PDA

View Full Version : Is this Coach K's deepest team ever?



porkpa
01-12-2019, 03:00 PM
I believe it is. I cannot remember Coach using eight players regularly. It was always the norm to use seven and rarely just six. But these eight guys are all getting good minutes.

HereBeforeCoachK
01-12-2019, 03:00 PM
I believe it is. I cannot remember Coach using eight players regularly. It was always the norm to use seven and rarely just six. But these eight guys are all getting good minutes.

Seems to me he used more players in 87-88-89 for a while.....

mattman91
01-12-2019, 03:04 PM
Well, pretty sure only 7 have played so far today. This is the point of the season where the rotation shrinks to 7.

arnie
01-12-2019, 03:09 PM
Well, pretty sure only 7 have played so far today. This is the point of the season where the rotation shrinks to 7.

Yep, hoping we’d see more from O’Connell, but he’s not proven worthy of extended minutes.

porkpa
01-12-2019, 04:37 PM
He did get some minutes. But they were not very productive.

GGLC
01-12-2019, 04:41 PM
In terms of top to bottom talent? Absolutely not.

budwom
01-12-2019, 04:42 PM
Seven or seven point five man rotation at this point, pretty much par for the course. O'Connell wasn't a good fit defending FSU. Maybe he'll make it eight.

Bluedevil114
01-12-2019, 04:44 PM
1999 team played 9 guys.

porkpa
01-12-2019, 04:51 PM
I'd say eight on the 1999 team getting any significant minutes. Casey Sanders would have been the eighth man.

Bluedevil114
01-12-2019, 04:57 PM
I'd say eight on the 1999 team getting any significant minutes. Casey Sanders would have been the eighth man.

I was referring to 98-99 team with Domzalski being #9 and Burgess #8.

kAzE
01-12-2019, 05:08 PM
Nah, it might be the most talented Duke team ever, but definitely not the deepest.

Going by the first 15 games, I'd say there's 6.5 guys Coach K trusts on this roster. I would expect the rotation in the postseason to reflect that, unless Alex takes a pretty significant step forward over the next month and a half.

jv001
01-12-2019, 05:14 PM
Nah, it might be the most talented Duke team ever, but definitely not the deepest.

Going by the first 15 games, I'd say there's 6.5 guys Coach K trusts on this roster. I would expect the rotation in the postseason to reflect that, unless Alex takes a pretty significant step forward over the next month and a half.

White #6 and Bolden and Javin the .5? GoDuke!

84Duke
01-12-2019, 05:24 PM
I’m going to say no, because K has coached since 1980. The math is with me here: one of those teams had to be deeper.

Acymetric
01-12-2019, 05:34 PM
White #6 and Bolden and Javin the .5? GoDuke!


Err...who are you putting in the top 5? One of Bolden or Javin would have to be in it, so it would be Bolden or Javin makes the .5. That said, I would argue that we are solidly 7 deep with an 8th (AOC) getting spot duty. So...7.5?

jv001
01-12-2019, 05:36 PM
Err...who are you putting in the top 5? One of Bolden or Javin would have to be in it, so it would be Bolden or Javin makes the .5. That said, I would argue that we are solidly 7 deep with an 8th (AOC) getting spot duty. So...7.5?

I was just saying White is #6 and Bolden(at this time) is #7. Neither are .5. I'm hoping Alex makes it #8. GoDuke!

jimsumner
01-12-2019, 06:40 PM
Once Alex O'Connell can give productive minutes in a close game on the road, with a starter out, we can revisit this.

The 1998 team is frequently cited as K's deepest. But Brand's foot injury distorts that. Domzallski got a lot of PT during that span but disappeared when Brand came back. By the end of the season, K was playing seven guys.

The 1988 team had nine players go for over 300 minutes and that was without any significant injuries.

For the record.


Danny Ferry-1138
Kevin Strickland-1036
Quinn Snyder-1005
Billy King-984
Robert Brickey-809
Phil Henderson-561
John Smith-534
Greg Koubek-357
Alaa Abdelnaby-320

Duke played 35 games that season and each of these guys played at least 34 of them.

The 1983 team had nine players average at least 10 mpg. But there are a lot of DNP-CDs mixed in and that team lost 17 games. So, I suspect that's not what we're looking for.

sagegrouse
01-12-2019, 06:46 PM
I believe it is. I cannot remember Coach using eight players regularly. It was always the norm to use seven and rarely just six. But these eight guys are all getting good minutes.

