Who Will Start Down Low?

[Troublemaker]

Don't play a 5. Start Nolan Smith at the point (who's had better drive and dish potential than Paulus, imho), move Paulus to the 2 with Marty subbing in, and play Scheyer, Singler, and Henderson as forwards (rotating in Thomas and McClure). We're going to be weak in the middle anyway. Our best ball this year came when we simply spreaded the court as much as possible, forced other teams with conventional 4 and 5 players to try to match smaller, quicker playmakers on the wings, and tore teams apart. Then, when the situation indicates, we can go big with Zoubek and/or Czyz for stretches of the game.

Of course, since my coaching skills have achieved 0 NCs, 0 final fours, 0 sweet 16s, 0 NCAA tournament appearances, 0 ACC...in fact, 0 wins of any kind, take that for what it's worth.

The small lineup was Duke's best, but that's also probably why Singler wore down at the end of the season. We really don't want that to happen again, so Z and LT coming through for Duke at center is a must, I think. I've always been a proponent of smallball but it's usually with a center playing the 5 with 4 guards surrounding him, not the configuration we played with Singler, who should be a 4 in Duke's system, playing center. Singler shouldn't have to deal with that physicality.

[VaDukie]

Unless K decides to abandon the new offense and revert to something that features the post more prominently, I don't think Zoubs starts. The trend has been to recruit agile power/small forward types for the 4 and 5 positions and that is not going to change.

I don't think we run the offense we did this past year if Zoubek was good enough to warrant major minutes. If he improves I think we adjust our offense accordingly.