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View Full Version : Summer Buzz ESPN: Duke Blue Devils.



Osiagledknarf
07-20-2010, 03:23 PM
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/13438/summer-buzz-duke-blue-devils

COYS
07-20-2010, 03:38 PM
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/13438/summer-buzz-duke-blue-devils

It's hard to quibble too much with an article that praises Duke so much, but I still just can't get over how much Scheyer is STILL undervalued. According to this article, Scheyer didn't turn the ball over much only because we played so slowly last season . . . this doesn't take into account Assist to Turnover Ration, though, which was still extremely high and is not affected by tempo. While the over all value of A/T ratio is certainly debatable, in Scheyer's case it highlights what made him one of the most efficient offensive players in the country last season.

Scheyer was also a "limited" player that was incapable of pushing the ball up the court, according to the article. Scheyer might not be the fastest guy in the world, but if you recall events from previous years (such as his 27 points in 2008 at Miami in which Jon raced the ball up the court nailing three after three and almost singlehandedly salvaging a win in a game that looked over with 5 minutes left), he is perfectly capable of playing at a fast tempo. I would actually say that Jon looked to push the ball last year every chance he got. The fact of the matter is, he knew we were more efficient in the halfcourt (and the staff knew this, too) so he only pushed when it was an absolute sure thing. Kyrie will be faster with the ball, I have no doubt. He will do things that Jon can't do. But Jon did things that Kyrie won't be able to do. While I think we will be a great team next year and am really excited to see us play the classic Duke uptempo style with pressure defense and series where we reel off, say, 10 points in 50 seconds =), the national media writes off the loss of Jon far too easily.

-bdbd
07-20-2010, 03:41 PM
Yep, pretty much what we've all been saying on here for a couple of months now... Much faster, run-and-gun sort of style. Great Guard corps -- Irving, Smith, Curry, Dawkins -- plus athletic guys up front Singler, MP1 and MP2 (and Ryan). Lots of flexibility. No doubt this squad will be a big pleasure to watch.

This is the piece of the picture where K just excels so much better than his peers -- he really seems to revel in the creative energy around adapting "the plan" to match the talent on hand. I think that is a big part of why we hesitate to label something a (ongoing) Coach K system. He's simply more flexible that that.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the shift in styles this year. It should be fun.

roywhite
07-20-2010, 03:50 PM
Yep, pretty much what we've all been saying on here for a couple of months now... Much faster, run-and-gun sort of style. Great Guard corps -- Irving, Smith, Curry, Dawkins -- plus athletic guys up front Singler, MP1 and MP2 (and Ryan). Lots of flexibility. No doubt this squad will be a big pleasure to watch.

This is the piece of the picture where K just excels so much better than his peers -- he really seems to revel in the creative energy around adapting "the plan" to match the talent on hand. I think that is a big part of why we hesitate to label something a (ongoing) Coach K system. He's simply more flexible that that.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the shift in styles this year. It should be fun.

Yeah, the master has the tools to create something special this year IMO.

I'd wager that we'll hear a lot from K publicly (and the players will, too) about the importance of building a sound defense first.

rotogod00
07-20-2010, 04:04 PM
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/13438/summer-buzz-duke-blue-devils

Here's the actual Summer Buzz from ESPN the Mag (behind the insider wall):

http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/insider/news/story?id=5394780

Great analysis with additional "Experts Take" from Bilas, Gottlieb, Lunardi, and Fraschilla

OZZIE4DUKE
07-20-2010, 04:12 PM
My favorite line and two favorite phrases!:

The Blue Devils won the 2010 NCAA title with a plodding tempo, a slow-down offense, and the overpowering offensive rebounding prowess of Brian Zoubek (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=31711).

Devilsfan
07-20-2010, 04:29 PM
Scheyer will truely be missed. It's hard to replace his brains and his ability not to turn the ball over. Hope we're so quick next year that his loss might be overcome.

ACCBBallFan
07-20-2010, 06:39 PM
Besides coach K and his assistants, at least Collins, not sure about Wojo being there, learning fast paced offense from Mike D'Antoni, Kyle and Nolan are in Vegas to do that too.

gep
07-21-2010, 12:01 AM
Besides coach K and his assistants, at least Collins, not sure about Wojo being there, learning fast paced offense from Mike D'Antoni, Kyle and Nolan are in Vegas to do that too.

