Man, what a dumb question to ask. Why self-flagellate ourselves even more?

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Was Hansbrough ever a Duke target? I thought McRoberts was the guy we wanted (who was rated higher than Hans).

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Originally Posted by UrinalCake

Was Hansbrough ever a Duke target? I thought McRoberts was the guy we wanted (who was rated higher than Hans).

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Hansbrough was #3 PF, Josh was #1 PF, so all around the same ballpark of elite recruits. Both had offers from Duke and UNC.

Looks like we went after or got the wrong guy . . . man what could have been right?

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Originally Posted by dukelifer

Anyone know of a recent Duke miss- a player Duke lost in a recruiting battle- who went on to lead their team to the national championship. Wall - no, Monroe- no, Wright- no, Barnes - no, Tyler Adams- not yet. Which Duke miss had the best college career- i.e. All American caliber?

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Hard to qualify a "miss". Is it someone that we were interested in, who did not reciprocate and thus we did not recruit? Is it someone who we threw our name into the hat for, but not much amounted? Is it someone who was interested in us to some extent, but we signed another recruit? Or is it someone like Boynton or Monroe or Patterson who we were definitely in it with, but did not get?

Would have loved to have added Bazz to our already loaded lineup. Mostly, at this point, I'm just glad he didn't go to UK and I'm glad that Noel and Bazz aren't playing together at either school.

As for us, I think Quinn is going to be a great soph. Alex is going to be a great redshirt Frosh. Mason is going to be a beast. Duke is going to be top 10 (mostly top 5) all year and we will have a fair shot next March. Yeah, with Bazz we would have been better but Sheed will help as well and we will excel.

Boy this thread does a good job of making one go pick up an adult beverage. Goodnight all... but let's have perspective. Our teams going to be a great next season.

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Originally Posted by UrinalCake

I think this is a case where the numbers don't seem to match up with the eye test. Our offense just didn't look fluid for most of the year. Our high-scoring games were ones in which we hit a lot of threes against bad teams; but we were terribly inconsistent, we shuffled our starting lineup around constantly because we couldn't figure out who our best players were or what everyone's roles should be, and we suffered losses or narrow wins against mediocre teams. We relied on a player (Austin) going on-on-one far more than we typically would, and we didn't have any inside-outside balance. I do agree that our defense was the bigger problem than our offense for most of the year, but that sort of turned around in the last month which is what most of us remember.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to next year. We'll have a ton of experience, combined with some new and talented pieces.

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Emphasis mine there. Looks can be deceiving. The exact same thing was said for much of the year about our title-winning offense in 2010. It looked ugly, so people thought it couldn't be any good. But it was. It was the most efficient in the country that year. An offense doesn't need to look pretty to win games; it just has to generate points. Duke 2010 is probably overused as an example, but there are countless other teams that have had ugly yet devastating offenses. Several of Dixon's Pitt teams spring to mind in that regard. Thompson 3's Georgetown squads and Bo Ryan's Wisconsin teams tend to be potent but very slow. I like archetypal Duke offense as much as anyone, but I like winning even better.

To address some of your other points, doesn't EVERY team put up its biggest point totals against bad teams? That's part of what distinguishes a bad team: everyone else lays the hammer on you. I would also argue that in many ways our offense was kind of remarkably steady. We won a lot of close games against excellent competition, and that could not have happened without a dependable scoring punch night in, night out. We certainly could not count on our defense to carry the day. Finally, the lineup did shift as you say, but a) K has a history of extensive in-season experimentation, and b) most of the tinkering seemed to me a desperate effort to do something about that end of the court where the other team gets to do stuff with the ball.

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Originally Posted by duke09hms

Tyler Hansbrough

Man, what a dumb question to ask. Why self-flagellate ourselves even more?