In 1999 the #9 player in terms of playing time was Taymon Domzalski at 297 minutes (8 minutes per Duke game); #8 was Nate James at 573 (15 MPG).

jimsumner
01-12-2019, 06:58 PM
In 1999 the #9 player in terms of playing time was Taymon Domzalski at 297 minutes (8 minutes per Duke game); #8 was Nate James at 573 (15 MPG).

Keep in mind that this team regularly bludgeoned opponents so completely that you and I could have seen PT. James was definitely in the rotation. But Domzalski got mop-up minutes, of which there were many.


But K has had lots of eight-man rotations over the year.

House P
01-17-2019, 04:10 PM
Keep in mind that this team regularly bludgeoned opponents so completely that you and I could have seen PT. James was definitely in the rotation. But Domzalski got mop-up minutes, of which there were many.

But K has had lots of eight-man rotations over the year.

Here are a few attempts to quantify Jim's statement.

So far this season, Duke has not had a single game where the 8th man* has played more than 6 minutes in a game decided by 15 points or less.

In the previous 38 seasons since Coach K arrived, Duke's 8th man* has played more than 6 minutes in almost half (349 of 783, or 45%) of games decided by 15 points or less.

Put another way, Duke has had 17 previous seasons where they regularly went 8 deep** in games decided by 15 points or less.



*I am defining the 8th man as whoever played the 8th most minutes in a particular game, not whoever played the 8th most minutes over the course of the season.

**I am defining "regularly went 8 deep" as any season in which Duke's 8th man played 7+ minutes in more than half of games decided by 15 points or less.



Trivia question: The most an 8th man has ever played in a game decided by 15 points or less since Coach K arrived at Duke is 17 minutes. This has happened twice. Sporks to the first person who can name one of the two games. Hint: They were both overtime games (not surprisingly).

Acymetric
01-17-2019, 04:22 PM
Here are a few attempts to quantify Jim's statement.

So far this season, Duke has not had a single game where the 8th man* has played more than 6 minutes in a game decided by 15 points or less.

In the previous 38 seasons since Coach K arrived, Duke's 8th man* has played more than 6 minutes in almost half (349 of 783, or 45%) of games decided by 15 points or less.

Put another way, Duke has had 17 previous seasons where they regularly went 8 deep** in games decided by 15 points or less.



*I am defining the 8th man as whoever played the 8th most minutes in a particular game, not whoever played the 8th most minutes over the course of the season.

**I am defining "regularly went 8 deep" as any season in which Duke's 8th man played 7+ minutes in more than half of games decided by 15 points or less.



Trivia question: The most an 8th man has ever played in a game decided by 15 points or less since Coach K arrived at Duke is 17 minutes. This has happened twice. Sporks to the first person who can name one of the two games. Hint: They were both overtime games (not surprisingly).

Where did you go for stats (specifically, stat's that have minutes for all years)?

House P
01-17-2019, 04:45 PM
Where did you go for stats (specifically, stat's that have minutes for all years)?

I created a spreadsheet by cutting and pasting game-by-game minutes played data from the player sections on goduke.statsgeek.com (which seems to be done at present, btw). One of these days, I am going to get around to learning Python to make such tasks much, much easier.

The spreadsheet is a bit of a mess, but I do have a method for quickly summarizing certain information. If there is a particular data cut which you are interested in, I may be able to help.

Basically, I can look at the minutes distribution for the following fields:

- Starting season
- Ending season
- Starting month
- Ending month
- Minimum scoring margin
- Maximum scoring margin
- Minimum minutes played
- Number of minutes played by each "spot of the depth chart"
- Average minutes played by each spot on the depth chart

For example, I can tell you the percentage of Jan-Feb games decided by 3 to 17 points between the 1989 and 1993 season where the 7th man played 13 or more minutes. Answer: 23 of 50 (46%).

Acymetric
01-17-2019, 04:57 PM
I created a spreadsheet by cutting and pasting game-by-game minutes played data from the player sections on goduke.statsgeek.com (which seems to be done at present, btw). One of these days, I am going to get around to learning Python to make such tasks much, much easier.

The spreadsheet is a bit of a mess, but I do have a method for quickly summarizing certain information. If there is a particular data cut which you are interested in, I may be able to help.