I didn't think of it that way... Coach K, Collins, Wojo... learning from D'Antoni is one thing... now, Kyle and Nolan getting first-hand look at how it works. I just can't wait for the season to start.:) Is Duke getting "all the calls (or advantages)" again?:rolleyes:

sagegrouse
07-21-2010, 12:21 AM
I didn't think of it that way... Coach K, Collins, Wojo... learning from D'Antoni is one thing... now, Kyle and Nolan getting first-hand look at how it works. I just can't wait for the season to start.:) Is Duke getting "all the calls (or advantages)" again?:rolleyes:

Coach K received criticism from many quarters for dividing his time between Duke and the National Team. Anyone else think that K saw beyond the split job to the benefits from putting the Duke staff and program on an international stage with the best basketball players in the world? Kind of impressive, isn't it? Shows how strategic vision is an important part of leadership.

sagegrouse

ElSid
07-21-2010, 12:54 AM
Coach K received criticism from many quarters for dividing his time between Duke and the National Team. Anyone else think that K saw beyond the split job to the benefits from putting the Duke staff and program on an international stage with the best basketball players in the world? Kind of impressive, isn't it? Shows how strategic vision is an important part of leadership.

sagegrouse

Oh my yes. I think the other coaches saw it, too. They would kill for the opportunity. Most (all) the naysayers are uninformed, bitter fans. No?

UrinalCake
07-21-2010, 01:11 AM
Nice article that reinforces what most of us think about next year's team. My quibble, other than what has already been mentioned, is that there's no mention of Lance Thomas and the role he played. You can't win a championship without a guy like him on your team.

Jderf
07-21-2010, 02:50 AM
Oh my yes. I think the other coaches saw it, too. They would kill for the opportunity. Most (all) the naysayers are uninformed, bitter fans. No?

Uninformed fans? Bitter fans? I dare say I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about.

oldnavy
07-21-2010, 09:21 AM
I have to be totally honest. There was a time when I did question K's association with the national team. I never dwelt on it for long, but the thought did cross my mind. I never begrudged him doing it, heck he has earned the right to do whatever he wants, but I was a little uncertain of how it would all play out with regards to Duke BB. Now of course it seems that K knew all along what he was doing.... imagine that?

hq2
07-21-2010, 09:55 AM
Urinal Cake wrote
Nice article that reinforces what most of us think about next year's team. My quibble, other than what has already been mentioned, is that there's no mention of Lance Thomas and the role he played. You can't win a championship without a guy like him on your team

Absolutely. Without Lance's D, no way that team becomes champions. All the things he did only show up in the opposing player's field goal percentage. We had no one else on the front line capable of guarding quick players; he was the only one who could do it. Next year without him, look for quick 3s to have big games against us. It will be our one glaring weakness.

killerleft
07-21-2010, 10:01 AM
Urinal Cake wrote

Absolutely. Without Lance's D, no way that team becomes champions. All the things he did only show up in the opposing player's field goal percentage. We had no one else on the front line capable of guarding quick players; he was the only one who could do it. Next year without him, look for quick 3s to have big games against us. It will be our one glaring weakness.

That's a mighty half-filled glass you have there. No chance people could improve or that the coaches might find a way to cover these mercurial enemies? If you're right I'll get me some sunglasses!

Kedsy
07-21-2010, 10:22 AM
Urinal Cake wrote

Absolutely. Without Lance's D, no way that team becomes champions. All the things he did only show up in the opposing player's field goal percentage. We had no one else on the front line capable of guarding quick players; he was the only one who could do it. Next year without him, look for quick 3s to have big games against us. It will be our one glaring weakness.

Watch for Kyle to have greatly improved his perimeter D. But even if the other team's 3 is so quick Kyle can't guard him, then that's when we break out the small team, with Kyrie, Nolan, and Seth. Not too many 3s will be able to out-quick one of them. Thus, the only problem would be a super-quick wing who is too quick for Kyle and too big for Nolan or Seth. How many of those do you think we'll be playing next year?

CDu
07-21-2010, 10:37 AM
Urinal Cake wrote

Absolutely. Without Lance's D, no way that team becomes champions. All the things he did only show up in the opposing player's field goal percentage. We had no one else on the front line capable of guarding quick players; he was the only one who could do it. Next year without him, look for quick 3s to have big games against us. It will be our one glaring weakness.

Slight edit. Thomas didn't spend much time guarding quick 3s last year. He spent his time defending at the 4 or 5 spot. Singler and Dawkins were assigned the quick 3s (and the slow 3s). So it's instead the quicker 4s (not 3s) that would be the concern in Thomas's absence.

