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View Full Version : Great comments from Coach K during ACC Operation Basketball



watzone
10-26-2009, 11:32 AM
I was on hand for ACC Operation Basketball and got a chance to ask Coach out rules changes and so much more - great Plumlee and polish comments, talk of Nolan, Coundown to Craziness, etc.

Part 2 - http://bluedevilnation.net/2009/10/coach-k-discusses-a-controversial-new-rule-and-more-part-2-of-a-4-part-q-a/

Part 1- http://bluedevilnation.net/2009/10/acc-operation-basketball-coach-k-discusses-the-coming-season-countdown-to-craziness/

watzone
10-28-2009, 11:57 AM
I will have part 3 up shortly, but here is a comment from K on how his man to man defense builds character - http://bluedevilnation.net/2009/10/coach-k-defense-builds-character-at-duke/

miramar
10-28-2009, 04:54 PM
"The work with the national team has helped me immensely."

Well, I hope that settles that...

BD80
10-29-2009, 12:07 AM
"The work with the national team has helped me immensely."

Well, I hope that settles that...

It would at least be a good reason for those who criticized his participation with the national team as detrimental to the Duke team to step up and admit they were wrong ....

Hello?

Is this thing on?

Hello?

feldspar
10-29-2009, 11:20 AM
It would at least be a good reason for those who criticized his participation with the national team as detrimental to the Duke team to step up and admit they were wrong ....

Hello?

Is this thing on?

Hello?

I prefer to allow results to speak for themselves.

Here's a timeline for you:

Oct 26, 2005: Krzyzewski named USA Coach

2005 - 2006 Duke season: Duke goes 32-4, wins ACC regular season and ACC championship, earns a #1 seed in NCAA tournament but loses to LSU in Sweet 16.

Summer of 2006: Krzyzewski and Colangelo finish assembling the Senior National team, and K takes Team USA to the FIBA World Championships and finishes 3rd, it's highest finish since 1998.

2006-2007 Duke season: After K's first full year with Team USA, Duke has its worst season since 1995-1996, with 11 losses, finishes with an 8-8 ACC record, and bows out of the NCAA Tournament in the first round, the first time that had happened in ten years as well.

Summer of 2007: With Team USA already fully formed from the year before (players made a three-year commitment to the team), K leads the squad to first place in the FIBA Americas championship.

2007-2008 Duke season: Duke improves on the previous season, going 13-3 in the conference and losing 6 games overall. But Duke fails to reach the ACC Championship game for the second year in a row, and falls to West Virginia in the NCAA Tournament's second round after a miracle layup by Gerald Henderson barely gets Duke out of the first round. This is the first time since 1996 and 1997 that Duke has failed to reach the Sweet 16 two straight years.

Summer 2008: Team USA wins gold in Beijing.

2008 - 2009 Season: Duke goes 30-7 in the regular season and 11-5 in the ACC, but wins the ACC Championship for the first time since 2006. They make their deepest run in the NCAA tournament in the same period of time, losing to Villanova in the Sweet 16.

Summer 2009: Coach K re-ups with Team USA.


2009-2010: ??

To say that Coach K was "helped immensely" by participating in USA Basketball does not preclude the possibility that it was also, over the course of three seasons, detrimental to the on-court performance of Duke basketball. Long-term, yes, I'm sure it helped a lot. But short term? I think the results speak for themselves.

theAlaskanBear
10-29-2009, 12:28 PM
Or maybe the team just didnt have the talent in 2006-2007.

You have to remember that we lost Redick and Williams to graduation, both Jamal Boykin and Boateng transferred, and our awesome recruiting class of scheyer, henderson, thomas, and zoubek were all freshmen. Coach K is a great coach, but looking back on that team, it was not very good.

One starting JR (Nelson). One SR who did not play (Pags).

You can't blame the Olympics for screwing up recruiting, because we had a great and deep freshman class coming in. The lack of JRs and SRs on the roster is not due to Olympics, but the recruiting situation three years prior (and Shav Randolphs early departure)!

Correlation does not equal causation. So your "results" can shove it.

Kedsy
10-29-2009, 12:39 PM
Why do we have to continually have this debate?

K and others persist in saying the experience has helped. Those like Feldspar point to our less-than-hoped-for performances in the NCAA tourney over a three year span as conclusive proof that it hasn't.