Basically, I can look at the minutes distribution for the following fields:

- Starting season
- Ending season
- Starting month
- Ending month
- Minimum scoring margin
- Maximum scoring margin
- Minimum minutes played
- Number of minutes played by each "spot of the depth chart"
- Average minutes played by each spot on the depth chart

For example, I can tell you the percentage of Jan-Feb games decided by 3 to 17 points between the 1989 and 1993 season where the 7th man played 13 or more minutes. Answer: 23 of 50 (46%).

I made it all the way back to 2006 without finding an OT game with the 8th player playing 17 minutes, did I miss any or are they further back (that's why I asked about minutes data, I can only find minutes data to about 2009 or so).

House P
01-17-2019, 05:03 PM
I made it all the way back to 2006 without finding an OT game with the 8th player playing 17 minutes, did I miss any or are they further back (that's why I asked about minutes data, I can only find minutes data to about 2009 or so).

The goduke.statsgeek.com site has boxscores for all games since Coach K arrived (and well before). However, as I mentioned in my last post, the site is currently down. I will give another hint to my trivia question: I expect that most long time Duke fans around here will have at least some recollection of one of the games (if not both). And, yes, they both occurred before 2006.

rsvman
01-18-2019, 08:50 AM
Random guess.... The game at Wake Forest where practically everybody fouled out??

CDu
01-18-2019, 08:58 AM
The goduke.statsgeek.com site has boxscores for all games since Coach K arrived (and well before). However, as I mentioned in my last post, the site is currently down. I will give another hint to my trivia question: I expect that most long time Duke fans around here will have at least some recollection of one of the games (if not both). And, yes, they both occurred before 2006.

I am gonna say the Capel game vs UNC. Unless you are excluding games K didn’t coach.

House P
01-18-2019, 09:05 AM
Random guess... The game at Wake Forest where practically everybody fouled out??

Excellent guess. You are correct.

Five Duke players (Shelden, Shav, JJ, Daniel Ewing, and Casey Sanders) ended up fouling out of the game. Casey fouled out after playing only 9 minutes. Sean Dockery played 17 minutes and ended up with the 8th most minutes for Duke in the game.

For what it is worth, Lee Melchionni ended up playing 6 minutes in that game as Duke's "11th man". This is the most an 11th man has ever played in a game decided by 15 points or fewer since Coach K arrived.

Here is the full boxscore (http://wakeforest_ftp.sidearmsports.com/custompages/sports/m-baskbl/stats/021303aaa.html)

Fish80
01-18-2019, 09:10 AM
My memory must be shot. I thought there was a game versus Clemson where so many fouled out Clemson didn't have 5 players left and finished the game with 4.

devildeac
01-18-2019, 09:18 AM
My memory must be shot. I thought there was a game versus Clemson where so many fouled out Clemson didn't have 5 players left and finished the game with 4.

You might be thinking of a game where Clemson played the cheats.

:mad:

House P
01-18-2019, 09:33 AM
I am gonna say the Capel game vs UNC. Unless you are excluding games K didn’t coach.

You are also correct. Chirs Collins ended up with 17 minutes played in that game, which was 8th most for Duke. Notice that I carefully worded the question to be "games since Coach K arrived at Duke".

The 1995 team was one of Duke's deeper teams since 1981. While you could attribute at least some of this to Coach K's absence, you could also attribute some of it to a struggling team with a relatively narrow talent gap between spots 4 and 9 on the depth chart.

Here are the players who ended up with the 4th - 9th most minutes that season.
- Freshmen Trajan, Wojo, and Ricky Price
- Senior Kenny Blakeney
- Chris Collins, who had a disappointing season after struggling to come back from an injury (if I recall correctly)
- Sophomore Greg Newton


Here is further evidence that it wasn't just Coach K's absence that resulted in a deeper team in 1995.

In the 6 close games before Coach K stepped away, the 8th man averaged 11.7 minutes and the 9th man averaged 6.5 minutes. This is actually more than they averaged for the 16 close games with Gaudet at the helm (10.4 mpg for the 8th man and 4.3 mpg for the 9th man). Some of that may have to do with the typical tightening of the rotation as the season progresses, but you will find very few Coach K team that averaged >10 mpg for the 8th man and >6 mpg for the 9th man in competitive Nov/Dec games. In fact, by my count, it has only happened 3 other times (1983, 1997, and 2009).

JasonEvans
01-18-2019, 09:41 AM
But Domzalski got mop-up minutes, of which there were many.

And had he been at Virginia, they would have built a statue to Taymon... at least if Pete Gillen is to be believed.