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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by OldSchool View Post
    I hope not. My own view is that he should stay and make the most of his senior year both on the court and in the classroom and graduate with his classmates. College can be the best time of your life. Yes, there is a risk of injury. Life is full of risks. But you can never get that senior year back, even if you go to the NBA for several years and then come back and finish your degree or try to do it during the offseason.

    My gut feeling though tells me Mason is more likely to go than Austin. But I don't have anything concrete to base that on.


    Hopefully, Mason will want to stay for his senior year and play with Marshall. And I think Rivers wants to get a Championship, so he's more likely to stay, I think.

  2. #22
    At this point in time all I can say is I would like to see us acquire a VERY good BIG... no matter what else happens.

  3. #23

    Premature to speculate

    I agree with those who would wait and see about both the NBA departures, if any, and the gains through recruiting. The coaches must know where the main deficiencies in the current team lie and surely they will attempt to correct them.

    I do think it would be sheer folly to do the same thing with basically the same people and expect different results. Change is needed! We have three waiting in the wings plus one coming through recruiting. Possibly we will get one or even two more depending upon who leaves.

    Will those players be able to improve our defense against opposing guard penetration?
    Will they help us to box out penetration on rebounds?
    Will they allow us to push the balls on offense or to cut down on turnovers?
    Will they help us feed the post?
    Will they guard the small forwards more effectively?
    I am sure the coaches have a list much longer and evaluate kids as total players and have in mind a starting position for them.

    One aside, with Ales Murphy gaining both height and weight, will he be more of a 4/3 than a 3 as he was oringinally expected to be?

  4. #24
    If you looked at a collection of my post lately you'd think I didn't like Cook and thought Thornton was the best thing since sliced bread. The fact is that isn't the case, but I just don't understand some people. I mean for crying out loud, I'm hearing the same things now that I heard before last year. Cook will elite, Thornton is no good, Cook has to start...it's just frustrating for both of them. It's puts too much on Cook and slights Tyler way too much.

    It reminds me so much of Wojo and Avery. I think Cook and Thornton can complement each other quite nicely. I hope Tyler asserts himself more offensively next year and I hope Cook comes back a stronger defensive player next year. Personally I hope Tyler starts and Cooks comes off the bench...but depending on the situation, assuming they both improve, depending on the situation I have no problem with either finishing a game.

    As for Thornton, even last night it seems he is just always involved in a play. Take the mistake he made where he threw it away...he followed it, knocked it away, and threw it to an open Mason for a dunk. It was classic Tyler...except he really doesn't make mistakes all that often.

  5. #25
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
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    Lincoln Ne
    Quote Originally Posted by Scorp4me View Post
    If you looked at a collection of my post lately you'd think I didn't like Cook and thought Thornton was the best thing since sliced bread. The fact is that isn't the case, but I just don't understand some people. I mean for crying out loud, I'm hearing the same things now that I heard before last year. Cook will elite, Thornton is no good, Cook has to start...it's just frustrating for both of them. It's puts too much on Cook and slights Tyler way too much.

    It reminds me so much of Wojo and Avery. I think Cook and Thornton can complement each other quite nicely. I hope Tyler asserts himself more offensively next year and I hope Cook comes back a stronger defensive player next year. Personally I hope Tyler starts and Cooks comes off the bench...but depending on the situation, assuming they both improve, depending on the situation I have no problem with either finishing a game.