(I'll put aside at the outset whether the past three years have been so terrible that we have to find an explanation for them. Other than 2007 I believe the teams we've seen recently have been as good as many of the glory years, but that's a debate for another time. So for now I'll accept Feldspar's premise without agreeing with it.)

We had a similar (actually worse) three year run in 95 to 97, and K wasn't running the national team then. That period appeared to have been brought on by K's health issues in 1995. I say "appeared" because that can't have been the only issue -- he was healthy in 96 and 97 and the team still lost early in the NCAAT.

The actual "problem" leading to both lulls in Duke's performance have to do with recruiting misses -- both in those who came not living up to expectations and in not getting all our top targets. And as Al Featherston in his famous article pointed out, many of these recruiting misses happened before the perceived cause of the problem.

Our 2005 recruiting class of Greg Paulus, Josh McRoberts, Eric Boateng, Jamal Boykin, and Marty Pocius was supposed to be the best in the country, and clearly it didn't end up that way. But this class was recruited before K took the reins of the Olympic team.

The 1995 debacle was similarly fueled by guys like Joey Beard, Greg Newton, and Ricky Price not living up to expectations, as well as players like Adonal Foyle, Andrae Patterson, and Richard Keene deciding to go elsewhere. Again, this all occurred prior to K's health issues.

I suppose one could argue in both cases that K wasn't able to recruit enough talent to deal with the underperformance of several of his earlier recruits. Could that have been affected by his health in 1995 and his Olympic commitment in 2005? Possibly. It would be foolish to discount these things as one of many factors leading to recruiting misses. On the other hand, IMO it would be even more foolish to assert that these things were the only or even the main factor.

Which is why the debate is pointless. The Olympic experience has been an overall positive for K and there are certainly obvious positives for the program. However, one cannot discount the possibility that it had a negative impact on recruiting during the early years of the commitment when K was new to juggling his various responsibilities. What one should be able to discount is that this possible negative impact was anything close to the major factor leading to Duke's disappointing NCAAT exits in the past three years.

Personally, I think these things go in cycles, but even if I'm wrong, I believe K's Olympic commitment is at worst a minor factor out of many factors that may have led to the performances over the past three seasons.

What I'm absolutely sure of is I'm sick of everyone arguing about it.

NSDukeFan
10-29-2009, 01:03 PM
Why do we have to continually have this debate?

K and others persist in saying the experience has helped. Those like Feldspar point to our less-than-hoped-for performances in the NCAA tourney over a three year span as conclusive proof that it hasn't.

(I'll put aside at the outset whether the past three years have been so terrible that we have to find an explanation for them. Other than 2007 I believe the teams we've seen recently have been as good as many of the glory years, but that's a debate for another time. So for now I'll accept Feldspar's premise without agreeing with it.)

We had a similar (actually worse) three year run in 95 to 97, and K wasn't running the national team then. That period appeared to have been brought on by K's health issues in 1995. I say "appeared" because that can't have been the only issue -- he was healthy in 96 and 97 and the team still lost early in the NCAAT.

The actual "problem" leading to both lulls in Duke's performance have to do with recruiting misses -- both in those who came not living up to expectations and in not getting all our top targets. And as Al Featherston in his famous article pointed out, many of these recruiting misses happened before the perceived cause of the problem.

Our 2005 recruiting class of Greg Paulus, Josh McRoberts, Eric Boateng, Jamal Boykin, and Marty Pocius was supposed to be the best in the country, and clearly it didn't end up that way. But this class was recruited before K took the reins of the Olympic team.

The 1995 debacle was similarly fueled by guys like Joey Beard, Greg Newton, and Ricky Price not living up to expectations, as well as players like Adonal Foyle, Andrae Patterson, and Richard Keene deciding to go elsewhere. Again, this all occurred prior to K's health issues.

I suppose one could argue in both cases that K wasn't able to recruit enough talent to deal with the underperformance of several of his earlier recruits. Could that have been affected by his health in 1995 and his Olympic commitment in 2005? Possibly. It would be foolish to discount these things as one of many factors leading to recruiting misses. On the other hand, IMO it would be even more foolish to assert that these things were the only or even the main factor.

Which is why the debate is pointless. The Olympic experience has been an overall positive for K and there are certainly obvious positives for the program. However, one cannot discount the possibility that it had a negative impact on recruiting during the early years of the commitment when K was new to juggling his various responsibilities. What one should be able to discount is that this possible negative impact was anything close to the major factor leading to Duke's disappointing NCAAT exits in the past three years.

