Results 1 to 17 of 17
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    20 Minutes From The Heaven That Is Cameron Indoor

    Coach K Clemson Post Game Presser

    Props to Troublemaker for finding the links. He posted them in the game thread but I felt the presser warranted its own thread. One of the things I will greatly miss when K retires is listening to the man speak. As usual, K handles himself well even in the face of adversity after a tough loss, though he did look very abnormally nervous at the beginning for some reason.

    Here are the links as the first one did not quite catch all of it.
    Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTGh0gYQxuk

    Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cu7OMHqLIg

    He touches on what I feel is one of, if not, the key issue with the team right now. That being, since we are a small team, that is not going to get bigger, we have to overcome that by excelling in other area's, which as of right now, we are not doing.

    A couple of highlights from the presser:
    - states bluntly that as of right now, we are not a good team, with the bar being past Duke teams
    - says the kids don't understand that when they watch tape of say Clemson vs FSU from Thursday night, that is not the crowd, atmosphere, or effort they will play against when they roll into Littlejohn. "they didn't have any pom poms in the crowd against FSU Thursday night"
    -Pointed out that the game turned on 3 key plays, one being the second chance And-1 NNocko got against Jabari, and the 2 three's from the other kid that rarely scores
    -Pointed out that had we been playing well on offense and hitting shots we normally hit, we could have overcome the energy, and attacking the Tigers were bringing on the other end.

    It's worth the time to click and listen. No references to "BB Guns", no "Not in the Dadgum Christmas spirit", no "Fricks or Frickins"

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Deeetroit City
    Quote Originally Posted by Newton_14 View Post
    ... Here are the links as the first one did not quite catch all of it.
    Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTGh0gYQxuk

    Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cu7OMHqLIg

    He touches on what I feel is one of, if not, the key issue with the team right now. That being, since we are a small team, that is not going to get bigger ...

    A couple of highlights from the presser:
    - states bluntly that as of right now, we are not a good team, ..."
    Did he mention that we COULD get bigger by playing a guy 7' tall?

    Did he touch on whether the coaching was up to the standard set by past Duke teams?

  3. #3
    No Fricks or Frickin'?!

    What's the point then? That we have a coach who knows what's going on, will work to correct it and won't make lame excuses just to pander to the idiot national sports media?

    Ok then, guess it was well worth the time to watch the link. Yeah.

  4. #4
    Why is the team not physically strong? Do they work out?

  5. #5

    Lightbulb Let's get physical . . .

    Quote Originally Posted by nyesq83 View Post
    Why is the team not physically strong? Do they work out?
    You know, I started off intending to get all sarcastic here. But you (indirectly) raise a really good point, to wit, Clemson is NOT a really big team. Using the data from their official team site, it would seem that (of players who actually played major minutes) Nkoko is the only one who actually qualifies as bigger than any of our players who played big minutes. Nkoko is 6' 10" and weighs about 250; that's not exactly Shaq. Nkoko scored 10 points in 25 minutes. Not like he beat us singlehandedly. But he and Blossomgame combined for 27 rebounds. Our whole team got 30. That is the one stat from this game that just jumps out at me. They combined for 10 offensive rebounds; our whole team got 8. I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say that when 2 guys outrebound your whole team you're probably NOT going to win.

    Josh Smith is a fairly big fellow, at 6' 8" and 260, but he only played 10 minutes and did not score. Bear in mind that McDaniels and Blossomgame did most of the damage, combining for 38 points. McDaniels is 6' 6" and 200 and Blossomgame is 6' 7" and 215. These dudes are not giants. They are not bigger or "longer" than Parker and Hood (or Hairston or Jefferson either). Whether they are more talented is a separate issue. And as you point out: if they are empirically stronger than our players, whose fault is that? This whole ESPN-inspired bogeyman about Duke players being "unathletic" or not "big" or "strong" is really starting to annoy me. I hope that Coach K has not bought into it, but I'm starting to wonder. Rather than lament this situation if it exists, a more productive approach might be to take the wild, crazy step of actually recruiting a POWER FORWARD to assist in the aforementioned rebounding effort. I'm given to understand that many of the other teams have them nowadays.