    As for Thornton, even last night it seems he is just always involved in a play. Take the mistake he made where he threw it away...he followed it, knocked it away, and threw it to an open Mason for a dunk. It was classic Tyler...except he really doesn't make mistakes all that often.
    I like Thornton as much as the next guy, and he clearly makes the team better on the defensive side of the ball. That being said I don't think he brings that much to the table offensively besides spot up jump shots. A point guards primary responsibility is to make the game easier for his teammates. Cook does that offensively much better than Thornton does. Thornton is a very good player, but he is a bulldog we have heard everyone say that about him. I have yet to hear from teammates or K on how great he is at setting his team up or running the offense. That is not being disrespectful to Thornton. Cook on the other hand is the better facilitator, but he is not the better leader. It did appear throughout much of the year we lacked a clear identity or had a clear leader. I am sure all of you watched the Duke special on the back to back teams. Something they all mentioned is keeping each other accountable. It did not appear that this team did that. I do hope Mason and Rivers come back because I think this team has something special in it. There is an awful lot of talent with all those pieces to not make a run next year.

  6. #26

    Talking

    The following is completely unreasonable and extremey unlikely to happen on any level but if I'm Coach K here's what I do:

    1. Take the next available flight to Vegas to see Shabaaz in person, do WHATEVER has to be done to secure his commitment for next year...
    2. Then, fly back to Durham, tell MP2 and AR that "'Bazz is commited to a Championship next year, how commited are you?" and lock them up for 1 more year.
    3. Conduct exit interviews with the rest of the team, telling Cook and Kelly you are starting next year day 1 so prepare this off-season accordingly.
    4. Inform Thornton, Rasheed, and Murph that they are my primary complimentary players next year so be ready(i.e. Thornton improve passing and driving skills).
    5. Inform Curry, Dawkins, and Silent G if they want to be a part of something special next year they can, but they have to bust their tale mentally and physically everyday.


    The team responds in 2013, finishing the year 34-5, winning the ACC title and winning the NCAA title!

    The End.

    I know this is ridiculous but, hey, it's my dream.

  7. #27
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Cary, NC
    I also think our team would be best with Austin at the point, but the problem with that is what do you do with Seth, Tyler, and Quinn? Seth could play off the ball but the other two really can't. So unfortunately I think Austin plays the 2 or 3 like he did this year, but does get to initiate the offense a lot.

    I think Seth, Tyler and Quinn are all very talented players but their skill sets and size overlap a lot, which kind of limits what we can do. We'll have Rasheed coming in and that brings a lot of promise with his skill set and size. I don't know what to make of Dawkins. In a fantasy world he would spend the entire off season working his butt off and comes back a more determined player, but we can't really expect that. More realistically, my hope is that our offense next year has enough pieces that we do not need him to be anything more than a spot-up shooter.

    With Rasheed, Murphy, and Marshall coming in a think we'll have more diverse talents. This year we had a lot of overlapping pieces. And I know we'll have entire threads devoted to discussing whether Austin and Mason will leave, but for the record I think Austin comes back and Mason leaves. Mason would just be risking too much by coming back.

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Durham at heart
    Quote Originally Posted by BlueDevilBrowns View Post
    The following is completely unreasonable and extremey unlikely to happen on any level but if I'm Coach K here's what I do:

    1. Take the next available flight to Vegas to see Shabaaz in person, do WHATEVER has to be done to secure his commitment for next year...
    2. Then, fly back to Durham, tell MP2 and AR that "'Bazz is commited to a Championship next year, how commited are you?" and lock them up for 1 more year.
    3. Conduct exit interviews with the rest of the team, telling Cook and Kelly you are starting next year day 1 so prepare this off-season accordingly.
    4. Inform Thornton, Rasheed, and Murph that they are my primary complimentary players next year so be ready(i.e. Thornton improve passing and driving skills).
    5. Inform Curry, Dawkins, and Silent G if they want to be a part of something special next year they can, but they have to bust their tale mentally and physically everyday.


    The team responds in 2013, finishing the year 34-5, winning the ACC title and winning the NCAA title!

    The End.

    I know this is ridiculous but, hey, it's my dream.
    I love this type of reasoning. Get (insert hyped high school player's name here) and tell the rest of your guys that he is the key to them being a good team. Do you see any problem at all with this? Anything at all in light of what happened this past season? Anything?