Personally, I think these things go in cycles, but even if I'm wrong, I believe K's Olympic commitment is at worst a minor factor out of many factors that may have led to the performances over the past three seasons.

What I'm absolutely sure of is I'm sick of everyone arguing about it.

Thanks for the nice review and discussion about cause and effect. The articles that Jim and Al wrote were also excellent. I trust K when he says the Olympics did not affect recruiting in a negative way. I tend to believe that no coach is recruiting constantly during allowed time without any days off, (I remember Calimari admitting this, probably to the dismay of many UK fans) so if coach K takes a day here and there to learn more about coaching with the Olympic team, I don't believe it does him any harm. I am going to assume that coach K at this point in his career is quite adept at organizing his schedule to accommodate recruits and his Olympic duties in the off season.

feldspar
10-29-2009, 01:31 PM
K and others persist in saying the experience has helped. Those like Feldspar point to our less-than-hoped-for performances in the NCAA tourney over a three year span as conclusive proof that it hasn't.

There is little on-court evidence to suggest it has helped yet, other than Duke reaching winning the ACC last year and getting back to the Sweet 16 (although I don't know if you could qualify that as "helping" seeing as though that's where Duke was before Team USA, et al.)

That's the point. There is, however, on-court evidence to suggest that perhaps it may have even hurt Duke (two of the worst seasons in the last ten years) although I do acknowledge it was in the short term. Things do seem to be looking up both on the court and off.

I don't deny that lack of talent largely led to the 06-07 season. But the argument has been made (and will continue to be made) that K did a poor job of rebuilding that team in the midst of getting Team USA ready for the 2006 FIBA World Championship.



What I'm absolutely sure of is I'm sick of everyone arguing about it.

Your 500+ word post seems to suggest otherwise.

theAlaskanBear
10-29-2009, 01:31 PM
Great post Kedsy.

You got at my point, only way more eloquently and polite.

BD80
10-29-2009, 01:38 PM
Why do we have to continually have this debate?
...What I'm absolutely sure of is I'm sick of everyone arguing about it.

It is my bad, since Irving' commitment, I have been tweaking those that had argued K's national team commitment was hurting Duke.

To Feldspar's credit, he stood his ground, the others are pretending it never happened (or are perhaps waiting to see if we miss on Barnes to respond). His arguments pretty much show that Coach K is telling the truth. The sole blip is the post JJ, Sheldon, Dockery, Melchioni season, where Josh and company didn't quite click, but still won 22 games.

My point was that there should be no more debate and we should all be piling on the bandwagon. Anyone want a hand up?

Kedsy
10-29-2009, 02:05 PM
There is little on-court evidence to suggest it has helped yet, other than Duke reaching winning the ACC last year and getting back to the Sweet 16 (although I don't know if you could qualify that as "helping" seeing as though that's where Duke was before Team USA, et al.)

That's the point. There is, however, on-court evidence to suggest that perhaps it may have even hurt Duke (two of the worst seasons in the last ten years) although I do acknowledge it was in the short term. Things do seem to be looking up both on the court and off.

I don't deny that lack of talent largely led to the 06-07 season. But the argument has been made (and will continue to be made) that K did a poor job of rebuilding that team in the midst of getting Team USA ready for the 2006 FIBA World Championship.


When I was at Duke, in a statistics class the professor told a story about Coca Cola and malaria. Someone mapped the areas with the greatest incidence of malaria and it coincided with the areas where people drank the most Coca Cola, so the person studying this phenomenon concluded that Coke caused malaria. The maps were almost identical.

Of course, Coca Cola doesn't cause malaria, it just so happens that malaria mosquitos thrive in warm, humid climates and people in warm, humid climates drink the most soda. Showing that malaria and heavy cola consumption coincide was not enough to prove the point. Similarly, I would argue that showing that K's Olympic team commitment coincides with a couple (really only one) worse-than-usual season doesn't prove or even suggest anything.



Your 500+ word post seems to suggest otherwise.

OK, you got me. I got a little carried away.

feldspar
10-29-2009, 02:11 PM
Similarly, I would argue that showing that K's Olympic team commitment coincides with a couple (really only one) worse-than-usual season doesn't prove or even suggest anything.

Prove? No.

Suggest? Eh.

The point is that, given the results, it is worth taking another look at. And there are people on this board who would rather stick their head in the sand rather than even consider for a split second that K's commitment to Team USA could have even had the slightest negative impact on Duke basketball.

But that's par for the course, so why should I be surprised...

