SI.com - impossible not to make Duke the preseason No. 1

[cato]

While Zoubek in the end got recognition for his contributions to the team, I feel most of us still under appreciate what Lance brought to the table. His versatility, quickness, length, energy and smarts will be dearly missed on the court. Can the Plumlees defend as well as those seniors?

Agreed. Just as people may have under appreciated what Nate brought to the table in 01.

Also, there will be times when we have three guards on the perimeter and Kyle at the four. How will we cope with a perimeter made of 6'2 guards on defense?

We will look extremely good with our pressure defense against overmatched opponents and teams with poor guard play, but we could struggle against teams with elite guards who won't be bothered by our pressure. Once they take that away, can we defend as well as we did this year in the half court?

Once again, agreed. Duke will go back to pressuring the ball and getting into the passing lanes, with the Plumlees helping at the rim. Teams that can beat the pressure and make the extra pass once the help commits may pose a problem. Also, I fear that Duke will regress from a decent defensive rebounding team to a team that gives up too many second chance points. Hopefully, there will be plenty of turnovers and easy transition buckets to more than make up for these problems.

[Jderf]

As you and other posters correctly note, rebounding is a key for next year, as is foul trouble for MPs.

Foul trouble with the MPs? I didn't even know we had any Members of Parliament on our basketball team! Let's hope they push through tons of legislation all season long.

(that's probably only funny if you're Canadian, and even then probably not... sorry.)

[ElSid]

Foul trouble with the MPs? I didn't even know we had any Members of Parliament on our basketball team! Let's hope they push through tons of legislation all season long.

(that's probably only funny if you're Canadian, and even then probably not... sorry.)

To be funny in Canada you would have had to say "Mounted Police".

Here in the states...we like a little more firepower. "Military Police".

I also like "Mr. Potatoface". "Matthew Perry". and "Max Power".

Wow this got random in a hurry.

[gumbomoop]

Foul trouble with the MPs? I didn't even know we had any Members of Parliament on our basketball team! Let's hope they push through tons of legislation all season long.

(that's probably only funny if you're Canadian, and even then probably not... sorry.)

Oh, dear, I fear that, as we Brits sometimes say, I'm guilty of being too clever by half. For I now see that when I referred to foul troubled MPs, some posters mistakenly thought I referred to Miles and Mason.

No, no, sorry. I meant the "foul" = fake expenses claimed by several Members of Parliament, the issue that's roiling our upcoming [well, tomorrow, actually] elections. Or at least these numerous false expense claims were front and center until the recent immigration row [Gordon Brown and "that bigoted woman" mess.]

Anyhow, in my posts, at least, MPs refers to British politics, not Duke basketball.

Again, sorry.

[DevilHorns]

Being able to score in many different ways makes a team almost impossible to stop. The 09 Heels had this quality and the 2011 Devils may have it as well. It still surprises me that Duke won it all last year with the limited amount of weapons available in the arsenal, but they figured out a way to do it.

Also surprises me that the Heels won in 09 after a completely disastrous exit to Kansas the year before. It was a miracle that those players regained any semblance of morale to simply go on.