Coach K - most improved award?

[houstondukie]

Like most of you, I'm very excited for this season to start and a big reason is to see how much the players have improved from last season. In contrast, we seem to take Coach K for granted and just assume he's going to be the same great coach he is always is.

But what if he is now even better? I think we are ignoring/underestimating how much the olympic experience has improved Coach K as a coach. No doubt he is already a great coach and one of the best ever, but I think its foolish to think he didn't learn things in China that he could apply to Duke.

Just gives me one more reason to get excited for the season to start!

[brevity]

I'm not in the guy's head -- Charlie Kaufman hasn't developed THAT ride yet -- but Coach K doesn't strike me as a person who keeps implementing new ideas.

He does, however, strike me as a person who absorbs other coaching philosophies and approaches like a sponge. He benefited from working with a nice variety of USA assistant coaches, not to mention studying and witnessing the playing styles of the world's best teams. So, in that respect, the best mental arsenal in all of college basketball DID get a lot better.

[Edouble]

No doubt he is already a great coach and one of the best ever, but I think its foolish to think he didn't learn things in China that he could apply to Duke.


But the whole point of the revised Olympic team is that it was a three year committment. Coach K's been working with these coaches for three years, so I'm not sure if there was a giant conceptual leap that he made during the two weeks this summer. It was clear last season with the "Orange" zone and the Suns-like offense that he had already reached the point where he'd learned a few tricks from the other coaches.

Maybe he'll continue to add in some new wrinkles this season too, but I'm not sure that they would be things that he learned specifically in China.

[footballfan2]

everyone talked about our new Suns like offense. In the end I didn't see anything different. better players leads to more points. We also talked about Syracuse's zone defense. i think we saw it for a combined 10 minutes through out the entire season... mostly in the early season games.

The real question is if the olympics changed Coach K's style, or he just implemented his style to the game. I'm pretty convinced it's the latter.