DevilCastDownfromDurham
10-29-2009, 02:20 PM
It is my bad, since Irving' commitment, I have been tweaking those that had argued K's national team commitment was hurting Duke.

To Feldspar's credit, he stood his ground, the others are pretending it never happened (or are perhaps waiting to see if we miss on Barnes to respond). His arguments pretty much show that Coach K is telling the truth. The sole blip is the post JJ, Sheldon, Dockery, Melchioni season, where Josh and company didn't quite click, but still won 22 games.

My point was that there should be no more debate and we should all be piling on the bandwagon. Anyone want a hand up?

I (and I suspect others of a similar opinion) have been gritting my teeth at the "barbs" and trying my best to ignore them precisely because this has been debated to death and there can't really be a successful resolution.

Whether you blame our dip from 2006-09 on the Olympics or just bad luck comes down to a matter of opinion/faith. Did we miss on all the guys discussed because K and the staff didn't have the time or were we just unlucky? I'd point to guys like Boynton who have explicitly stated that their decision was impacted by not getting enough attention but I know others will point to the guys that did come. Did teams not come together and cohere as well because K wasn't 100% invested in the success of the team? Again, all of our evidence is circumstantial and there's no real "debate" to be had.

K has maintained that the Olympics didn't hurt, but he's also been up front about our teams being deficient for the last few seasons. Again, you say "bad luck" I say "spread too thin." Yelling these things back and forth (or sticking in random "barbs") doesn't really get us anywhere. It just foments bad blood and rehashes a now very-dull argument.

In contrast, I do want to debunk the idea that the Olympics are now somehow "bearing fruit" in terms of recruiting. I'd argue that what we are seeing is a return to where we were before the Olympics. Even if Barnes does commit, the Killer B's, JWill/Boozer, and Selected Six classes stand on at least equal footing with Barnes, Irving, Dawkins, Hairston, and Thornton. The fact that we are recovering does not prove any sort of net benefit.

It also can't be ignored that all these amazing gains happened with the class just after K stopped coaching the Olympics in '08. As has been discussed ad nauseum things went south from '05-'09 and seem to be picking up starting in '10.

Maybe K has found a balance and the next four years will look more like 1999-2004 than 2005-2009. I hope so and I'll be cheering as hard as I can for Duke and USA basketball. But if we sign the top 5 players every season from here to the end of time that won't change 2005-09 one iota. In fact, it will just further highlight how those four years stand in such stark contrast.

All that said, however you feel about the Olympics, how about a hand up for cheering for Duke and the USA and moving on to some discussions that aren't quite so played out?

NSDukeFan
10-29-2009, 03:03 PM
I (and I suspect others of a similar opinion) have been gritting my teeth at the "barbs" and trying my best to ignore them precisely because this has been debated to death and there can't really be a successful resolution.

Whether you blame our dip from 2006-09 on the Olympics or just bad luck comes down to a matter of opinion/faith. Did we miss on all the guys discussed because K and the staff didn't have the time or were we just unlucky? I'd point to guys like Boynton who have explicitly stated that their decision was impacted by not getting enough attention but I know others will point to the guys that did come. Did teams not come together and cohere as well because K wasn't 100% invested in the success of the team? Again, all of our evidence is circumstantial and there's no real "debate" to be had.

I agree I shouldn't have been sucked into this, but your Boynton statement is pure truthiness. If I recall correctly, Boynton stated that he liked that Donovan, who is at a nearby school, was always around and never stated his not coming to Duke was because coach K, who is not in the same state, was not. I agree the debate cannot be proven, but truthiness doesn't help.


K has maintained that the Olympics didn't hurt, but he's also been up front about our teams being deficient for the last few seasons. Again, you say "bad luck" I say "spread too thin." Yelling these things back and forth (or sticking in random "barbs") doesn't really get us anywhere. It just foments bad blood and rehashes a now very-dull argument.

In contrast, I do want to debunk the idea that the Olympics are now somehow "bearing fruit" in terms of recruiting. I'd argue that what we are seeing is a return to where we were before the Olympics. Even if Barnes does commit, the Killer B's, JWill/Boozer, and Selected Six classes stand on at least equal footing with Barnes, Irving, Dawkins, Hairston, and Thornton. The fact that we are recovering does not prove any sort of net benefit.

