Okay, YOUR Duke team

[Lord Ash]

Updated as of span, above.

I'll keep the total tally of points in the first post

I love Duke, baby!

[yancem]

Dawkins
Redick
Laetner
Battier
Hill

bench:
Marin
Verga
Gminski

With no particular reference to position, many are interchangeable anyway.

Congrats on being the first to go old school but how can you pick Marin and Verga over Heyman and Mullins? Although I did use to baby sit for Jack Marin's son so maybe I shouldn't argue

[Bob Green]

I'm not sure why we are limiting the team to eight players. I would have rather picked 12. Anyway, here are my eight:

Starters: Laettner, Battier, Grant Hill, Dawkins, & Hurley

Bench: Gminski, Banks, & Redick

That was tough! It was very hard leaving off Danny Ferry and Olympic Gold Medalist Tate Armstrong (I would have loved seeing him play with the 3-point shot). Add Art Heyman and Bob Verga (another shooter with deep range) and you have my 12 player team.

Of course 12 is not enough because I would love to add Mike Lewis, Dick Devenzio, and Rick Katherman. Okay, I'll stop at 15.

Bob Green
Yokosuka, Japan

[Lord Ash]

I thought eight would force people to make some real decisions. Plus, very few Duke teams have ever played 12 deep Thanks for playing along!

[gw67]

Starters:

PG: JWill
SG: Dawkins
SF: Grant Hill
PF: Laettner
C: Gminski

Bench:
Hurley
Battier
Ferry

I restricted my choices to the last 30 years. Heyman and Verga were terrific players from the 60's and along with Redick and S. Williams would fill out my roster.

gw67

[Karl Beem]

Hurley
Dawkins
G. Hill
Ferry
Laettner

Bench:
Battier
J. Williams
Redick
another big lug, with the versatility of Ferry, Hill and Laettner, it doesn't much matter

[The Gordog]

I can't speak for the G-man, he was before my time, but I put him in b/c I don't think our 2 best centers of late (Brand, Boozer) graduated.

Carlos graduated in 3 years. Mike D. is the one who left unexpectedly and did not graduate with his class. He may have come back later to finish in summer school, but I have no information on that.

[The Gordog]

This thread gets done every year, and every year I enjoy the exercise. I can only rate the K era players with any precision, so my appologies to Heyman, Banks, Giminski, Mullins, Verga, and Groat.

PG: Bobby Hurley
SG: Jayson Williams
SF: Shane Battier
PF: Chritian Laettner
C: Danny Ferry

Bench: Johnny Dawkins
Grant Hill
Elton Brand

Elton was drafted #1 based on potential, and we often remember him as being that good (best player in the nation) but in reality I agree with the posters below that Ferry was a better college player. Looking at the stats from 1989 I see that Ferry and Laettner played side-by-side for about 10 min. per game that year so I have no problem moving Laettner to PF.

HM: JJ, Shel, I must be forgetting somebody else...

[captmojo]

Jack Marin was coach Bubas' favorite and that's hard to argue. Bob Verga simply had a very consistent outside shot. It was also great to see the name Mike Lewis again.One of the toughest to ever hit the ACC.

[mr. synellinden]

G - Dawkins
G - J. Williams
F - G. Hill
F - Ferry
C - Laettner

Bench

G - Hurley
F - Battier
G - Redick

I struggled the most with G. Hill over Battier. I think Dawkins and J. Will were more complete players than Hurley and Redick but it's still hard to leave those two guys off the starting team.

I think Brand would be a starter over Ferry if he stayed for four years but without the extra two seasons it's hard to pick him.

If we had four more slots (to complete a 12 man team), I'd go with

Brand
Langdon
Shelden
Alarie

[RPS]

I saw Marin and Heyman only in the NBA and Groat only in MLB, so...

Hurley
Laettner
G. Hill
Gminski
Dawkins

Brand
Battier
J. Williams

Very close: Ferry; Banks; Armstrong; Spanarkel; Alarie; Redick.

[feldspar]

Starters:

PG: Bobby Hurley
SG: Johnny Dawkins
SF: Grant Hill
PF: Shane Battier
C: Christian Laettner

Bench:
Jason Williams
JJ Redick
Mike Gminski

Ditto, except give me Brand off the bench in place of Gminski.

[ikiru36]

It's hard b/c AFAIK Johnny Dawkins didn't shoot any 3-pointers in college. He was amazing but I only saw him for one year and don't remember his range. I do remember Jason Williams, JJ Redick, and Wm. Avery for range.

