Frosh Contributions?

[roywhite]

Not a single minute of playing time last night for our 3 freshmen. I'm not sure exactly what I expected this year, but I thought at least 1 or 2 would be getting significant minutes. Not to address the depth/fatigue issues (which have been talked about at length) but I'm wondering:

1. What can we reasonably expect for roles for the rest of the year for EWill, Miles P., and Olek?
2. Does their progress thus far indicate a possibility that none of the three will be starters during their Duke years?

[jv001]

Not a single minute of playing time last night for our 3 freshmen. I'm not sure exactly what I expected this year, but I thought at least 1 or 2 would be getting significant minutes. Not to address the depth/fatigue issues (which have been talked about at length) but I'm wondering:

1. What can we reasonably expect for roles for the rest of the year for EWill, Miles P., and Olek?
2. Does their progress thus far indicate a possibility that none of the three will be starters during their Duke years?

I have been wondering the same thing. In another post I wondered what went wrong with atleast 2(Williams & Miles)? Did we not evaluate them properly, have they not progressed in practice or is Coach K just content on playing a 7 man rotation? I look at other teams that have freshmen that are playing and I can't help but wonder why ours are not playing. It's not that the players they would be replacing are first team all ACC. I will wait on someone more informed than me to answer your question. Go Duke!

[Diddy]

Not a single minute of playing time last night for our 3 freshmen. I'm not sure exactly what I expected this year, but I thought at least 1 or 2 would be getting significant minutes. Not to address the depth/fatigue issues (which have been talked about at length) but I'm wondering:

1. What can we reasonably expect for roles for the rest of the year for EWill, Miles P., and Olek?
2. Does their progress thus far indicate a possibility that none of the three will be starters during their Duke years?


Olek is getting exactly the PT I expected. He has to learn to play Basketball. In HS, his strength and athleticism let him dominate most nights. In the ACC he is not head and shoulders more athletic than the other 9 players on the court, and it shows. But, he has aggression and the right mentality for the position.

As for E-Will, I am not worried about his future. His skills are raw, but his athleticism is very good and he plays hard. Normally this would get him quality PT on a Duke team, a la Demarcus Nelson as a Frosh.

Unfortunately for E-Will, he plays our most loaded position, wing guard/forward. He is totally unable to handle the PG right now, but that is not his position. So, any minutes that he plays have to come from Jon, Gerald, or McClure. Hendo and Scheyer are pillars of our offense, and Davids minutes on D and ability to guard nearly 5 positions on the court will get him PT.

Ironically, E-Will is the most ready and deserving of the Frosh for PT, but he plays at by far the most loaded position on the team. Indeed, our overabundance at the Wing is the subject of much discussion on the board. Next year, with McClure, Paulus, and possibly Hendo gone, E-Will will play a lot.

As for Plum, I don't know. I thought he would play more last night, and all season long. We got decent play down low last night, so I guess that's why he didn't play. He has looked a little lost on D at times, so maybe that's why he isn't playing more. It is not a decision I fully understand.

But I anticipate much PT and starts in the future from E-Will and Plum. Olek has a lot of work to do to get there. It really depends on how much he improves and how good next year's frosh are. We shall see.

[CDu]

Not a single minute of playing time last night for our 3 freshmen. I'm not sure exactly what I expected this year, but I thought at least 1 or 2 would be getting significant minutes. Not to address the depth/fatigue issues (which have been talked about at length) but I'm wondering:

1. What can we reasonably expect for roles for the rest of the year for EWill, Miles P., and Olek?
2. Does their progress thus far indicate a possibility that none of the three will be starters during their Duke years?

Clearly, the freshmen are not as far along as one would hope for in an ideal world. But that was a very real possibility coming in, considering that (a) this was a fairly light freshman class nationwide, (b) Williams is being compared with Scheyer, Smith, and Henderson for wing minutes, and (c) Plumlee and Czyz weren't exactly high-profile recruits.

It's completely understandable for Williams to look iffy when Coach K can turn to more experienced and very talented players like the three wings in front of him. If Williams were playing for, say, Miami, I think we'd see a path similar to Dequan Jones. But he's stuck behind really good wings, so it's tough to show his stuff. It's probably not a good idea to speculate on future playing time. That said, I'll do it. :) I think Williams has a reasonable shot at starting - maybe even next year (especially if Henderson leaves early). Either way, he's going to get a lot more playing time simply because we'll have no other options in the backcourt. And after that, he'll have a good shot to start as a junior despite the strong recruiting class.

We will have a lot of options inside next year, so who knows. Plumlee does have the advantage of being one of only two true post players on the team, so we'll see. Czyz was a raw player coming in. Who knows what to expect, but he's going to have to beat out a lot of competition to get regular playing time.

But, and this goes without saying, a lot can happen in a year or two. We don't know who's staying or going, we don't know how much better the freshmen will get this summer (or next), and we don't know exactly how good the recruits we have coming in the next few years will be.

[Reddevil]

I think EWill and Plum will be key cogs as soon as next year. OC will probably follow a more traditional, old-school curve and start making spot contributions as an upper classman. I like the way the future is shaping up, but right now the team is leaning on experience. Hopefully, they can get some more PT down the stretch, but it looks like the big games will be tough to enter for them now. K is focusing more on four year players, and that means the learning curve is a bit steeper. Patience - they will be fine. So will the program.