I agree barbs back and forth may not be helping, but deficiency due to early departures or recruits not meeting perhaps inflated expectations would hardly be remedied by not being "spread too thin". The problem I have with the above statement is that this glorious period pre-Olympics had some great (#1) classes as you allude to above, followed by less heralded ones in between. Our classes lately have been rated #2, #3, #3, #11 and #8 (without Andre Dawkins or Seth Curry), from 2005-2009. We have had great classes followed by one or two less heralded ones. I don't see this great contrast between pre- and post-Olympic recruiting.


It also can't be ignored that all these amazing gains happened with the class just after K stopped coaching the Olympics in '08. As has been discussed ad nauseum things went south from '05-'09 and seem to be picking up starting in '10.

The obvious problem with this quote is that relationships are not built overnight, so to suggest that K all of a sudden picked it up after the Olympics without a prior relationship with these players would seem incorrect to me.


Maybe K has found a balance and the next four years will look more like 1999-2004 than 2005-2009. I hope so and I'll be cheering as hard as I can for Duke and USA basketball. But if we sign the top 5 players every season from here to the end of time that won't change 2005-09 one iota. In fact, it will just further highlight how those four years stand in such stark contrast.

All that said, however you feel about the Olympics, how about a hand up for cheering for Duke and the USA and moving on to some discussions that aren't quite so played out?

Unfortunately, we can't advance further in the tournament in 2005-09 in at this point, but if we do sign the top 5 players every season from here to the end of time, I don't know that we will be able to do that much better (and it certainly won't be a stark contrast) than our 139-34 record over the last 5 years, though I hope we have better results in the single elimination NCAA tournament.

And, of course, Go Duke.

DevilCastDownfromDurham
10-29-2009, 03:28 PM
I agree I shouldn't have been sucked into this, but your Boynton statement is pure truthiness. If I recall correctly, Boynton stated that he liked that Donovan, who is at a nearby school, was always around and never stated his not coming to Duke was because coach K, who is not in the same state, was not. I agree the debate cannot be proven, but truthiness doesn't help.

I guess we just disagree. If the argument is "K never had issues with not giving enough attention to recruits" and Boyton said he felt Duke was hurt by not giving him enough attention, I think that's directly on point. I guess it goes to show how tough it is to have this sort of debate.


I agree barbs back and forth may not be helping, but deficiency due to early departures or recruits not meeting perhaps inflated expectations would hardly be remedied by not being "spread too thin".

Again, I'd argue that a full-time coach would have been better-able to see the deficiencies in those teams and hit the recruiting trail hard to address this. Greg was what he was but we didn't even go after another PG until Knight/Kyrie, or arguably Nolan. Again, I'm not arguing that the Olympics are the only, or even perhaps the primary, cause of our dip, just that dismissing it out of hand is inaccurate.



The obvious problem with this quote is that relationships are not built overnight, so to suggest that K all of a sudden picked it up after the Olympics without a prior relationship with these players would seem incorrect to me.

Agreed, that why 2008 recruits like Boynton didn't sign (as they would have if the status of "Gold-Medal Winning Olympic Coach" was such a magic bullet as some have suggested). Instead, starting in 2008 K and the staff went back to full-time work and we're seeing the results two years later in the Class of 2010.



Unfortunately, we can't advance further in the tournament in 2005-09 in at this point, but if we do sign the top 5 players every season from here to the end of time, I don't know that we will be able to do that much better (and it certainly won't be a stark contrast) than our 139-34 record over the last 5 years, though I hope we have better results in the single elimination NCAA tournament.

We've set a lot of bad records over the last few seasons even beyond the FF drought including multiple 20+ point losses and reduced ACC success. I totally agree that the sky isn't falling and we're extraordinarily lucky to have the teams and seasons that we've had.


And, of course, Go Duke.

Here, a point of agreement. No one isn't cheering for the team and no one is hoping for anything but the greatest success. Let's go Duke!

gep
10-29-2009, 06:45 PM
Maybe K has found a balance and the next four years will look more like 1999-2004 than 2005-2009.

When I read your comment on Coach K finding a "balance", I thought back to the discussions of the balance between recruiting the best one-and-done vs very good 4-year players. From 1999, early exits (and transfers, too, I guess) have changed the recruiting landscape, and I recall discussions on how Coach K was going to change with the times. The 2005 team must have been recruited in 2004 (or earlier, definitely before the Olympics) and there could have been the back-and-forth discussions and decisions of who to go after. So, maybe the "balance" in recruiting different types of players that Coach K has evolved to has at least had an influence on the results...:rolleyes: