How did we get to this point?

[CDu]

I look at our team compared to UK, and I see the disparity pretty clearly. Kentucky has incredibly versatile players at the 2-4 spots on the floor. Jones can play either forward spot. Kidd-Gilchrest can play SG, SF, or PF. Miller can play SG or SF. Lamb off the bench can play PG, SG, SF. All five starters and their sixth man are capable of initiating transition offense once they get the ball (even Davis - the C).

It's that type of length, athleticism, and versatility that have been missing. This year, we had probably 3 players on the roster who had that type of length, athleticism, and versatility. One was Rivers. The other two were Murphy and Gbinije, but neither were apparently ready to contribute this year enough to oust the veteran wing players on the team. And while Rivers was versatile, he had his limitations too (couldn't play off the ball, couldn't distribute).

The rest of the team was pretty limited. The Plumlees were capable against bigs but lacked quickness and offensive polish. Kelly could shoot but struggled a lot against quicker players and didn't show much post game. Curry could shoot and occasionally drive but struggled against taller physical guards. Dawkins could shoot. Thornton could see the floor and was a great off-ball defender but struggled offensively. Cook showed offensive promise but was limited by height and perhaps lingering knee issues. And nobody outside of (occasionally) Rivers could consistently defend against dribble penetration.

The 2010 team was an anomaly, but only in that those senior bigs finally figured things out. We had defensive versatility at 4 spots with that team. We had offensive versatility from 3 players. We had no perimeter depth and thus were fortunate not to face adversity there, but the starters fit the ideals perfectly (tall, long, and defensively versatile). Had those guys figured it out a year or two earlier (and had we switched PG earlier as well), we might have made some tournament noise sooner.

I hope that some of the following things happen the next several months (in no particular order):
1. Gbinije and Murphy make big strides and emerge as key players
2a. We get Oriakhi (and he's eligible right away) to add athleticism and toughness in the absence of Miles and (presumably) Mason
2b. We get Mason back for his senior year
3. We get Zeigler (and he's eligible right away) or Muhammad
4. Sulaimon is an impact player on the wing both offensively and defensively
5. Dawkins gets MUCH stronger with the ball and improves his focus and defense
6. Curry gets stronger with the ball and can become a scoring PG
7. Cook gets healthy and can be an ACC-caliber starting PG

It would be REALLY nice if several of those things could happen so that we can improve our versatility and not be so much of a one-trick pony as we were this year (even though that trick was fairly effective for a while).

[duke79]

There are a few unique obstacles that are important to consider with Duke and Coach K's recruiting process.

1) Does the recruit have the grades/test scores to qualify academically? This alone I think eliminates a lot of players from being pursued.

2) Assuming they can get a player in academically, will they be able to cut it in the classroom once they are here and stay eligible to play?

3) Is the recruit willing to accept no guarantees of playing time, shots per game etc.? Are they a team player?.

4) Do they have baggage on or off the court to deal with. Basically are they a good person who is easy to get along with and WANTS to be coached by K and his staff. Do they have parents, family members, friends, AAU coaches , agent runners and others in their ear trying to maximize their draft status.

5) Do they WANT to come to Duke? There are simply some guys who would never come to Duke no matter what was offered to them. A lot of the negative stereotypes don't help I am sure. There's the whole Duke hate thing you know. The Fab Five documentary perpetuating the absurd uncle Tom myth. Duke can't develop big men etc., etc.,. Don't think coaches from other schools don't exploit these things.

The staff wants great players as much as we do I am sure. It is just not as simple as some may think.

Very valid points. I think the recruiting landscape has changed (and not for the better) when you're talking about recruiting the truly elite high school BB players - the ones who can step in and immediately produce at the highest levels of college bb and can make a college team compete for a NC. When I look at the rosters of Kentucky, UNC, Kansas, etc., how many of those players could qualify to be admitted to Duke (even at the much lower levels of standards that the BB player applicants must meet at Duke) or would even want to attend Duke. Let's face reality. Most of those kids are NOT going to college for the academics. The only thought on their mind is when can I get to the NBA and where will I be drafted and how much money will I make. We've already seen this trend at Duke (to a degree) with Kyrie and now with Austen. The truly talented players are not sticking around to get their Duke degree. I certainly don't blame Coach K, but I think it is going to be more difficult to recruit the type of players he will need to compete for NC's.