You do allude to an important question going into the season, and that's how well our frontcourt will step up following some very important contributions from our senior frontcourt players last year. I'd agree wholeheartedly that the frontcourt is our biggest question mark. Of course, that should be obvious when we are returning two All-ACC players on the wing, bringing in a great scoring transfer on the wing, and bringing in the #1 PG recruit in the country. Only time will tell if it's actually a weakness, though.

Huh?
07-21-2010, 10:53 AM
But Jon did things that Kyrie won't be able to do.


Don't take this as a knock on Scheyer, he is one of my favs of all time......but what could he do that Irving won't be able to do?

Duvall
07-21-2010, 10:59 AM
Don't take this as a knock on Scheyer, he is one of my favs of all time......but what could he do that Irving won't be able to do?

Assuming that we are talking about next season only, off-ball defense and running the team with astonishingly low turnovers.

COYS
07-21-2010, 11:02 AM
[ But Jon did things that Kyrie won't be able to do. QUOTE]


Don't take this as a knock on Scheyer, he is one of my favs of all time......but what could he do that Irving won't be able to do?

Seriously? I think that Kyrie can learn to be as efficient an offensive player as Jon in time, but Jon's ability to know exactly what to do and when to do it during half-court sets was simply extraordinary. His offensive efficiency rating of 1.27 points per possession is significantly higher than the highest numbers J-Will, Duhon, Avery, or Paulus ever put up. Even if Kyrie is every bit as good as J-Will from day one, he will almost certainly not be the efficient playmaker that Jon was. This is no knock on Kyrie. I'm just as excited as anyone else to see what Kyrie can do next year. But I feel that Jon is still under appreciated by many despite having one of the best seasons a Duke point guard has ever had.

hq2
07-21-2010, 11:24 AM
Watch for Kyle to have greatly improved his perimeter D. But even if the other team's 3 is so quick Kyle can't guard him, then that's when we break out the small team, with Kyrie, Nolan, and Seth. Not too many 3s will be able to out-quick one of them. Thus, the only problem would be a super-quick wing who is too quick for Kyle and too big for Nolan or Seth. How many of those do you think we'll be playing next year?

I'd say more than you think. There are plenty of 6-6, 6-7 players quick enough to get in the lane and score. They will give us some serious matchup problems.

Duvall
07-21-2010, 11:36 AM
I'd say more than you think. There are plenty of 6-6, 6-7 players quick enough to get in the lane and score. They will give us some serious matchup problems.

Like who?

Memphis Devil
07-21-2010, 11:45 AM
Reading articles such as this have me so geeked about the upcoming season and all of the possibilities that come along with it....repeat....threepeat....dynasty

Kedsy
07-21-2010, 12:10 PM
I'd say more than you think. There are plenty of 6-6, 6-7 players quick enough to get in the lane and score. They will give us some serious matchup problems.

"Quick enough to get in the lane and score" and "too quick for Kyle" are two very different things. I'll be surprised if we face any 6'6" to 6'8" players who are too quick for Kyle to guard. And if we do face them, they would in all likelihood have been too quick for Lance as well.

Lance's great value on defense was not his ability to guard quick players, but his versatility. We could give the other team differing defensive looks just by switching Lance onto someone new, so no matter what the offensive strength of our opponent was we could defend them by utilizing Lance appropriately. Next year we will achieve the same thing with depth and multiple playable options -- against a "standard" team we should be bigger, faster, and quicker; against a big team we have plenty of size as well as great quickness in the backcourt; against a small and quick team, Kyle moves up to the 4 and we'll probably be even quicker than our opponent at all 5 positions.

In my mind, our biggest question mark is the ability of our bigs to not lose their man while also rotating properly within the team defense. This past season Lance and Z were very good at this, and this is where we will have potential breakdowns unless Miles, Mason, and Ryan improve their D. That said, I expect they will all be much better on the defensive end than they were last year.

CDu
07-21-2010, 12:17 PM
"Quick enough to get in the lane and score" and "too quick for Kyle" are two very different things. I'll be surprised if we face any 6'6" to 6'8" players who are too quick for Kyle to guard. And if we do face them, they would in all likelihood have been too quick for Lance as well.

Lance's great value on defense was not his ability to guard quick players, but his versatility. We could give the other team differing defensive looks just by switching Lance onto someone new, so no matter what the offensive strength of our opponent was we could defend them by utilizing Lance appropriately. Next year we will achieve the same thing with depth and multiple playable options -- against a "standard" team we should be bigger, faster, and quicker; against a big team we have plenty of size as well as great quickness in the backcourt; against a small and quick team, Kyle moves up to the 4 and we'll probably be even quicker than our opponent at all 5 positions.

