Originally Posted by
Kedsy
We should all appreciate what we have this year. I guess it makes sense to point out the negatives and express doubts, but considering what we lost from last year, our current team is a revelation. We have five guys who have a good chance to make one of the three All ACC teams (Seth, Austin, Ryan, Mason and Andre). We are undefeated (so far) against a very difficult schedule. We are exceeding expectations, which is really hard to do at a place like Duke.
Instead of nitpicking every little mistake, I prefer to consider what our opponents must think when they play us. How can they defend a lineup of Seth, Austin, Andre, Ryan, and Mason? They all need to be double-teamed and none of them can be. Our bigs are very big and very talented and athletic. Most teams can't match up with us inside, and when's the last time we've been able to say that? Our guards are ridiculous. There might be a few better backcourts in the country, but that doesn't mean anybody can guard ours. On how many teams in the country would Quinn Cook be the fifth perimeter player on the depth chart?
On defense, we've been much better much earlier than anybody could have expected, with so many people in new roles defensively. Yes, once we build a big lead we have tended to exhale and we're not good enough defensively yet to let up even a little and expect to dominate. Still, we've been good enough so far to bend but not break. As we get more comfortable playing D, we'll either play hard for 40 minutes (not letting up after carving out a big lead) or we'll be good enough to exhale without letting the other team get out on a run. Or we won't, but I think we will.
Put another way, we've been good enough to build leads of at least 13 points in every game we've played, and at least 16 in every game but one. And our D has been good enough to make those leads stand up.
I'm thrilled with what I've seen from Duke so far this season. I'm sure we'll lose a few games along the way, but this is shaping up as a special year.