[jipops]

Not a single minute of playing time last night for our 3 freshmen. I'm not sure exactly what I expected this year, but I thought at least 1 or 2 would be getting significant minutes. Not to address the depth/fatigue issues (which have been talked about at length) but I'm wondering:

1. What can we reasonably expect for roles for the rest of the year for EWill, Miles P., and Olek?
2. Does their progress thus far indicate a possibility that none of the three will be starters during their Duke years?

By the start of the season I think very few expected Olek to be part of the regular rotation, the talent and bball IQ just isn't there right now. Miles shows lots of promise but I for one was not at all surprised he didn't get in this one. I think with his lack of experience he would possibly have been even more of a liability on the defensive end than what we had out there. Defending Carolina involves a ton of switching both underneath and up top and that is usually a significant weakness for an inexperienced big. If K didn't like what he saw from him in practice, then he may have seen reason not to play him. Williams was the one question mark I had in terms of not playing. I thought his length and defense could have helped, but then again he's been no threat on the offensive end as of late.

So in my answer to your questions
1. Miles and Elliot's roles all depend on the matchups. Miles has actually shown more promise as of late offensively. Elliot has been pretty lost out there lately. He appears to only be able to go left and his shot just isn't there. Some work in the off season on using his right hand should surely open up his offensive game a bit. I think we all forget that these guys are again just freshmen. They're not Luol Deng and they weren't seen as the best of the best coming out of high school either.

2. I don't see any reason why Miles and Elliot couldn't one day become starters. It takes time for players to develop and most have different rates of improving. Elliot is currently buried in a roster full of guards. Miles shows a lot of promise of getting better with time. I'm not worried about him at all.

[DevilCastDownfromDurham]

Olek was never, ever going to play this season. He's rawer than sushi and is something of a 'tweener in terms of position. Some folks asked about a redshirt early in the season and I still think that would have been the way to go.

With the other two, I think we're seeing an aspect of K's philosophy that has been evident for years but that a lot of fans (rightly or not) really don't like. If you aren't at a certain level, especially on the defensive end, K is happy to bury you on the bench. Since so much of Duke's success is based on team D and one weak link can ruin that, I understand why he takes that approach.

That said, it must be incredibly frustrating for Email to be the only top-20 player in his class that has no role on his college team. Ed Davis was ranked about the same and he's a big man (which Z defenders will tell you is an area where development takes much longer) but he's getting significant minutes and making a major impact for Carolina. Maybe Davis was underrated. Maybe Email was overrated. But the disconnect is obvious and it's got to rankle at least a bit. I've also heard folks argue that recruits hear about this issue.

Plumlee highlights the other area where K is more conservative. K seems to believe that the best learning comes in practice and that gameday experience is not very important. Plum is probably behind Z and Lance right now (sad as that is to say) and I don't think K buys the argument (popular among fans) that playing him now is an "investment" that will pay dividends down the road. Again, the guy has forgotten more than I'll ever know about the game, so I'll defer to him.

Like our talent gap and our academic restrictions in recruiting, K's rigidity can be frustrating for fans. But it is what it is, and it ain't changing any time soon. Once K is comfortable with these guys they'll play and we can all obsess about why Ryan Kelly or Andre Dawkins isn't getting more burn :)

[CDu]

That said, it must be incredibly frustrating for Email to be the only top-20 player in his class that has no role on his college team. Ed Davis was ranked about the same and he's a big man (which Z defenders will tell you is an area where development takes much longer) but he's getting significant minutes and making a major impact for Carolina. Maybe Davis was underrated. Maybe Email was overrated. But the disconnect is obvious and it's got to rankle at least a bit. I've also heard folks argue that recruits hear about this issue.

There's a big difference between Williams's situation and Davis's situation. Williams is a wing player on a team with a very strong four-man rotation at wing. Scheyer and Henderson play 30+ minutes per game against tough competition. Paulus and Smith play another 20-25 minutes per game. So Williams is effectively competing for 10-15 minutes with a crafty senior in McClure.

Davis, on the other hand, is the third (and only) big guy on the team now with Zeller and Graves out. Williams has no choice but to play him for at least 15 minutes per game, if not more.

[Wander]

Czyz isn't good enough. Ewill is good enough, but is playing at a loaded position. Plumlee, I have no idea.

As in, what everyone else said.

[Edouble]

Davis, on the other hand, is the third (and only) big guy on the team now with Zeller and Graves out. Williams has no choice but to play him for at least 15 minutes per game, if not more.

I thought that Davis was already ahead of Zeller when I saw them both playing in the early season. I also think that Davis is better than Graves. Ed Davis is a very good and prepared player.

[CDu]

I thought that Davis was already ahead of Zeller when I saw them both playing in the early season. I also think that Davis is better than Graves. Ed Davis is a very good and prepared player.

The reference to Zeller and Graves had more to do with the "(and only)" part. I probably could have made that more clear. Here's how I meant it: Davis is the third big man (and now the only other big man with Zeller and Graves out).

He is certainly better than Zeller or Graves. I only included Graves because Graves (and Ginyard) allows UNC to occasionally move Green to the "4" spot, where he's better than Davis.

[Matches]

Plumlee still has a shot to get some minutes this season IMO, if only by default. Williams is probably not going to see much time this year - he clearly has the skill but is not ready for major minutes. I look to see him make a pretty big leap next year.