Actually, the 3 pointer was around for (part of?) the 82-83 season and JD shot 19/54, 35.2%, as a freshman. (Was that at 19'9" or was it slightly shorter as I seem to re-collect?) In any event, fairly clearly, particularly as he matured, Dawkins would have been at least a good 3 pt. shooter from 19'9". He was a 33% shooter from 3 in the NBA which makes him decent but not great from long range. Man was he great/efficient from mid-range though!

In any event, guessing at it, JJ and Jason would have been superior from 3, but by how much is debatable. Well, in JJ's case, likely by a lot, but there's no shame in that! :0)

[ugadevil]

pg Hurley
sg Dawkins
sf Hill
pf Brand
C Laettner


bench:
Battier
Redick
J. Williams



who would win if we put a team of all duke players who stayed all four years vs. a team of duke players who left a year or two early?

[mapei]

There really aren't many bad choices among the top dozen or so candidates. My team:

Starters:
Hurley
JWill
Hill
Shane
Laettner

Bench:
JJ
Dawkins
Brand

Apologies to:
G-Man
Shel
Banks
Duhon

[Classof06]

Starters
B. Hurley (consummate PG)
J. Williams (the single best NCAA player I've ever seen)
G. Hill (the essence of versatility)
C. Laettner (Clutch, ridiculously competitive SOB)
S. Williams (one of the most underappreciated NCAA players I've ever seen)

Bench
Dawkins
Battier
Brand

[husWagner1983]

My under-appreciated/somewhat "older" team. Would be competitive with any other team IMO.

Mark Alarie - inside/outside game, runs the floor well
Cherokee Parks - versatile big guy, good shot blocker
Jim Spanarkel- underappreciated athletic skills, super savvy player/scorer
Tate Armstrong - great shooter/scorer with nice range
Tommy Amaker - great on-ball defender, unselfish...plenty of scorers

Bench:
Randy Denton - monster rebounder and inside scorer
Chris Carrawell - versatile player to guard multiple positions
David Henderson - no fear, nice athleticism

I only saw Tate and Randy play on tv. Tate was a great shooter/scorer. He was a super player, somewhat overlooked because he broke his wrist in his senior season I believe. He was having a "JJ" like year before the break. He was on the '76 Olympic team.

I'd have the following "walk-on" just because they have great names:
Erik Meek
Danny Meagher
Bill Suk
Hack Tison

[wilko]

My under-appreciated/somewhat "older" team. Would be competitive with any other team IMO.

Mark Alarie - inside/outside game, runs the floor well
Cherokee Parks - versatile big guy, good shot blocker
Jim Spanarkel- underappreciated athletic skills, super savvy player/scorer
Tate Armstrong - great shooter/scorer with nice range
Tommy Amaker - great on-ball defender, unselfish...plenty of scorers

Bench:
Randy Denton - monster rebounder and inside scorer
Chris Carrawell - versatile player to guard multiple positions
David Henderson - no fear, nice athleticism

I only saw Tate and Randy play on tv. Tate was a great shooter/scorer. He was a super player, somewhat overlooked because he broke his wrist in his senior season I believe. He was having a "JJ" like year before the break. He was on the '76 Olympic team.

I'd have the following "walk-on" just because they have great names:
Erik Meek
Danny Meagher
Bill Suk
Hack Tison

Heck yeah, you named some of my faves in
David Henderson
Danny Meagher
Mark Alarie

Also From the not getting much love dept.
John Smith
Robert Brickey
Marty Clark
Danny Ferry
Vince Taylor

[Lord Ash]

Okay, the rankings are updated!

[mr. synellinden]

Also From the not getting much love dept.
John Smith
Robert Brickey
Marty Clark
Danny Ferry
Vince Taylor

It consistently shocks me how people on this board, the biggest Duke basketball fans, don't acknowledge, remember, realize, appreciate, etc., how good Danny Ferry was. Forget about his pro career. He was ACC player of the year twice when almost nobody went pro early, split the player of the year voting with Sean Elliot his senior year, once scored 58 points in a game and played on 3 final four teams. He was a great inside - out scorer, created matchup problems for any team he faced because there was nobody else like him and was a terrific passer. When there is discussion about the all-time best player ever to play at Duke, you hear Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Johnny Dawkins, Art Heyman, Dick Groat, Jason Williams ... but you very rarely see Ferry mentioned in that discussion, and he should be. In my opinion, Laettner is the best college player ever at Duke - based on his talent and accomplishments. However, outside of Laettner there is a strong argument that Ferry was the best COLLEGE player ever to play at Duke. I would include all of the others above in that argument.