In my mind, our biggest question mark is the ability of our bigs to not lose their man while also rotating properly within the team defense. This past season Lance and Z were very good at this, and this is where we will have potential breakdowns unless Miles, Mason, and Ryan improve their D. That said, I expect they will all be much better on the defensive end than they were last year.

Exactly. I'm not overly concerned about our team's ability to defend at the 3 (or anywhere on the wing) without Thomas. Singler showed in last year's tournament that he could guard quicker players. And Thomas didn't really guard perimeter guys last year anyway (aside from on switches).

Where any concern exists will be how good our bigs are defensively against opposing bigs. Thomas was a tremendous defender of post players and face-up 4s last year. Zoubek patrolled the paint admirably and pounded the boards. But the Plumlees were inconsistent defensively. Athleticism and size are not an issue for them - it's just a matter of them getting fully adept in the team defensive concept and not losing focus or assignments. If they make great strides this year, then I have very little concern about our team's ability to defend.

jaimedun34
07-21-2010, 12:29 PM
Coach K received criticism from many quarters for dividing his time between Duke and the National Team. Anyone else think that K saw beyond the split job to the benefits from putting the Duke staff and program on an international stage with the best basketball players in the world? Kind of impressive, isn't it? Shows how strategic vision is an important part of leadership.

sagegrouse

I do think it gave some ammo to opposing coaches who wanted to paint K as inaccessible or unavailable, probably pointing to his other activities as evidence that "coaching you isn't his first priority". I'm also fairly certain that other coaches pointed out to recruits how we lost to Greece with the team that we had as an indictment of K's coaching abilities.

But the staff has approached the Olympic job in a professional and intelligent manner, and it has reaped benefits for all involved. They've obviously done a great job of educating recruits about why the Olympic experience is great for everyone involved. The bottom line is that we're winning and the players are endorsing our coach -- which is much more powerful than any claim that an opposing coach can make against us.

And we won the national championship to boot.

DukeDevilDeb
07-21-2010, 12:41 PM
Assuming that we are talking about next season only, off-ball defense and running the team with astonishingly low turnovers.

And steady senior leadership...

Dukefan1.0
07-21-2010, 05:03 PM
The Article mentions that Coach K learned the up-tempo offence from D'antoni. I always thought that before this year's team K always had a fast paced style of play, but then again I could be crazy.

Acymetric
07-22-2010, 02:10 AM
The Article mentions that Coach K learned the up-tempo offence from D'antoni. I always thought that before this year's team K always had a fast paced style of play, but then again I could be crazy.

The thing I remember changing wasn't necessarily tempo but how the team ran the floor. Emphasis on spacing and things like that.

oldnavy
07-22-2010, 06:57 AM
Exactly. I'm not overly concerned about our team's ability to defend at the 3 (or anywhere on the wing) without Thomas. Singler showed in last year's tournament that he could guard quicker players. And Thomas didn't really guard perimeter guys last year anyway (aside from on switches).

Where any concern exists will be how good our bigs are defensively against opposing bigs. Thomas was a tremendous defender of post players and face-up 4s last year. Zoubek patrolled the paint admirably and pounded the boards. But the Plumlees were inconsistent defensively. Athleticism and size are not an issue for them - it's just a matter of them getting fully adept in the team defensive concept and not losing focus or assignments. If they make great strides this year, then I have very little concern about our team's ability to defend.

Defense is not 5 one on one match ups, especially the way Duke plays it. We are very good a playing help defense so if a player gets beat off the dribble there will be others to switch or roll to help out. I am not too worried about the few cases where one of our players may be at a disadvantage, we have 4 others trained to help.

CDu
07-22-2010, 07:19 AM
Defense is not 5 one on one match ups, especially the way Duke plays it. We are very good a playing help defense so if a player gets beat off the dribble there will be others to switch or roll to help out. I am not too worried about the few cases where one of our players may be at a disadvantage, we have 4 others trained to help.

My point was that team defense still depends on individuals remaining focused and not losing assignments. I wasn't talking about one-on-one matchups. So while it is obviously not a series of one-on-one matchups, 1-2 players being out of position can substantially weaken a team defense. The Plumlees had trouble with this last year. If they have trouble with it again this year, then our defense may suffer.