Originally Posted by
SilkyJ
I am of the opinion (I'm sure I'm not the only one) that K is adjusting his philosophy a little b/c of early entries to the L. We were spoiled for a while as literally no one EVER left Duke early until the exodus of '99. I think K was assuming that he would get 3-4 years out of just about everyone, which would mean he would only have to "reload" every couple of years, and in between just recruit one or two kids:
97 Brand, Burgess, Battier, Avery
98 Maggette
99 Jwill, boozer, dun
00 Duhon
01 Ewing
02 JJ, Sheld, M thompson, Lee Melch, Dock
03 Deng, and Humphries who didn't make it
04 DMarc and Mcclure, and Livingston who didn't make it
Then when Humphries and livingston didn't make it and deng left after one year k realized this could easily turn into a pattern, and therefore a problem. So he changes his philosophy up and is just going to reload every year, or at least more often:
05 Greg, Josh, Marty, Jamal, Boateng
06 Scheyer, Gerald, Zoubek, Lance
07 Singler, King, Smith, hopefully PP
Anyway, I believe that this is the reason we haven't won since '01, and people are all over Coach K. You've got to imagine that if we had Deng playing with JJ and sheld for 2 more seasons we would have had a good shot.
The game has changed and Coach K is adjusting and we have to hope his new philosophy will work. And since we're talking about one of the greatest coaches of all time, I see no reason why you would bet against him.