Isn't that Hurley's High School, St Patricks?
... What does this say about our hopes for Brandon Knight? Remember, we already have Thornton signed. Interesting development...
http://duke.scout.com/a.z?s=167&p=9&cfg=bb&c=4&yr=2010
Isn't that Hurley's High School, St Patricks?
Irving looks like he would be a nice addition from what I have seen. Seems like he has nice handles, nice range on his shoot, and nice play-making skills. Nothing in his game looked forced.
Everything I have heard about Thornton is positive. The kid is a team-first type player and a bigtime winner. A great kid and player. You can never have enough of those (or of ballhandlers who make their teammates better).
I would guess that Coach K thinks it is good to have more than one guard who can direct the offense, break the press, etc. We have seen how the teams of the past couple of years have struggle through injuries to Paulus and the growing pains of shooting/combo guards (Scheyer and Smith) learning on the job to be the point guard.
It sure worked pretty well bringing in Jason Williams and Chris Duhon one year apart.
If I was a coach, I would want to dedicate 3 out of 13 scholarships to point guards.
Strongly agree. It's been tough to watch us miss on great post players, but it's just been unfathomable to watch us not even try to recruit PG's since Paulus got here. I love what Greg brings, but I can't imagine he was scaring away blue chip prospects.
Anyway, from what I've seen we'd be very lucky to have a player like Kyrie. He sounds like more of a scoring/combo guard (sort of the other side of the coin from Nolan who came in ready on D but with some offensive issues). So he and Thornton could play beside each other or switch out based on situations. I do take this as a bad sign for landing Knight. But I suppose we'll be so shallow at PG that we could have Knight start and use Thornton as a sub for the one year that Knight would be around. I hope we have the chance to think about juggling minutes at the position again.
Last edited by DevilCastDownfromDurham; 02-12-2009 at 10:38 PM. Reason: JD status. May not be posting for a while. :)
Duke is still looking at Irving, Ray McCallum, Jason Morris, maybe Mychal Parker, maybe Roscoe Smith or Casey Prather. All perimeter players from the class of '10.
Duke definitely has offers out to Barnes and Knight. I'm pretty sure that no one else has a firm offer.
That doesn't mean that they won't down the line.
Duke anticipates bringing in five players from '10, six if they can find a post. Irving has a huge upside and he may well be in the mix. But there are still some hoops that need to be negotiated.
It's a grueling job, isn't it? We forget just how much slogging and plotting goes into being a great coach (and having a solid staff.)
The "pundits" have it so easy, just sitting and carping while eating these young players alive. Worthless press know-it-alls.
God bless Mike Krzyzewski and his staff and his teams. They make us proud each time they step onto the court.
Regardless of what Scout is saying Duke has not offered Kyrie Irving yet. One of our BDN writers (Andrew Slater) recently talked to him and got an in depth interview of 2000 or more words . Andrew has seen the kid play several times in the past month. One other thing, Duke never offers a kid until K has a chance to talk to him or sees him play. There could be an instance where a kid knows an offer is coming or one is there if he wants it, but no official offer has been made yet. I was at an event where the head of Scout didn't even know of the interest until it was mentioned to him so I'm fairly certain those under him do not know. Probably just an assumtion from headlines or a typo on their part. Or, they are assuming the offer will happen from what they've read ...or heard. To my knowledge the Scout Duke site has never talked to Irving. I started tracking him in September. FWIW, he almost assuredly will get an offer but he told us in person that no offer had been made. But man does he have a slew of them! We have a pretty good grip on the situation and recruiting in general and do our best to deal with facts. Duke likes Irving a lot and Knight is still on the radar. That's about all I feel comfortable saying here.
Whether Irving has an offer or not, I don't think that we should start to draw any conclusions about what his recruitment means in regards to the recruitment of Knight...particularly because most of us have little insider info. If nothing else, I hope that it reflects the coaching staff's effort to cast a slightly broader net than they have over the last several recruiting seasons. This is what many of us have hoped for.
Knight's a long shot to go to Duke and would only be there one year anyway. Irving's probably more of a 3-4 year guy and seems to have some serious skills. If Knight committed tomorrow, we'd probably back off Irving and pick up another point or two for 2011.
Technically, the Hurleys coach at both St. Anthony's and St. Benedict's.
http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=911901
"Kyrie Irving, when it's all said and done, he will arguably be as good as any guard who's played in New Jersey," Boyle said. "Any guard. Ever. Ever. DaJuan Wagner, Bobby Hurley, Shaheen Holloway. You're talking about a guy who's a great shooter, a great finisher. He's going to be as good as anybody who's played in New Jersey."
One Big East assistant said without pausing: "He's a pro."
Duke has to sign Irving just to continue the tradition of having a guard on the team who was once a teammate of a guard on the Tar Heels. Lawson/Smith and Ellington/Henderson to be followed by Strickland/Irving.
Irving, Strickland and Lance Stephenson are on espn2 tonight at 7pm.
Not sure why now would be a time to discontinue the tradition since Irving is a terrific player. Right now he's ranked pretty highly and appears to be a player on the rise.
I know that they weren't actually teamates in high school, but Elliot and Leslie Macdonald (coming in next year for UNC) could fall into this category as well, since they grew up together, played on the same AAU team (I think) and were both friends and rivals growing up, a relationship that will likely continue through college.
Irving is looking good.