Originally Posted by
Mudge
I've said before that there WAS a Golden Era in Duke Basketball recruiting-- it was at the end of the last century, when Duke was fielding Brand, Battier, Langdon, Avery, Maggette, Carrawell, James, etc., and bringing in Boozer, Dunleavy, Williams, Duhon (and as yet, had no expectation of losing any of those players, so hence was expecting to field all or most of those players simultaneously), and then after losing a number of early departures, was fielding Boozer, Dunleavy, Williams, Duhon, plus Jones, Ewing, etc., and had Redick, Williams, Randolph in the offing... but after that period, Duke has started to spread their recruiting gems ever farther apart, and has not had the kind of talent surplus, to compete on even terms regularly (talent-wise) with UNC for some time now-- particularly when it comes to big men. Shelden is the last one who really panned out, and developed into a big-time low-block scorer (and defender, obviously)... K/Duke are trying to do it with smoke and mirrors, if they think they are going to win championships and go to Final Fours with Hairston, Thornton, (and for different reasons, Dawkins, Plumlee, and probably Gbinje, and Cook) playing major minutes... K is good enough at motivating his troops that sometimes it will still work out (as it did once this year, and once in Hansborough's last year), but Duke will always be fighting an uphill battle, unless the current trend in recruiting is reversed to recapture the trend of the late-90's/early 2000's.