[Mudge]

I look at our team compared to UK, and I see the disparity pretty clearly. Kentucky has incredibly versatile players at the 2-4 spots on the floor. Jones can play either forward spot. Kidd-Gilchrest can play SG, SF, or PF. Miller can play SG or SF. Lamb off the bench can play PG, SG, SF. All five starters and their sixth man are capable of initiating transition offense once they get the ball (even Davis - the C).

It's that type of length, athleticism, and versatility that have been missing. This year, we had probably 3 players on the roster who had that type of length, athleticism, and versatility. One was Rivers. The other two were Murphy and Gbinije, but neither were apparently ready to contribute this year enough to oust the veteran wing players on the team. And while Rivers was versatile, he had his limitations too (couldn't play off the ball, couldn't distribute).

The rest of the team was pretty limited. The Plumlees were capable against bigs but lacked quickness and offensive polish. Kelly could shoot but struggled a lot against quicker players and didn't show much post game. Curry could shoot and occasionally drive but struggled against taller physical guards. Dawkins could shoot. Thornton could see the floor and was a great off-ball defender but struggled offensively. Cook showed offensive promise but was limited by height and perhaps lingering knee issues. And nobody outside of (occasionally) Rivers could consistently defend against dribble penetration.

The 2010 team was an anomaly, but only in that those senior bigs finally figured things out. We had defensive versatility at 4 spots with that team. We had offensive versatility from 3 players. We had no perimeter depth and thus were fortunate not to face adversity there, but the starters fit the ideals perfectly (tall, long, and defensively versatile). Had those guys figured it out a year or two earlier (and had we switched PG earlier as well), we might have made some tournament noise sooner.

I hope that some of the following things happen the next several months (in no particular order):
1. Gbinije and Murphy make big strides and emerge as key players
2a. We get Oriakhi (and he's eligible right away) to add athleticism and toughness in the absence of Miles and (presumably) Mason
2b. We get Mason back for his senior year
3. We get Zeigler (and he's eligible right away) Muhammad
4. Sulaimon is an impact player on the wing both offensively and defensively
5. Dawkins gets MUCH stronger with the ball and improves his focus and defense
6. Curry gets stronger with the ball and can become a scoring PG
7. Cook gets healthy and can be an ACC-caliber starting PG

It would be REALLY nice if several of those things could happen so that we can improve our versatility and not be so much of a one-trick pony as we were this year (even though that trick was fairly effective for a while).

I want all of those things too, and oh by the way (speaking of one-trick ponies), I want a pony for Christmas, too... but one question: Who is this Zeigler Muhammad guy, and is he really that good?

[CDu]

I want all of those things too, and oh by the way (speaking of one-trick ponies), I want a pony for Christmas, too... but one question: Who is this Zeigler Muhammad guy, and is he really that good?

I don't think any of those things are pipe dreams, so you can discard the "pony for Christmas" comments.

Sorry - I missed an "or" in there. Nice nitpick. I want either Zeigler or Muhammad, each of whom would provide a tall, athletic, tough, versatile wing player that we lacked this year. Fixed in my post, now.

[Matches]

When I look at the rosters of Kentucky, UNC, Kansas, etc., how many of those players could qualify to be admitted to Duke (even at the much lower levels of standards that the BB player applicants must meet at Duke) or would even want to attend Duke.

More than you think. I've had reason to be familiar with some of the HS grades, SATs etc of guys we have recruited, and academically they're not much different from those at other schools. So long as a recruit meets the NCAA's standards for admission, we'll let them in. The difference between Duke and some other schools is that we're much less likely than others to take chances on guys with questionable character (though with a few exceptions, UNC tends to shy away from those guys too). We will take academic chances but we tend to do so with high-character guys.