  9. #29
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Location
    New York
    Quote Originally Posted by MulletMan View Post
    I love this type of reasoning. Get (insert hyped high school player's name here) and tell the rest of your guys that he is the key to them being a good team. Do you see any problem at all with this? Anything at all in light of what happened this past season? Anything?
    Wait. I was with you until the end. What is it that you think "happened" this season? You think the presence of Austin Rivers was somehow a problem? What happened was we won 26 games. That's a lot. Beat some excellent teams along the way, too, before Kelly got hurt. I don't think we would have won more or bigger minus Austin Rivers. What is your reasoning here?

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by MulletMan View Post
    I love this type of reasoning. Get (insert hyped high school player's name here) and tell the rest of your guys that he is the key to them being a good team. Do you see any problem at all with this? Anything at all in light of what happened this past season? Anything?
    First of all, no, because as I stated in my original post, this is my "unreasonable, ridiculous dream" so I apologize if my farcical dream offends you. Second, I reject your premise that the thought of AR being the best player on Duke's team this year was why they struggled. In fact, IMO, I think AR showed more heart, passion, will to win, and drive than perhaps anyone else on this team. If more teammates followed his example, perhaps the season would have ended differently. Just because a player is a rising freshman doesn't mean he can't be the key to success(have you watched UK lately?).

  11. #31
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    San Antonio, Texas

    What I'd like to see...

    1) Mason and Austin return with fire in their hearts!
    2) Kelly becomes a Nowitski type of player
    3) Thornton (Dockery 2.0), Cook (Avery 2.0) and Curry (Scheyer 2.0) spend a lot of time workin on ball handling... maybe at on of the camps, Chris Paul's or whatever, just work on the handle
    4) Suliamon= Nolan 2.0
    5) Murphy= Singler 2.0
    6) Hairston= Lance 2.0
    7) Silent G= Hendo/Jones type player
    8) Dawkins... I'd like for him to study JJ's senior season... work on the handles, the drive, strength and conditioning and working off the ball.
    9) MP3 to just play big, be that back to the basket player, example... maybe a Tim Duncan, David Robinson type player
    10) One Shabazz or Amile... both if say either Austin or Curry could pay for one year (Is this possible?)
    11) Collins is offered and takes the Illinois job
    12) Wojo moves over to the guards and teaches them to defend
    13) Bring in a big to coach the bigs... Laettner available!
    14) Nate helps to recruit badasses!!!!!!
    15) Coach learns some more from coaching against the world and brings that back and intigrates some international flavor to Dukes offense
    16) We learn some zone defense and other disruptive defenses to throw in the mix to confuse the enemy

    Will any of this happen? I don't know. But I like thinking about it

    GO DUKE

  12. #32
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Nashville
    Quote Originally Posted by UrinalCake View Post
    I also think our team would be best with Austin at the point, but the problem with that is what do you do with Seth, Tyler, and Quinn? Seth could play off the ball but the other two really can't. So unfortunately I think Austin plays the 2 or 3 like he did this year, but does get to initiate the offense a lot.

    I think Seth, Tyler and Quinn are all very talented players but their skill sets and size overlap a lot, which kind of limits what we can do.
    To address the first bolded section - I think that's a good point, but I also think that's the question that was responsible for us not getting the most out of our talent this year.

    At this point, I think you have reevaluate what gives you the best team from the top down, and let the pieces fall where they may. If that means a senior or two loses a starting spot, maybe even a rotation spot in some games, so be it. If it means some form of attrition, maybe that's necessary too. As for the second bolded section, I think that might be the wrong way to look at it. The fact is, we should have a lot of talented, diverse, complementary pieces next year, and I think that's what should dictate our strategy/rotation, rather than the fact that we may have several overlapping players who are rotation-quality.