    Look, the bottom line is Coach K has forgotten more about basketball than I'll ever know. So I have to believe this was just one of those "impromptu" press conference statements made after a really disappointing road loss. At this point I don't believe it's Coach K who needs to be doing the soul searching. It's the players.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Durham
    Quote Originally Posted by nyesq83 View Post
    Why is the team not physically strong? Do they work out?
    i feel like LMFAO might know the answer to this one....
    1200. DDMF.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    20 Minutes From The Heaven That Is Cameron Indoor
    Quote Originally Posted by trinity79 View Post
    You know, I started off intending to get all sarcastic here. But you (indirectly) raise a really good point, to wit, Clemson is NOT a really big team. Using the data from their official team site, it would seem that (of players who actually played major minutes) Nkoko is the only one who actually qualifies as bigger than any of our players who played big minutes. Nkoko is 6' 10" and weighs about 250; that's not exactly Shaq. Nkoko scored 10 points in 25 minutes. Not like he beat us singlehandedly. But he and Blossomgame combined for 27 rebounds. Our whole team got 30. That is the one stat from this game that just jumps out at me. They combined for 10 offensive rebounds; our whole team got 8. I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say that when 2 guys outrebound your whole team you're probably NOT going to win.

    Josh Smith is a fairly big fellow, at 6' 8" and 260, but he only played 10 minutes and did not score. Bear in mind that McDaniels and Blossomgame did most of the damage, combining for 38 points. McDaniels is 6' 6" and 200 and Blossomgame is 6' 7" and 215. These dudes are not giants. They are not bigger or "longer" than Parker and Hood (or Hairston or Jefferson either). Whether they are more talented is a separate issue. And as you point out: if they are empirically stronger than our players, whose fault is that? This whole ESPN-inspired bogeyman about Duke players being "unathletic" or not "big" or "strong" is really starting to annoy me. I hope that Coach K has not bought into it, but I'm starting to wonder. Rather than lament this situation if it exists, a more productive approach might be to take the wild, crazy step of actually recruiting a POWER FORWARD to assist in the aforementioned rebounding effort. I'm given to understand that many of the other teams have them nowadays.

    Look, the bottom line is Coach K has forgotten more about basketball than I'll ever know. So I have to believe this was just one of those "impromptu" press conference statements made after a really disappointing road loss. At this point I don't believe it's Coach K who needs to be doing the soul searching. It's the players.
    I think you both are overthinking the comment and missing the context. I could be wrong, but I took him to mean that we don't have many 6'10 250 pound 'bruisers" on this team, or more appropriately, in our current rotations of players that play, which we don't. Jabari is a big guy, (as is MP3, but he does not play enough to matter in this discussion), but outside of Jabari, none of our guys are big, strong dudes. Some have height, length, and athleticism, but are not what I would term as physical players. Amile, Rodney, Andre, are all athletic with good length. None are physical beasts. Josh is physical, but is only 6'7.

    I haven't heard any talking head state this year's team is "unathletic". Of the players that actually play, only Josh, Tyler, and to a lesser extent, Jabari, are what I would deem "physical" players.

    That said, any kid that steps on the court can be scrappy, and fight like crazy. Also, a smaller guy can effectively box out a bigger guy in most situations. Our guys are going to have to be a lot more scrappy, and fight a lot harder on defense and in the paint.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by trinity79 View Post
    Rather than lament this situation if it exists, a more productive approach might be to take the wild, crazy step of actually recruiting a POWER FORWARD to assist in the aforementioned rebounding effort. I'm given to understand that many of the other teams have them nowadays.
    So your take on us losing a couple games is to criticize Coach K's recent recruiting efforts?