One problem we face is the rise of importance of AAU ball. SO many shady characters worming their way into these kids' lives at an early age these days, and "handlers" tend to direct kids toward schools with coaches they can control. Duke is not a preferred destination for a lot of these AAU guys (though to be fair, neither is UNC).

[Wander]

Shelden Williams is the last elite big man that Duke has had-- and he graduated in 2006-- not quite a decade, but still, far, far tooo long.

We have an elite big man on the roster right now, but we don't use him very well.

[COYS]

We have an elite big man on the roster right now, but we don't use him very well.

I disagree with the idea that Mason has gotten to the elite level. He's very good. However, even though I agree that we didn't get him the ball frequently enough, he has still not established himself as an elite offensive player. He has not reached anywhere close to the level of Shelden, Carlos, or Brand in his efficiency on the low block, even though he was much improved this year. When it comes to rebounding, Mason is perhaps superior to all those guys based simply on rebound rate. But his offensive ability is still a little raw and his movements still a little mechanical. We give Kendall Marshall a lot of credit for getting the ball to Zeller and others in a good position to score. But we also need to give credit to Zeller for being able to finish in a variety of ways to make those great passes turn into assists. I think Mason could definitely benefit from better passing into the post. But he would also have to improve his own offensive repertoire to become an elite scoring threat.

[CDu]

We have an elite big man on the roster right now, but we don't use him very well.

I'd say we have an occasionally elite big man, but one who is still very raw and thus very inconsistent. We haven't always used him well, but he also hasn't always made it easy to maximize his abilities.

[MaxAMillion]

We have an elite big man on the roster right now, but we don't use him very well.

You must be kidding. Duke doesn't have an elite big man on their roster. If they did he would be used properly. Coach K didn't all of a sudden become an idiot. Brand, Boozer, and Williams were elite big men and K made sure to get them the ball in the post routinely.

Look at most teams in college basketball and tell me how many of them have elite big men? You can count them on one hand. Most schools play offense just like Duke. They run lots of screens and picks to free up players and if that doesn't work they try and allow their players to slash to the basket. Coach K is not running some foreign offense that no one else uses.

If you are expecting Duke to have a roster like Kentucky then you are going to be disappointed every year. The standards that Duke uses to bring in players are not the same as a school like UK.

[Wander]

You must be kidding. Duke doesn't have an elite big man on their roster. If they did he would be used properly. Coach K didn't all of a sudden become an idiot. Brand, Boozer, and Williams were elite big men and K made sure to get them the ball in the post routinely.

It's not about coaching. You're making the same mistake that thousands of fans make every time they say something like "I don't understand why Roy wouldn't get the ball into Tyler Zeller for the last shot!" You need guards who are able to make solid entry passes and have good vision, and big men who put themselves in a position to receive said passes. And to be quite honest we were a pretty terrible passing team this year.

I'd say we have an occasionally elite big man, but one who is still very raw and thus very inconsistent. We haven't always used him well, but he also hasn't always made it easy to maximize his abilities.

You're probably right. But I can't get over how Mason went toe-to-toe with Sullinger and Robinson and shot 9-9 in the NCAA tournament. But I probably went a little too far.

[gumbomoop]

I will throw this one bone to Duke, on the deflating way that this season ended-- I kept hearing today that "it was a shame that Syracuse had to compete without Fab Melo, and that UNC had to compete without Kendall Marshall, and that Michigan State had to compete without one of their key players who went down with a knee injury recently, because those are all top-ranked teams that could have made a championship run, but for the loss of that one player"-- but not once did I hear anyone say that it was a shame that Duke lost Ryan Kelly just before the tournament started

On Sun eve [repeated several times overnight and this morn] College Gameday, Hubert Davis made exactly this - your - point. Now, clearly he was saying this in the immediate aftermath of Marshall's absence and UNC's defeat, but to be fair to his fairness, he said it was disappointing that 4 teams that might have gone far had to play without a key player. He specifically mentioned Duke/Kelly as that 4th team.

