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  1. #81
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    New York City

    The Most Perplexing Thing About the End of the Season to Me

    I think for most of us it was an earlier than expected end to what for the most part was a great season for Duke, one in which the team exceeded some expectations we had at the beginning, and then failed to meet the fairly reasonable expectations we had at the end of the season based on how the team played during the course of the season (after the UNC win, it was not unreasonable to think this team could win the ACC tournament and reach the final four or at least the elite 8).

    However, I think we all knew that Duke had weaknesses that had yet to be exposed, in large part due to the masterful job K did in sculpting this team around the skills and weapons he had. Ultimately those weaknesses were exposed and unfortunately they were the key things you need to have IMO to make a deep ncaa tourney run:

    1. frontcourt size/rebounding
    2. athletic point guard who can create scoring opportunities by penetration and or passing and who can defend against those. (For all of Paulus's heart, toughness, leadership and outside shooting, this is simply a weakness we had trouble overcoming against NCAA caliber teams. The teams that beat us - Miami, Wake, Clemson, Pitt, UNC and the teams that almost did, NCSU, Marquette, Belmont, Davidson - exploited that.)
    3. balanced scoring - ability to score from outside the arc and in the paint

    I think the fourth key is three point shooting - offense and defense. Obviously at points during the season we were outstanding on both sides of the three point equation. Unfortunately on Saturday we were not.

    Given all of the above, I am not shocked we didn't survive past the first weekend of the NCAA, although I admit it is tough to stomach how a team with so much talent - 8 McD's is a LOT of talent - could struggle against a 15 seed (illnesses or not). What does shock me about the end of the season (and by the end I mean the last 10 games or so) is this:

    20 games into the season, many of us were talking/posting about how this team played with so much heart, frequently looked like the stronger, fresher and more determined team in the second half and in tight games made winning plays and won the type of games that we didn't win last year.

    I'm talking about the type of play you need to win a NCAA championship - last five minutes of the game down 2 or up 3, down 4 or up 5 - those kinds of situations. These are the kinds of situations that UCLA has excelled in all year (last five minutes against Texas A&M is a perfect example). It's UNC's play down the stretch against Clemson in the ACC championship game. Or against us in the regular season finale. Kansas's against Texas in the Big 12 championship game. Pitt's against us in NYC.

    How did all that turn seemingly on a dime at the end of the season? We made furious comebacks against Miami and NCSU but we just didn't have IT the last 10 games of the year. The last five minutes of the UNC game at Cameron epitomize what I saw as the difference in the team at the end of the year. WHY? What changed? I don't know but this is what I find so perplexing. At halftime against WVU we were up 5. The first half of the season we owned the second half of games. What happened at the end of the year? I am sure some people will say fatigue. Some people will say that Singler was the cornerstone of the team and when his play sagged so did ours. But there has to be more to it. Other players got better as the season hit the homestretch - Zoubek, Scheyer and Paulus played better in the second half (not that Paulus and Scheyer didn't play well in the first half, they just continued to improve). Henderson was outstanding in the NCAA tournament.

    I am curious what others' opinions are because there was a noticeable loss of second half and end of game toughness that I can't find any obvious explanation for.

    [Sorry for the long post]
    Singler is IRON

    I STILL GOT IT! -- Ryan Kelly, March 2, 2013

  2. #82
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post

    I was also really wrong on Paulus. He is a great 3 point shooter, and he really cut down his turnovers, and he is tough as nails, but he is very weak in all other areas and did not excel in an open court game. He is a huge liability as a defender on the ball (a key to Duke's D) and he does not create anything for the team on offense as he can't drive and doesn't distribute like I thought he would (where is all the creativity we saw from his freshman year?). Unfortunately, he is not a top tier Div 1 PG.
    You are aware he was All-ACC this season, right? The notion that he is not a top tied Division 1 PG is ludicrous and insulting. I do agree that he is not the creator many had expected he would become. I too wonder what became of the guy we saw as a freshman. He seemed far more daring going into the lane when he had JJ and Shelden on the team than he does now. The pity is that I actually think we have more weapons now than we did then.