    FWIW - I think Tyler would be fine playing SG alongside Rivers, especially if he can really solidify his 3-point shot this summer. Which I think is entirely possible - he was a sub-27% 3PT shooter his freshman year, and improved to a ~40% midway through this year before coming down to 35%. If he get a few hundred reps in every day and stay consistently in the 37-40% range next year, that'll be enough to spread the floor and not be liability on offense. It also wouldn't hurt to have a calming, Duhon-ish influence to Austin's J-Will, so to speak.

  13. #33
    I dunno guys but I think we are in another 3-4 year rebuilding period much like we were after 05-06. Year 1 showed us several huge flaws this current group has (lack of quickness/stopping the dribble; inability to create own shot; no post presence; etc...). IMHO the nucleus of the next serious threat for a national championship is going to have to come from this Freshman class (G, MP3, Murphy, Cook) the 2012 Class - Sulaimon and the 2013 Class (Jones and TBD but potentially Parker and Randle).

    Just my gut feeling but I believe MP2 and Rivers are gone and Sulaimon is a recruiting class of 1.

    That would leave the 12-13 team as:

    1. Cook/Thornton
    2. Curry/Dawkins/Sulaimon
    3. G/Murphy
    4. Kelly/Hairston
    5. MP3

    I'd probably start: Thornton; Sulaimon; Murphy; Kelly and MP3 or (if MP3 is simply not ready for significant mins) Thornton; Sulaimon; G; Murphy; Kelly

    That team would likely struggle with many/most of the same issues the 11-12 team had (barring some sort of break out improvement) where we probably are upset in the first weekend again (Round of 32 most likely).

  14. #34

    Thumbs down Not Optimistic

    1. Your point guard has to be either a scorer or a distributer and preferably both. Cook and Thornton excel at neither. Not winning a NC unless Cook returns a different player.
    2. size and athleticism with Kelly, MP2 and MP3 should be an advantage, but way underdeveloped because of focus on guards and their scoring/3s
    3. I agree that AR doesn't appear to make those around him better and not sure thats going to change with score first mentality all the time.
    4. Not enough minutes for all the perimeter guys leads to unhappy players. This team did not seem to have alot of fun on the court with rare exception. Not going to get much better next year if AR returns.

  15. #35
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    south carolina
    Many posters are hoping for our guys to miraculously change over the summer. You can work on your shot and your strength for sure. Working on quickness, penetration, and defending penetration would seem to be asking for a change in athletic ability or some kind of DNA mutation. We have seen a pretty good team and what we see is what we've got. The answer lies in recruiting. We don't need all McD's. I would love to see a little 5'11'' lightning fast water bug who can really defend and dish. I wouldn't care if he could shoot the three. I have always felt there are a number of these people out there that could make our team better.

  16. #36
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO

    The Most Popular Guy in a Town..

    Quote Originally Posted by CLW View Post
    That would leave the 12-13 team as:

    1. Cook/Thornton
    2. Curry/Dawkins/Sulaimon
    3. G/Murphy
    4. Kelly/Hairston
    5. MP3

    I'd probably start: Thornton; Sulaimon; Murphy; Kelly and MP3 or (if MP3 is simply not ready for significant mins) Thornton; Sulaimon; G; Murphy; Kelly
    ... with a losing NFL team in the backup quarterback. In college BB, losing or not, the most popular guy seems to be the new recruit.

    Why else would Seth Curry, third team All-ACC, sit in deference to the new recruit? Is this because he had one bad night against Lehigh, or was there something else?

    sagegrouse
    'I guess the accent is on the second syllable in my name'

  17. #37
    Newton hit it on the head in his original post when he said:

    GET TO THE RIM

    Watching a lot of the teams in the tournament, I have noticed that most of them push the ball into the lane A LOT!

    I absolutely hated watching this team dribble/pass on the perimeter for 25 seconds of the shot clock then heave up a three pointer...

    So, whatever we do next year, I hope it includes a player or players driving into the lane on 3 of every 4 posessions at least (ok to kick it out for an open three)... but we are way to easy to guard when we rotate the ball around the perimeter without a threat to go in the paint.