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I was asking the "dumb question" to point out that so many folks agonize over the misses and forget about the quality players that Duke does get and often forget that many of the players that we did not get did not go on to become the best player in the land. The difference between the top 100 players is not as great as people make it out to be- at least at the college level. The top 3 are usually pretty good but it is no unusual for a non-McDonald's All American becomes a great college player.

I didn't bother posting my opinion in here before he chose because I really didn't care if he came or not, and I didn't post last night since I didn't care for my thoughts to get lost in the swarm of posts right after he announced. I'm relieved that he chose elsewhere. I know the staff wanted him badly, I know lot of folks here wanted him badly, but I just cannot get behind the idea of a one and done guy. Especially not for the third year in a row. I think it is short sighted to want a guy to come with hopes of great things, such as deep tourney runs and endless highlight reels. And for two years in a row, it hasn't panned out...we've had less than admirable exits, especially this year.
Think about this...next year we will have 4 seniors...Andre, Mason, Ryan and Seth. That's what I'm talking about...I love being able to follow A TEAM through 4 years of school. They may go far, they may fall flat, they may win it all; to me it doesn't matter quite as much as the fact that I got to invest in them as a fan and was paid back handsomely in emotional reward.
Ask me about how I feel about Kyrie and Austin in 5 years and I will answer with "who?". Ask me the same about any of our current guys and I will be able to tell you I loved them or they drove me nuts (or both) and I'll be able to back myself up with lots of good stories. Great memories are not built from short visits but from long, lasting stays. Kyrie and Austin were fun to watch, but neither can ever call themselves "champion". Duke's Champions were built around teams filled with leadership and experience, and we will have both filling to the brim next season. GO DUKE!!!

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Originally Posted by CameronBornAndBred

I didn't bother posting my opinion in here before he chose because I really didn't care if he came or not, and I didn't post last night since I didn't care for my thoughts to get lost in the swarm of posts right after he announced. I'm relieved that he chose elsewhere. I know the staff wanted him badly, I know lot of folks here wanted him badly, but I just cannot get behind the idea of a one and done guy. Especially not for the third year in a row. I think it is short sighted to want a guy to come with hopes of great things, such as deep tourney runs and endless highlight reels. And for two years in a row, it hasn't panned out...we've had less than admirable exits, especially this year.
Think about this...next year we will have 4 seniors...Andre, Mason, Ryan and Seth. That's what I'm talking about...I love being able to follow A TEAM through 4 years of school. They may go far, they may fall flat, they may win it all; to me it doesn't matter quite as much as the fact that I got to invest in them as a fan and was paid back handsomely in emotional reward.
Ask me about how I feel about Kyrie and Austin in 5 years and I will answer with "who?". Ask me the same about any of our current guys and I will be able to tell you I loved them or they drove me nuts (or both) and I'll be able to back myself up with lots of good stories. Great memories are not built from short visits but from long, lasting stays. Kyrie and Austin were fun to watch, but neither can ever call themselves "champion". Duke's Champions were built around teams filled with leadership and experience, and we will have both filling to the brim next season. GO DUKE!!!

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I agree that the best part of college basketball is "knowing" a young man for four years and seeing him develop and grow. If that culminates in a championship, then even better. I disagree about not remembering Kyrie and Austin simply because their tenures were short. They were Duke brethren and, for the duration of their stay, gave their hearts and souls to the team. That's enough to earn an enduring place in my memory. That said, I agree that next year, with the wealth of seniors we'll have, we will have the type of core we'll need to go deep in March.

The thing about the hot shot one and dones that I can't get over -- K really wants them. If he didn't pursue them as he has, then I could be at greater peace about letting them all flow to Lexington. K wants them, so there must be something to it.

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Originally Posted by duke09hms

Tyler Hansbrough

Man, what a dumb question to ask. Why self-flagellate ourselves even more?

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Duke zeroed in on McRoberts very early in the process and everyone knew he was the primary big man target. Duke made Hansbrough an offer but he did not seem like a priority for the coaching staff. I'm not sure Hansbrough should be counted as a recruiting loss. Just my $.02.