    Still, I think your criticism of Paulus is overly harsh and it is meaningless anyway. He will be a senior captain next season and is a huge part of K's plans for the team. That may not suit you, but it is unrealistic to expect K to throw Paulus under the bus next season, at least that is my view.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    Some people are saying the guys choked and were scared, and you know what, aside from Henderson and maybe Scheyer they were. But hard to blame them as they had so little NCAA experience among the group. Demarcus had it as did Paulus, but they were at best 4th and 5th fiddle to JJ, Shelden, McRoberts, etc. So this team go forward will really benefit from these 2 games this year.
    Really? Choked and were scared? I have read a lot of posts but I missed the ones that said the team was scared. I am not sure I buy that. These guys played a lot of big games this year and plenty of them played big games last year. I don't think the NCAAs were so foreign to these guys that it made them tighten up.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    Teams they do well in the NCAA generally have NCAA experience.
    Yeah, like Georgetown (they went to the Final Four last year) or Oregon (they made last year's Elite Eight) or Vandy (last year's Sweet 16 who came within an eyelast of beating Georgetown and going to the Elite 8) or Pitt (Sw 16 last year) or USC (also Sw 16 last year).

    Wisconsin was upset big time (they were a #2 seed) in the 2nd round last year so they did not get much experience but they are doing fine this year. Stanford was a first round casualty a year ago but they are still around this year. Western Kentucky did not even make the NCAAs last season. Davidson and Villanova were first round casualties.

    I have a hard time finding any evidence that last year's NCAA results have a meaningful effect on this year's results. Sorry.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    I also think it is very fair to criticize coach K for this game. I know DBR will never say anything bad about coach K, but he has a reputation for being a great recruiter, great motivator, great leader, and a great guy to put a team's unique approach and game plan together, but also the reputation for being stubborn and a little weak on the Xs and Os (see Uconn 1999, 2004). He should have told the team to attack the basket, period. Shooting and missing 3 after 3 after 3 was not helpful. The team was tight and not hitting.
    Ummm, they were attacking the basket but they were missing those shots too. It is not like Duke just stood around on the perimeter missing 3s. We were driving and kicking or driving and shooting, exactly the way we have done all season long. Did you really watch that game and think we were not attacking the basket?

    Demarcus Nelson was 2-for-8 on non-3pointers. What do you think those shots were, pull-up 15-footers? He was going hard to the bucket all game long, it just wasn't falling for him (or for anyone else).

    I also think fans feel the losing coach almost always got outcoached. I think K did some brilliant things in this game, not least of which was using David McClure much more than he had been used in months. David was stellar on Alexander in the first half and at times in the 2nd too. I think K was smart to recognize that WVa's small lineup was a very poor matchup for Zoubek and only use the big fella a little bit in this game. I think K saw we were getting open looks pretty easily so he went to King a bit more than usual in the hope that King would find his stroke and save us. It did not work out, but K tried some adjustments. Sadly, he had no adjustment that would save us from a game where no one, not a single guy on the team, could hit a wide open shot from the perimeter.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    They need to give up on Paulus. He is going to be a senior and he is never going to take the team anywhere. He needs to be a bench player who can play both the 1 and 2. It gives them great versatility. Kind of like the baseball team that has the veteran back-up that can play short and 2nd base.
    As I said earlier, the odds that K "gives up on Paulus" are close to zero. I think your first two lines of the above paragraph are pretty darn insulting too.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    Give up on Zoubek. HE WILL NEVER BE GOOD. PERIOD. 7-1 guys who are robotic, slow, with zero athleticsm are never good, and they just bog down the team D and O (someone had a great post on this). Take all of his minutes and give them to the younger guys so they can develop. He does not Duke at all and belongs in the Ivy league at best.
    First of all, Zoubek is not "robotic, slow, with zero athleticism." He showed many moments of strong play this year and that was despite missing serious time with injuries. I think many Duke fans, many fans on this board at least, feel that playing Zoubek more, not less, is essential to Duke's success next season. Many folks think he should have played more this season, though I think the injury really prevented that.

    Your line about him belonging in the Ivy league is just plain laughable. Ivy league stiffs do not put up 8 points and 6 rebounds in 20 minutes against a very strong Clemson front-line. If you ever had any credibility as a basketball analyst, you just lost it. I am eager for next season when I think Zoubek will continue to prove you wrong.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    I would also give up on McClure. He is going to be a senior and is a role player, so doesn't make since to invest in him go forward.

    I would also give up on Marty. He has upside, but only 1 year left and he couldn't play D before, so doubt this changes.
    You are just plain rude. These guys are part of our team and deserve your respect. By the way, your grammar freaking stunk in that 2nd line about McClure. You show no sign of being able to fix it so I suggest we give up on you.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    We should be building for a run in 2010, and hope to get lucky in 2009.
    I'll tell K and the guys not to bother with next season, ok?

    You are aware that Duke is virtually certain to be preseason top 5 or so next season, right? But BostonDukie thinks we have no chance so lets just forget about that year.

    As an aside, there is a very real chance that kids like Henderson and perhaps Singler will not stick around until 2010 if they have break-out years as many folks expect next season. Maybe we should try to win now, not just planning for 2 or 3 years in the future.

    I could pick apart the rest of your post piece by piece but I have spent too much time on this so I am done.

    I really wrestled with just deleting your post and citing you with insane and trolling to make you go away forever. Your comments about a number of Duke players were (again) rude and mean-spirited and certainly destructively negative if not a troll. I guess maybe the fact that you appear to have put a lot of time into your post is the only thing that made me chose the course of refutation versus deletion.

    The folks who wonder what kind of posts the moderators delete, now you know. This is actually a very tame example of some of the stuff we remove. I cannot fathom how anyone could think that suggesting that Duke "give up on" about half the current team is something constructive.

    --Jason "my blood is boiling so much right now... BostonDukie, you are officially on a super-short leash" Evans

  3. #83
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    Quote Originally Posted by duke.kahanamoku View Post
    Who are the top big man coaches in college hoops and what are their backgrounds? Do many have personal experience in the big man game? Have any come from a point guard role?
    Pete Newell is the best big man coach ever... EVER! It is not even close. Ask any knowledgeable basketball fan about this and you will get the same answer.

    Pete Newell is 6-2.

    --Jason "as an aside, Duke's best big man coach was probably Pete Gaudet, who is also not tall (though I am not sure his actual height)" Evans

  4. #84
    The thing that stings the most for me, personally:

    If Duke had been perfect from the free throw line (I KNOW, I KNOW...) they would have won by 2 points. Ugh. I can't stand statistics like those.

  5. #85

    Gaudet

    Jason,

    Thanks for the tip- so I looked into the period when Gaudet was here coaching the big men (notes below)

    So what do you think about Wojo as big man coach vs. coaching in another area such as point guards? Do you think he has already become an effective big man coach and deserves a lot of credit for Shelden, Boozer, etc? Wouldn't he have a big advantage coaching the guards over the big men? Is it just a matter of other Duke coaches also having strong guard skills and causing Wojo to focus elsewhere?

    Gaudet's years were characterized by the following players:

    - Christian Laettner
    - Danny Ferry
    - Ala Abdelnaby
    - Cherokee Parks
    - Jay Bilas

    Obviously a pretty good group of players, perhaps owing in significant part to Gaudet's coaching.

    ---
    Gaudet's bio: http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Vie...ATCLID=1057428

    Gaudet's Coaching Career
    May 2005 - present Ohio State Video Coordinator
    April 2002 - May 2005 Ohio State Women’s Assistant Coach
    Sept. 1999 - April 2002 Vanderbilt Women’s Assistant Coach
    1996-98 Vanderbilt Men’s Assistant Coach
    1994-95 Duke Men’s Interim Head Coach (during K absence)
    1983-95 Duke Men’s Assistant Coach
    1982-83 AlArabi (Kuwait) Club Team Men’s Head Coach
    1980-82 Army Men’s Head Coach
    1975-80 Army Men’s Assistant Coach
    1971-75 Dartmouth (Mass.) Men’s HS Head Coach
    1970-71 Bentley College Men’s Assistant Coach
    1968-70 Westford Academy (Mass.), Men’s HS Head Coach

    Pete Newell bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Newell

  6. #86
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Durham
    Agreed. By the time Duke walked off the court in Chapel Hill on February 6th, I was convinced we could play with and beat anyone in the nation (and we could). 2 weeks later, I went to the Duke-Miami game in Coral Gables and couldn't recognize our team. By the time we played Clemson in the ACC Tourney, I wasn't very confident at all. Duke's had some late season collapses (3 years in a row now) but this was the worst, IMO, because it was only a month ago that this team was on fire. They teased us with a 12-game win streak, starting 10-0 in the ACC and showing how good we could be then disappeared, never to be seen again.

    To me, the head-scratcher was how this team swore up and down that they felt great and were fresh only show up in Charlotte and DC looking flat out tired. The flu is the easy answer (not that I don't believe it) but we didn't have the flu last year or in '06 when we lost to LSU.

    It's damn hard to win a NC and sometimes Duke fans (myself included) think it's easier than it really is. But these past 3 years all constitute "early knockout" status and it's becoming a trend; a trend which is ulitmately the most perplexing to me as a Duke fan...

  7. #87

    Wow - Thin Skin

    Rather than go tit for tat on every place where we disagree, I will focus on where we agree to be constructive.

    So here is where I agree:

    1) Coach K did a brilliant job in the game using McClure on D - I talked to a lot of fans before the game, and people wondered whether K would do this and how well it would work

    2) I agree with all the examples you gave of teams with NCAA experience who lost early, they are correct - the problem is you do not do a statistical analysis using 5 random data points to draw a conclusion. Sample size matters. For reference see the work at Basketball Prospectus (the best fact based analyzers of basketball going imo) on exactly the topic of NCAA experience and NCAA tournament success. There is also a writer for EPSNinsider (name escapes me) who did a similar analysis on tournament success predictability, and his conclusion was identical - coach and team experience matter and are one of the important predictors of success

    3) Agree Paulus will be the captain and will start - just because K is going to do something, doesn't mean I have to agree, nor does it mean it is the right thing to do. Coach K also had Trajan try to take Ricky Moore (the best on ball defender in college b-ball at the time) off the dribble to create his own shot in the 1999 NCAA championship game when he had Elton Brand sitting down low. He has a history of loyalty to more tenured players, and he is right it is great for relationships, but not always right for winning (see also Wojo trying to gaurd Wayne Turner in 1998). Coach K was shredded for these things through-out the press coverage

    4) Agree Duke will be Top 5 pre-season next year - the problem is that this is not college football, and polls do not matter. The games are played in March to determine the winners. Early season polls or success mean nothing. Duke was pre-season Top 5 (#1) in 2006 and they lost in the Sweet 16. Manh more examples

    5) Agree Paulus was 3rd team all ACC this season. That is about right, with some generosity for tenure. So he was the 3rd best PG (as a junior) in the ACC. Take the 10 major conferences, and extrapolate. Pull the best guys from the mid-majors (Belmont for one) that are better than Paulus, that puts him at somewhere like 30th best PG in the country. Is that an elite Div 1 PG? Can the 30th best PG in the country win a NC? Would they be considered elite?

    6) Agree Henderson and Singler could leave, but I think Singler stays as he will struggle in the NBA as a tweener right now, and Henderson's family is wealthy so he has time to work on his game with less pressure than most guys. Plus if the team is solid next year, and the prospect of an elite big man recruit joining the team is sitting there, I think they would stay

    7) Agree you should give up on my grammar. I have a job and a life, and can't spend it posting and editing. If I spend more than 3 minutes on this board a week, that is too much


    The only place I want to disagree is on Zoubek. I have said all along that people were way out of touch with how good he is or could be. My wife's family is from Haddonfield NJ, and I went to see him in highschool multiple times as did her family. He was the same in highscool against much lesser competition that he is now. Do you remember the movie "One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest"? Remember the basketball game where they just through the ball up to chief and he was so tall he shot over everyone? That was Zoubek in highschool. He had a tremendous height advantage that he used well.

    I also think your comments are hugely insulting to the Ivy league players (must defend since I went their undergrad). There are plenty of players in the Ivy league every bit as good (or better) than Zoubek. And yes, guys in the Ivy league do put up equivalent numbers to what Zoubek did against Clemson - just look at the box scores for Penn, Princeton, and Cornell (this year) against ACC caliber teams over the last 5 years. It was only 3 years ago (I beleive) that one of Princeton's big men shredded Duke.

    I had a similar nasty response to a post last year, where I said Henderson would (and should) start over Scheyer, Zoubek would disappoint, and Scheyer was not at the top of any NBA draft boards. As of right now, all of these things are true (ESPNinsider has fantasy draft boards for this year and next, as do any of the good NBA sites).

    No one has ever come back to me and said "you were right, I was wrong", sorry I was so aggressive and condescending in my reply

    Feel free to read all my old posts

    I came on here and admitted where my predictions were wrong in the past to start my other post, and I just you will be willing to do the same next year concerning this back and forth

  8. #88
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by duke.kahanamoku View Post
    Jason,

    Thanks for the tip- so I looked into the period when Gaudet was here coaching the big men (notes below)

    So what do you think about Wojo as big man coach vs. coaching in another area such as point guards? Do you think he has already become an effective big man coach and deserves a lot of credit for Shelden, Boozer, etc? Wouldn't he have a big advantage coaching the guards over the big men? Is it just a matter of other Duke coaches also having strong guard skills and causing Wojo to focus elsewhere?

    Most coaches around the country were former guards, including those who work with bigs. The whole Wojo-as-big-man-coach thing is a red herring.

  9. #89
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    I had a similar nasty response to a post last year, where I said Henderson would (and should) start over Scheyer, Zoubek would disappoint, and Scheyer was not at the top of any NBA draft boards. As of right now, all of these things are true (ESPNinsider has fantasy draft boards for this year and next, as do any of the good NBA sites).

    No one has ever come back to me and said "you were right, I was wrong", sorry I was so aggressive and condescending in my reply

    Feel free to read all my old posts

    I came on here and admitted where my predictions were wrong in the past to start my other post, and I just you will be willing to do the same next year concerning this back and forth
    No one on this board said Scheyer would be "at the top of NBA draft boards" after his sophomore season. I've repeatedly said he's an NBA lock. It's a fact. Unlike you, I don't read ESPNInsider fantasy draft boards. I talk to people in the league. They've all told me he's a lock. Deal with it.

    Thin skin? No. What you should worry about is about the thin ice upon which you are standing right now. You've already received one citation for your incredibly destructively negative comments about Zoubek and Paulus. Do you want to continue down that road? Do you feel better by lashing out at players and saying that we should "give up" on them?

  10. #90

    NBA Draft Boards

    I am just trying to to be balanced - we cannot simply put our blue glasses on and say everything is great about everything. There is a ton of super negative postings and articles on here about many topics (see Ivy league players in Jason's most recent post), but even the slightest bit of balanced evaluation RE Duke (henderson, singler, scheyer, smith, king, demarcus, Lance, etc. are good and Zoubek is not) and people go off the deep end.

    BTW, this is the same ridiculous thing you posted last time on the NBA draft issue.

    "I Jumbo talk to people inside the NBA, but the guy who posts the ESPN Insider NBA draft board who spends his time in NBA locker rooms, and the tunnels during the game does not"

    Makes sense to me - they probably talk to zero NBA GMs and front office guys and just make it up

    If people don't perfectly agree with your point of view, I always find the best solution is to be super condescending and aggressive and then when that doesn't shut them up, attempt to block their ability express their opinion entirely

  11. #91
    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    Well, why is Wojo (a 5-9, white, suburban, PG) our big man coach? If you were Patterson, Monroe or any other good big man, would you come play for Wojo? Be honest with yourself. Could't they get anyone else to take the job?
    you actually believe this?

  12. #92
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    I am just trying to to be balanced - we cannot simply put our blue glasses on and say everything is great about everything.
    I don't own glasses. Not even blue ones. I would say I am extremely balanced.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    There is a ton of super negative postings and articles on here about many topics (see Ivy league players in Jason's most recent post), but even the slightest bit of balanced evaluation RE Duke (henderson, singler, scheyer, smith, king, demarcus, Lance, etc. are good and Zoubek is not) and people go off the deep end.
    Uh, no. Why don't you go read some of the threads. Topics currently being discussed include:
    -Paulus' inability to penetrate and his defensive struggles against quick guards.
    -Zoubek's footwork and lower body strength.
    -Thomas' propensity to travel.
    -Nolan Smith's difficulty adapting to the point guard position.
    -Taylor King's lack of quickness.
    Etc. What is different about these posts in comparison to yours? They are constructive. No one is trying to tear the players down. You, on the other hand, think it is acceptable to say we should "give up" on players and that they will never be any good. That doesn't fly on this board. Read the guidelines. If you don't like Julio and Boswell's rules, don't post here.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    BTW, this is the same ridiculous thing you posted last time on the NBA draft issue.

    "I Jumbo talk to people inside the NBA, but the guy who posts the ESPN Insider NBA draft board who spends his time in NBA locker rooms, and the tunnels during the game does not"
    Is that a direct quote? No, it's not. I'm sorry that you are struggling to read my very simple comments. No one is evaluating Scheyer as an NBA player on those websites right now because everyone knows he is a four-year player. Eveyone I've spoken to in the league has no doubt he'll play. Chad Ford has no reason to ask anyone about Scheyer right now, because he'll be at Duke for two more seasons. When Scheyer is a senior, you can be damn sure Chad will have plenty to say about his pro career. Or, you can bury your head in the sand and ignore the obvious.


    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Dukie View Post
    If people don't perfectly agree with your point of view, I always find the best solution is to be super condescending and aggressive and then when that doesn't shut them up, attempt to block their ability express their opinion entirely
    I'm not blocking anything. But I find it much better to take out my frustration on Duke's loss by posting (for all the world to see) that a 20-year-old kid "will never be good. Period." Real mature.

    Read these. If you can't abide by them, don't post here. It's really that simple.

  13. #93
    This isn't the most pressing issue, at least hopefully it isn't, but in regard to all this talk of the flu and Coach K's fever...

    Didn't K seem off the entire past month or so? It wasn't just the last game. I know it's been a few weeks now where when watching games I kept wondering if he was sick. He just didn't seem like himself (looked like Deano et al). I think if we looked through all the threads from the past few weeks we might find similar posts after all those games.

    I guess if anyone knew anything they'd post about it. But call me just a tad worried.

    Then again, I did hear that there were multiple strains of the flu biting everyone this year. Hope the Olympic team achieves and is more relaxing for him.

  14. #94

    Team fitness

    I'm beginning to consider that our guys are the best conditioned athletes in the nation in the beginning of the season, which carries them well into mid-season. I wonder if the drop off after that has to do with them being pushed too hard. I've seen it happen with distance runners. Eventually the body just wears out. Can anyone speak intelligently about how the past 3-4 teams' conditioning has changed? Have they started earlier, or practiced harder than in years past? If the conditioning is the same as in 2000-2004 I'm inclined to think the recent "trend" is just a blip.

  15. #95
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    New York City
    Quote Originally Posted by SMO View Post
    I'm beginning to consider that our guys are the best conditioned athletes in the nation in the beginning of the season, which carries them well into mid-season. I wonder if the drop off after that has to do with them being pushed too hard. I've seen it happen with distance runners. Eventually the body just wears out. Can anyone speak intelligently about how the past 3-4 teams' conditioning has changed? Have they started earlier, or practiced harder than in years past? If the conditioning is the same as in 2000-2004 I'm inclined to think the recent "trend" is just a blip.
    One thing I've heard, don't know for sure if it's true, but I bet many on this board do, is that Duke does very little weight training during the season as compared to other teams. Assuming it's true, I don't know if that's a philosophy or if it's due to more demanding academic schedules than the average other D1 school.

    Even if it's not, I think it is an issue worth examining. In one of my earlier posts I raised the question in a different way, which is the noticeable difference in the way we played in the second half and late in games as the season progressed. You will get plenty of people who dismiss the "we were tired" argument, but I don't. At the beginning of the season there was all this talk about what great shape Singler was in, how he ran a 5 minute mile and we consistently saw the array of skills and basketball IQ he has. Late in the season that dissipated quickly. For those people scratching their heads about Singler's silly fouls or increased number of turnovers or low shooting percentage, what one factor would contribute to all of those? Mental and physical fatigue. I can't see any other explanation. He is too good a player to just chalk it up to a slump.

    So assuming fatigue was an issue, why? We had a 17 day break. Nobody played heavy minutes. I know this has been raised over and over, but I haven't seen anyone with info on the strength and conditioning program suggest why it might or might not be true. I understand illness might account for the NCAAs but it doesn't account for the other games at the end of the season when we seemed lethargic. NCSU for example.
    Singler is IRON

    I STILL GOT IT! -- Ryan Kelly, March 2, 2013

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