But the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Jay Bilas, on the "disappointment" theme, said the most disappointing team was Duke, and said, twice and pointedly, that Duke "didn't compete" as they could and should have. He was clearly calling out the effort v. Lehigh.

So, in the spirit of this thread, Bilas might be understood to have been asking, how did Duke's effort, in an NCAAT game, get to this point? I didn't much "like" the comment, but I can't deny that I was disappointed with the way Duke played against Lehigh. Although it's true that anything can happen in a one-and-out tourney, the quality of Duke's play was, yes, dispiriting.

Although I agree that...

The only thing people will remember in 10 years will be Austin's shot in the House That Dean Built.

.... I suspect we'll remember the way this season ended for a couple more years, and definitely until CTC in October.

[Matches]

You're making the same mistake that thousands of fans make every time they say something like "I don't understand why Roy wouldn't get the ball into Tyler Zeller for the last shot!" You need guards who are able to make solid entry passes and have good vision, and big men who put themselves in a position to receive said passes. And to be quite honest we were a pretty terrible passing team this year.

Very true, and a point that many have missed when dissecting our season. Often I think it's assumed that a perimeter-oriented team (as we were) will be a good passing team. Wasn't true of us. Our best passer was Cook who wasn't on the floor much. After that, it was probably... Kelly? Actually Mason is a pretty good passer, but it's not like he can feed himself in the post.

The rest of our guards are not very good passers. Hopefully that's an area where they can improve over the summer, although to some extent passing is an instinctual skill that's hard to teach.

[CDu]

You're probably right. But I can't get over how Mason went toe-to-toe with Sullinger and Robinson and shot 9-9 in the NCAA tournament. But I probably went a little too far.

Oh I certainly believe he has the ability to be elite. And there have definitely been times when he looked the part of elite. But even in that 9-9 game, Mason showed the limitations, committing four bad turnovers and looking a bit lost when the defense finally started doubling him.

I think Coach K wanted nothing more than to utilize Mason as an elite big man this year. But I think it was a combination of things that prevented it from happening, some of them on Mason (still not fully comfortable in the post and very few moves) and some not (inability/unwillingness of guards to properly feed him in the post).

[sporthenry]

If you think that Gbinje showed anything like what Henderson did as a freshman or that he is likely to end up as capable as Henderson, then you have a much better crystal ball than I... likewise, if you think that Gbinje shows the potential that Smith or even Kelly or Mason did as frosh, then again, you are a better seer than I... also, I am not one that was impressed with the contributions of Zoubek or Thomas as seniors, so those are not comparisons that give me much comfort-- those players depended heavily on much more skilled players around them, to make up for their shortcomings-- and I don't know yet whether Gbinje or Murphy or Marshall or Thornton or Hairston will have similarly skilled peers to rely on.

As for not being awe-inspiring, I think we can put that one to rest, by virtue of the fact that all season Duke was being dismissed as the highly ranked (and likely high-seeded) team most likely to lose early, with the alarmingly unintelligent Doug Gottlieb, Digger Phelps, Dick Vitale, and Jimmy Dykes all voicing the sentiment during the season that Duke would be ripe for a first-round upset, depending on the matchup, and whether Duke was making three-pointers. Notice how quickly, after the loss in the ACC tournament, Duke went from being a potential #1 seed, to the lowest ranked of the #2 seeds (paired with top seed Kentucky) in the estimation of the NCAA tournament committee... I don't think this Duke team struck much fear into opponents this year-- shock and awe was in short supply, when compared with the great Duke teams of the Coach K era.

No, I didn't really compare Gbinije to Henderson but showed that it is possible for players to develop after lackluster Freshman years. Henderson was a lottery pick so while I don't think Gbinije will get to that level, there is no reason he can't be an athletic wing. As far as Murphy, the kid was a senior in high school so why waste him on the bench for a year when he can red shirt and have 4 more years of eligibility. Lance Thomas is an NBA player and Zoubek was on his way until his injuries flared up. I think you discount their capabilities all b/c they didn't play much on a very deep team. Nolan Smith as a freshman probably wouldn't have played much on this team behind Dre, Curry, Rivers, or even TT as a Sophomore. K doesn't trust many Freshmen mainly from a defensive standpoint and unless you are a lottery pick whose offense will make up for its defense, the Quinn Cooks won't see the floor as long as they are defense liabilities.