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    ... with a losing NFL team in the backup quarterback. In college BB, losing or not, the most popular guy seems to be the new recruit.

    Why else would Seth Curry, third team All-ACC, sit in deference to the new recruit? Is this because he had one bad night against Lehigh, or was there something else?

    sagegrouse
    'I guess the accent is on the second syllable in my name'
    Agreed. Curry is a very good college player who had an uneven season and a terrible game at the worst possible time.

    I think most on this board know what I think about Quinn Cook: I'm a fan of his game, I think he has a high ceiling and I expect big things. I realize at times Cook was beaten badly on defense, and those moments are what stick in one's mind. But he is, after all, a freshman. He's also got quick feet, solid athleticism and the apparent ability to extend full-court, so I didn't think he was nearly as bad as other people made it out to be. With more playing time, I feel like it would have evened out and that what he offered as a penetrator and playmaker would also balance the ledger. I continue to think that with more of a commitment to him, Cook could have made a difference when the offense stagnated toward the end of the season, and I do feel that it capped our potential that he wasn't a more integral part of the team.

    Plus, in a recent poll of NBA players in Sports Illustrated about what college players could keep up in the League right now, Cook was one of the 21 players who got votes. (It'd be good to know whether it was solely Nolan Smith who voted for him -- which did cross my mind. But in the event that it wasn't, and Cook has played with and against a lot of the recent players to join the league, it's pretty impressive to see what people think of him.)

    That said, Thornton is a tough dude. And Krzyzewski loves him, which absolutely counts. It's tough for me to say who gets the starting nod next season. Krzyzewski has spoken in glowing terms about the positive things Thornton brings in terms of leadership and defense, and if he truly believes he's the second coming of Wojo, it's hard to say he won't start knowing the relationship he and Wojo had, and continue to have. But Krzyzewski has also shown an ability to shake things up as needed; a freshman Chris Duhon starting over a senior Nate James down the stretch in '01 for non-injury reasons comes to mind. It can probably go either way starter-wise -- if Thornton is a captain, it's hard to imagine him not starting -- but I would assume it at this point to be a straight time-split either way, assuming Cook stays healthy and works hard on his game over the offseason.

    Still though, there's no question that if he improves his defense enough to earn major court time, Quinn would bring a significant upgrade as an offensive player in the time he spends on the court:

    TT: 717 minutes, 138 points, 69 assists/34 TO (2.0 A/TO), 38% FG
    QC: 387 minutes, 146 points, 63 assists/18 TO (3.5 A/TO), 40% FG

    We'll see how it goes, but I think this is probably a good problem to have, two players who offer a variety of advantages between them. Thornton got a lot of game experience under fire this year, grew more comfortable as the season went and is fearless on defense; I'd imagine he continues to hone his outside shot and playmaking abilities. And in Cook, we have a true point guard with an extremely high ceiling on both ends of the ball if he works at it and stays healthy, and the potential to be a transformative player on next year's team.

    In fact, that's the most positive thing about next year's team: the recruiting class won't be limited to Sulaimon regardless of whether Krzyzewski pulls what seems like an upset and gets either Muhammad or Parker. Not only will he add Murphy and Marshall Plumlee, but in effect, I think he adds a potentially dynamite point guard in Cook to the rotation mix if he's ready for more responsibility.
    Last edited by Starter; 03-18-2012 at 11:22 AM. Reason: Grammar

  19. #39
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    20 Minutes From The Heaven That Is Cameron Indoor
    Quote Originally Posted by #1Duke View Post
    At this point in time all I can say is I would like to see us acquire a VERY good BIG... no matter what else happens.
    We have on of those already. (Assuming Mason stays). This team needs forwards not bigs. I thought that became fairly obvious once Kelly went down.

  20. #40
    By the way, I do have to offer the disclaimer that I didn't see the Duke-Lehigh game for reasons out of my control. But I did see every other televised game this season.

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