I just noticed that Hood is left-handed. I believe the perception out there is that Duke can't develop good lefties as Coach Collins often works with the wings and he is not left-handed. All it takes is one or two lefties to come to Duke and be used effectively to change that perception though. I don't think Louie Carnesecca was left-handed but he was still able to coach Chris Mullin. So, maybe it can be done.
(I hope I don't need any smilies for this post.)
“Those two kids, they’re champions,” Krzyzewski said of his senior leaders. “They’re trying to teach the other kids how to become that, and it’s a long road to become that.”
So after tonight, would it be safe to say Hood is our 3rd option after Jefferson and TP? I'm not saying I believe he should be 3rd on the list but is that the consensus at this point?
If I remember correctly, Duke has 2 schollys left so perhaps we land 1 or 2 of the three remaining targets.
As crazy as this sounds, if Hood says tomorrow "Coach, I want to be a Blue Devil", you take him. UNC had a shot to get Hurley but they said they were waiting on Kenny Anderson. You saw how that turned out. Now granted, lets not compare apples to oranges. The point is, if you pass up on a player to wait on another, you could miss out.
While this is true, I feel compelled to point out that Duke still has 7 years of combined eligibility from Alex Murphy and Michael Gbinije. We can afford to wait on both Amile and Jabari. What we should not, and hopefully will not do is take a player that even slightly hurts our chances with Jabari Parker. Not saying Amile or Rodney Hood do that. But, that's a factor here.
Well, why bring up the comparison if we aren't going to compare apples to oranges? Duke has arguably two similar players in Murphy and Gbinije. They'll be a junior and sophomore by the time Hood becomes eligible. And at that point, we may also have Parker or Wiggins (and we may not, just as easily). But this is not a situation where Hood is some elite player and we have chopped liver otherwise.
In any case, it is a moot point. It doesn't appear that Duke is interested and there is no indication that he's interested in Duke.
I was implying to comparing talent wise, Kenny and Hurley in comparison to Hood. Now on to your points. If we are looking at this through the perspective of Coach K, there is no such thing as a position; only players. However, I could see how this could affect possible recruits for next year but who says you have to have two forwards? We just need 5 on the court.
Players have to guard players. You would have never seen us start 5 Zoubeks or 5 Hurleys. And while Coach K often says we don't have positions, he and the staff just as frequently refer to positions when talking about the team's strengths and needs. We aren't going to be adding Hood.
We don't have positions but it was pretty clear this year what type of player Duke needed. If we got Hood, Amile, Jabari to go along with Mike and Alex... we'd just be switching our recent small guards situation for a tweener-wing situation.
In the pursuit of recruiting information, I have been subjected to at least ten thousand posts as to the sizes and kinds (positions played) of players we need and/or don't need at Duke. So far, everyone seems to be either too small, too short, too large, too tall or there are too many of them. I going to suggest in order for us to resolve this obviously perplexing problem, that we just not recruit anyone.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Recent Duke related tweets floating around...
Wayne Gooch @Bluedevilsreign
Duke is all in on Miss St transfer Rodney Hood.
Clint Jackson @clintjackson1
Looks like Duke is pursuing Rodney Hood with some intensity.
Appears Duke is quite interested actually...Im guessing the staff has got at least some indication that Hood would be interested also.
It is a curious development, this apparent mutual interest between Duke and Hood. For it would seem at first glance that Duke wouldn't "need" Hood when he becomes eligible, as a soph in 2013-'14. This would seem even more the case, doubly or triply so, should Jabari Parker arrive that season.
Consider this pretty amazing list of wings [2s and 3s] for 2013-'14: Gbinije (Jr), Sulaimon (So), Hood (So), Jones (Fr), Parker??? (Fr).
I exclude Murphy from this list simply because, depending on exactly what new recruits come to Duke in the next 3 seasons, Alex might well be a combo wing/4, but might play a lot more 4 than wing.
My general impression is that Duke doesn't have a long list of bigs being pursued in the classes of 2013 and 2014. I think K is of course hoping to bring in Randle (2013) and/or Okafor (2014), but unless at least one of Randle/Okafor show up, and unless neither Jabari Parker nor Hood do come to Duke, Alex is even more likely to be a 4, if still a combo wing/4.
And, occasioned by this surprising pursuit of Hood - thinking big picture, here - it sure does seem that K has sworn never again to be in the position of having a set of small wings. He seems to be moving in such a way as to try to have a whole bunch of athletic, rangy wings, who, collectively - and pretty close to individually - can shoot, run, handle, pass, drive, attack, harass, pursue, defend, and rebound.
Probably a 3-peat in '13, '14, '15. Piece of cake. We're gold, or getting there.