And Duke was actually the #2 2 seed as they were 6th on the S-curve. They were given the South based on regional preference. Additionally, the talking heads at ESPN always have Duke as the first team ripe for an upset. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we shared the distinction of being the 1st #1 seed out in 2010 on an "alarmingly unathletic" team. When you start using Vitale (who said Detroit would win this year) or Gottlieb as an argument, I fail to see your point.

[gumbomoop]

[1] I think Coach K wanted nothing more than to utilize Mason as an elite big man this year. But I think it was a combination of things that prevented it from happening, some of them [2] on Mason (still not fully comfortable in the post and very few moves) and some not [3] (inability/unwillingness of guards to properly feed him in the post).

We posters disagree a lot. I'm wondering whether CDu here gives us an opportunity at overwhelming consensus, even unanimity.

Metaphorically, let's take a poll on these 3 points. To make it even more interesting, ask yourself whether you agree with every word in [1-3]. And don't piss me off by quibbling with something like "nothing more" in [1]. I'm watching you.

I agree with every word in [1-3]. So far it's unanimous.

[Duvall]

On Sun eve [repeated several times overnight and this morn]
.... I suspect we'll remember the way this season ended for a couple more years, and definitely until CTC in October.

I imagine that the players will - they only get so many chances at the NCAA tournament. Fans, less so.

[roywhite]

We posters disagree a lot. I'm wondering whether CDu here gives us an opportunity at overwhelming consensus, even unanimity.

Metaphorically, let's take a poll on these 3 points. To make it even more interesting, ask yourself whether you agree with every word in [1-3]. And don't piss me off by quibbling with something like "nothing more" in [1]. I'm watching you.

I agree with every word in [1-3]. So far it's unanimous.

Count me in. And disappointing that it didn't happen.

[_Gary]

Very true, and a point that many have missed when dissecting our season. Often I think it's assumed that a perimeter-oriented team (as we were) will be a good passing team. Wasn't true of us. Our best passer was Cook who wasn't on the floor much. After that, it was probably... Kelly? Actually Mason is a pretty good passer, but it's not like he can feed himself in the post.

The rest of our guards are not very good passers. Hopefully that's an area where they can improve over the summer, although to some extent passing is an instinctual skill that's hard to teach.

AMEN to all of this. While I'm with others in saying Mason is a very good, and on rare occasions played like an elite, big man, he didn't exactly have guards surrounding him that fed him the ball in the right place. Mason's athletic ability would have been an incredible asset this past season when coupled with a PG that could penetrate and either put the ball up on the rim and or dish off. I could see both Mason and Miles being monsters in that type of situation. But asking them to be solely traditional back to the basket bigs wasn't the way to utilize their natural talents. The only way to do that would be to have guards that could get out on the break well and penetrate in half-court sets. We just didn't have those type guards this year. I do think Quinn has the best shot at being that type of guard for us next year though.

[gumbomoop]

I imagine that the players will - they only get so many chances at the NCAA tournament. Fans, less so.

I probably wasn't quite as specific as I should have been. My phrase "we'll remember" was intended to refer to EK posters. My point was that we remember disappointing endings for awhile, bringing them up pretty regularly to prove this or that point about the [i.e., a future] team's flaws. So I'm thinking - unless Duke wins the NC for, say, 4 out of the next 6 years - more than one poster will refer to Lehigh for a few more years.

[_Gary]

Metaphorically, let's take a poll on these 3 points. To make it even more interesting, ask yourself whether you agree with every word in [1-3]. And don't piss me off by quibbling with something like "nothing more" in [1]. I'm watching you.

I agree with every word in [1-3]. So far it's unanimous.

Sorry, I was composing a post when you wrote this. I agree with every word as well, so add me to the list.