    According to RSCI, in the last ten years, Duke has had six top 5 classes and 9 top 10 classes (the one that missed was ranked #11). Three of our past four classes (including the current freshman (2013 class) and the upcoming 2014 class) have been top 5. And at least some of those recruits have been PFs, including Jabari Parker.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    Dallas, TX
    Quote Originally Posted by Newton_14 View Post
    I think you both are overthinking the comment and missing the context. I could be wrong, but I took him to mean that we don't have many 6'10 250 pound 'bruisers" on this team, or more appropriately, in our current rotations of players that play, which we don't. Jabari is a big guy, (as is MP3, but he does not play enough to matter in this discussion), but outside of Jabari, none of our guys are big, strong dudes. Some have height, length, and athleticism, but are not what I would term as physical players. Amile, Rodney, Andre, are all athletic with good length. None are physical beasts. Josh is physical, but is only 6'7.

    I haven't heard any talking head state this year's team is "unathletic". Of the players that actually play, only Josh, Tyler, and to a lesser extent, Jabari, are what I would deem "physical" players.

    That said, any kid that steps on the court can be scrappy, and fight like crazy. Also, a smaller guy can effectively box out a bigger guy in most situations. Our guys are going to have to be a lot more scrappy, and fight a lot harder on defense and in the paint.
    I disagree that Jabari is a physical player. He's big and strong, but that doesn't make him physical by default. To this point, he's proven to be unwilling to mix it up down low when fighting for position, on both ends. He's much more comfortable facing up and shooting over the top of a defender than aggressively back someone down in the post and try to get a post score. And as many have pointed out, he does a poor job fighting for rebounds. If he boxed out more effectively wanted it a little bit more, he could easily average a double double. The kid is huge and he's ridiculously skilled, but he is not a scrapper. If he had Thorton's demeanor, he'd be just as good a as rebounder Julius Randle.

    I'm not trying to say this is all Jabari's fault. He's already being asked to do WAY more than a freshman can ever be expected to. Just pointing out that I probably wouldn't consider him a "physical" player.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Quote Originally Posted by trinity79 View Post
    Rather than lament this situation if it exists, a more productive approach might be to take the wild, crazy step of actually recruiting a POWER FORWARD to assist in the aforementioned rebounding effort. I'm given to understand that many of the other teams have them nowadays.
    Have you heard of a guy named Julius Randle? Duke recruited him heavily for a very long time, and was very much in contention for his services until it became apparent that it was not going to be possible to get both Randle and Jabari Parker.

    Duke also recruited Austin Nichols very hard, as well as Marcus Lee. Both are PF's also from the Class of 2013, and both were ranked in the Top 20 of the class. So that's 4 top power forwards among the consensus top 20 players in the nation that we recruited, and we got the one many consider to be the best of the bunch.

    The previous class, Class of 2012, we heavily recruited the top PF, Alex Poythress, and were in good shape to get him until a very strange little incident caused us to have to back off. The next two in line, Brandon Ashley and DaJuan Coleman, we didn't recruit, because Ashley wasn't leaving the west coast and Coleman was dialed into Syracuse early. The next two in line, Tony Parker and Mitch McGary, we recruited extremely hard, and just didn't get either one.

    You can complain about missing on recruits if you want -- although even that would be misplaced given the extremely high level of recruiting success we've had -- but you can't complain we haven't been recruiting the top kids in the nation at this position.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by BD80 View Post
    Did he mention that we COULD get bigger by playing a guy 7' tall?