The only way I can make sense of this is if Murphy or Hood is planning on spending most of their time at the 4, and they're both pretty pure wings. I suppose the staff may bring Murphy down to the post, but he sure didn't look like a PF last summer. I know he's a little bigger now, but his game was completely guard oriented (unlike Singler, for example).
Not sure what to think. Hood seems like a guy that anyone would love to have, but I also really like our current 6'7 WFs.
I am not sold on Alex as a 4 at all. He has always looked like a pure perimeter 3 to me. In his play prior to Duke, he has always been a great slasher and driver of the ball. Thats what I fell in love with the most when watching him in AAU ball. It will be interesting next season to see how much time if any Alex spends at the 4.
As for Hood, like someone else opined, K seems to be on a mission to load up with bigger, taller wings. I am all for it to be honest. You can get away with a smallish PG if they are surrounded by size on the wings like Hurley and Jason Williams were. Quinn and a bunch of tall wings sounds good actually.
To be a Duke "4," all he has to do is be able to guard the opposing 4. If Alex is really up to 220, as he is listed on GoDuke, he should have the size and strength to defend the college PF position. That doesn't mean he can't do his slashing and driving thing on offense.
Next year seems pretty full at the wing, and Alex spending time at PF frees up minutes for Michael and/or Andre. If we pick up Hood and/or Jabari Parker, then it may make sense for Alex to defend the PF more often. So, I wouldn't be surprised if Alex plays 10 or so minutes at the "4" in 2012-13, nor would I be surprised if he plays 20+ minutes at the "4" in 2013-14. It will mostly depend on the rest of the roster.
Okay to all that ... on offense. But seems to me that an offense can run fine with 4 or even 5 wing or stretch players as long as they can shoot and pass (and drive, I hope). Defense is another matter. Depending upon the opponent, 2 defenders had better be able to bang/defend inside. Perhaps Alex and/or Hood or Parker or a stronger {g}*can* do that. Rebounding help would also appear to follow from big athletic wings.
I agree with the Newtons. I am all for long and athletic wings, but Murphy is not an ideal 4, especially if we don't have a massive Zoubekian center playing behind him. And yes, Alex Murphy is no Kyle Singler (unless he has adamantium infused into his bones in the offseason).
Well, color me surprised. Guess I was wrong about Duke's interest. I must concur with those who think Coach K must be stockpiling tall wings with the plan to be more athletic at the PF spot, because if we get even one of the three targets we have over the next three years, we'll have 3 6'7"-6'8" athletic wing players to go along with 2 6'4"-ish SG. That means either they'll play a lot at PF or two will be very unhappy.
I think we need to dispel the myth that a PF needs to be a big, physical, low-post banger. That's just not the reality of college basketball. In fact, most teams use a very athletic PF. I'd argue that this was actually one of our weaknesses, as Kelly and Miles/Mason were generally much less quick than their counterparts at PF (in some cases glaringly so). Let's take a look at the probable starting PF around the ACC next year:
BC: Ryan Anderson (6'8", 215, good athlete)
Clemson: Milton Jennings (6'9", 225, but hardly a banger)
FSU: Okaro White (6'8", 205, very athletic but not a banger)
Georgia Tech: Cameron Holsey (6'8", 225, somewhat physical but certainly not imposing)
Maryland: Ashton Pankey (6'9", 220)
Miami: Kenny Kadji (6'11", 250 - the only true big-body PF)
UNC: James McAdoo (6'9", 220, very athletic but not a banger)
NC State: Calvin Leslie (6'8, 210, athletic freak, but most certainly not a banger)
Virginia: Darion Atkins (6'8", 220) or Akil Mitchell (6'8", 235) depending on whether or not they find another big man
Virginia Tech: Dorian Finney-Smith (6'8", 185, clearly more athlete than banger)
Wake: I'm not even sure they'll field a team next year.
Aside from Kadji, there's nobody that Murphy can't match up with physically if he's up to 210+ by next year. And he'd have a huge quickness edge on Kadji, so that's somewhat offset. So I don't see where the concern is with his ability to defend at PF.
And also importantly, having an athletic PF makes us less susceptible to mismatches generated by successive screens. If we have a guy who can defend the 2, 3, and 4, it's much harder for the opponent to set up the mismatch you want.
I guess I'm feeling more comfortable with the idea of a smaller, quicker PF the more I talk/type about it. Of course, my comfort with such an approach would hinge on also being bigger at SG and SF (I don't want to see us on the smaller side at 3-4 positions). But given that we're adding Sulaimon, Jones, and we have Gbinije, such an approach might not be an issue.