Eight is Enough

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Great! Eight is enough, but we only have five. Time to get to work, guys.... ;):rolleyes: :cool:

[tux]

Great! Eight is enough, but we only have five. Time to get to work, guys.... ;):rolleyes: :cool:

Nice!

Maybe not the place to pose this question, but I've been thinking about some of the things the Duke staff said about only having 8 scholarship players going into the stretch run. One that stuck out was how they dialed back the intensity of practice and spent a lot more time doing individual work with the players. Specifically, I think it was said that Grayson really benefited from this.

What I'm wondering is how this past season will impact how K approaches these things going forward (?) If/when we get back to 10+ players, will Duke go back to more intense 5-on-5 practices, or has the staff stumbled onto a better formula for keeping the guys fresh while pushing their development?

Anyway, I'll be interested (given the great results) in how any of this past season's tweaks will be adopted in the seasons to come...

[Kedsy]

Nice!

Maybe not the place to pose this question, but I've been thinking about some of the things the Duke staff said about only having 8 scholarship players going into the stretch run. One that stuck out was how they dialed back the intensity of practice and spent a lot more time doing individual work with the players. Specifically, I think it was said that Grayson really benefited from this.

What I'm wondering is how this past season will impact how K approaches these things going forward (?) If/when we get back to 10+ players, will Duke go back to more intense 5-on-5 practices, or has the staff stumbled onto a better formula for keeping the guys fresh while pushing their development?

Anyway, I'll be interested (given the great results) in how any of this past season's tweaks will be adopted in the seasons to come...

Yeah, with a sample size of 1, it's hard to know what really worked and what was just luck.

[BrazyATX]

Lebetard (Sp?) has a guy on his show yesterday from True Hoop and he said Steve Kerr takes a very similar approach to his practices with the Warrior's. A loose, relaxed environment with an emphasis on individual player development. Seems to be working well for him.

[duke blue brewcrew]

Lebetard (Sp?) has a guy on his show yesterday from True Hoop and he said Steve Kerr takes a very similar approach to his practices with the Warrior's. A loose, relaxed environment with an emphasis on individual player development. Seems to be working well for him.

That's a pretty cool insight. It will be very interesting to see how K implements this strategy moving forward. My gut feeling is, he could mix it all together through the course of a work week. Have the first half of the week focused on individual development and perhaps the second half is focused on team practice/scrimmages that give players a place to implement that individual growth toward the team concepts and goals. Can't wait to see, that's for sure.

[Edouble]

Lebetard (Sp?) has a guy on his show yesterday from True Hoop and he said Steve Kerr takes a very similar approach to his practices with the Warrior's. A loose, relaxed environment with an emphasis on individual player development. Seems to be working well for him.

To connect over to the "Most Anticipated" thread, I recall when Shav was coming out of high school, it was reported that he never played pick up. The reason given was that he was too good and spent all of his gym time on individual work.

At the time I was blown away and thought it was so cool, then later on, after he had been at Duke for a few seasons, I wondered if he shouldn't have played more pickup ball.

My point is, there's a time and place for everything. We've won NCs with the old method (going hard 5-on-5 in practice) and we just won one with the dialed back method. I'm sure the staff will figure out what works best for this year's team. I know that's a pretty ambiguous opinion, but I do believe each team runs its own race.