    Did he touch on whether the coaching was up to the standard set by past Duke teams?
    This! In spades! I'm just shocked at hearing Coach K in that presser say so a-matter-a-factly that we are a small team. Yeah, but only because of the rotations that he himself has chosen! We don't have to be that small. Jabari doesn't have to play the opposing team's larger center. Neither does Amile. At least not all the time. We've got Marshall. Heck, we've got Semi too. Both those guys can certainly bang around with the big boys. There's just no reason why we are playing somewhat out of position in the 2-5 spot on the court. It's not rocket science. If we play both Cook and Thorton in the backcourt we are probably losing the height and strength battle, and possibly the quickness battle as well. If we start playing Rasheed and/or Dawkins at the 3, then they are also at a serious height and most likely strength disadvantage. Then we end up putting Hood at the 4, when he's more naturally a 3. And Parker at the 5 when we all know darn good and well he's a natural 3/4, but not a 5. It's just killed us in matchups on several occasions this year. Until Coach decides to make some kind of adjustment that doesn't put us in serious height/strength deficits on the defensive end, we'll continue to get our butts kicked in the paint. I fully expect to see a huge change in the next game. I'm not sure what it will be, but I can't imagine we'll stick with what we have right now.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    North Carolina
    Quote Originally Posted by Gary View Post
    This! In spades! I'm just shocked at hearing Coach K in that presser say so a-matter-a-factly that we are a small team. Yeah, but only because of the rotations that he himself has chosen! We don't have to be that small. Jabari doesn't have to play the opposing team's larger center. Neither does Amile. At least not all the time. We've got Marshall. Heck, we've got Semi too. Both those guys can certainly bang around with the big boys. There's just no reason why we are playing somewhat out of position in the 2-5 spot on the court. It's not rocket science. If we play both Cook and Thorton in the backcourt we are probably losing the height and strength battle, and possibly the quickness battle as well. If we start playing Rasheed and/or Dawkins at the 3, then they are also at a serious height and most likely strength disadvantage. Then we end up putting Hood at the 4, when he's more naturally a 3. And Parker at the 5 when we all know darn good and well he's a natural 3/4, but not a 5. It's just killed us in matchups on several occasions this year. Until Coach decides to make some kind of adjustment that doesn't put us in serious height/strength deficits on the defensive end, we'll continue to get our butts kicked in the paint. I fully expect to see a huge change in the next game. I'm not sure what it will be, but I can't imagine we'll stick with what we have right now.
    In my opinion K is sending a very strong message to Marshall and it's not a good one for him!

  13. Quote Originally Posted by BD80 View Post
    Did he mention that we COULD get bigger by playing a guy 7' tall?

    Did he touch on whether the coaching was up to the standard set by past Duke teams?
    I think he did regarding the latter.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Deeetroit City
    Quote Originally Posted by ice-9 View Post
    I think he did regarding the latter.
    What did he say about this year's coaching (sincere question, which is admittedly out of character for me)?

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by BD80 View Post
    What did he say about this year's coaching (sincere question, which is admittedly out of character for me)?
    He said something along the lines of, "This team is not very good right now...that includes everybody, including me." Didn't specifically say "coaching stinks" - just that we win together and we lose together, no excuses. And coaching is certainly a part of the "team." I thought it was a good presser - K always impresses with his insight and humility. Also, he's able to balance congratulating the other team and giving them heavy praise, while speaking to his own team's shortcomings without making excuses and without throwing guys under the bus like some other coaches I know..."We play hard, effort is there" he basically said. Just haven't executed.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Deeetroit City
    Quote Originally Posted by Bluedog View Post
    ... Just haven't executed.
    Ahh. The good ol' days. Just one execution would get the guys focused in practice

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by BD80 View Post
    Ahh. The good ol' days. Just one execution would get the guys focused in practice
    Ha, also to be fair, I guess Coach K said it's more than just lack of execution. It's also that we're not a physically strong team.

Similar Threads

  1. MBB: Duke 68, Clemson 40 Post-Game Thread
    By pfrduke in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 72
    Last Post: 01-09-2013, 05:45 PM
  2. Replies: 2
    Last Post: 03-26-2011, 08:55 AM
  3. Calhoun gets hot at post-game presser
    By calltheobvious in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 45
    Last Post: 02-25-2009, 02:44 AM
  4. Coach K presser live today
    By duketaylor in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 10-17-2008, 08:39 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •