Let's please stop the "we're better off without multiple one-and-dones" nonsense

[CDu]

I've seen in a few different threads now folks saying that going all in on the one-and-dones hasn't worked out. This is most certainly an incorrect statement. There have been 16 college teams ever who had multiple freshmen who played and subsequently entered the draft:
Duke (2015)
Duke (2017)
Duke (2018)
Duke (2019 expected)
UK (2010)
UK (2012)
UK (2013*)
UK (2014)
UK (2015)
UK (2016)
UK (2017)
UK (2018)
Texas (2011)
OSU (2007)
KU (2014)
KU (2017)

Their tourney results are as follows: two titles, two championship game losses, a Final Four loss, five elite 8 losses, a sweet 16 loss, four second round losses, and one missed tournament*.

* - The 2013 UK team had two freshmen go pro. But their season was sabotaged by their star player (Nerlens Noel) tearing his ACL and missing the last 11 games of their season. So that's a bit of an outlier in my opinion.

So in 15 seasons without a season-ending injury involved, these teams made five final fours and TEN elite 8s. That's a phenomenal hit rate. There is no team in college basketball with that kind of a hit rate over the last 15 years. And that's with, let's say, ~300 teams over that 12 year span having a reasonable shot at a title (~25 teams per year over 12 years).

The only one close is UNC (3 titles and 8 elite 8s, and they cheated the system to accomplish that feat, managing to convince key freshmen to stick around at least longer than they should have (Barnes, McAdoo, Lawson).

You say that "well, Duke should be considered different than the rest because of Coach K". A fair suggestion. Well, let's look at the teams Duke had for the 13 years prior to going all in on the one-and-done era (2002-2014, because 2015 was where we started 3 freshmen): 1 title, 1 Final Four loss, 1 elite 8 loss, six sweet-16 losses, 1 second round loss, and 3 first round losses. Our success in the recent era where we were relying predominantly on 3-4 year players pails in comparison to our success the last 5 years (1 title, 2 elite 8 losses, 1 sweet-16 loss, and 1 second-round loss).

When Duke has been really successful with 3-4 year players has largely been back in an era where superstar college players stayed AT LEAST two years and usually longer. Jason Williams wouldn't have been a Duke player for his junior year (and possibly not for his sophomore year) had it been in the 2010s. Boozer might have been gone as a freshman or sophomore too. Unlikely that Grant Hill is back for his sophomore season. Laettner? Probably not back for his senior year.

People look at the 2010 team and pine for it, but as of early in that season folks were questioning whether the program was done being elite: that senior class was staring at a first round loss, a second round loss, and a sweet 16 loss as all they had on their resume, with the program having gone 5 full seasons without making a Final Four. Yes, we won the title that year and it was amazing. But it was the anomaly, not the norm.

It's fair to say that you feel more attachment to the players when they stay longer. But the tourney results themselves are decidedly in the favor of getting the best players.

[Wander]

And that's with, let's say, ~300 teams over that 12 year span having a reasonable shot at a title (~25 teams per year over 12 years).


See, I think this is the part of the argument that is sort of cheating. I don't think it makes sense to compare Duke to FSU or Iowa State or whatever. We need to compare to schools that are closer to our level as a program. So, compare the OAD model of Duke and Kentucky to the results of, say, Kansas, UNC, and Michigan State. Those results aren't too different from each other. I think the bottom line is just that you can win as an elite program with either model.

[CDu]

See, I think this is the part of the argument that is sort of cheating. I don't think it makes sense to compare Duke to FSU or Iowa State or whatever. We need to compare to schools that are closer to our level as a program. So, compare the OAD model of Duke and Kentucky to the results of, say, Kansas, UNC, and Michigan State. Those results aren't too different from each other. I think the bottom line is just that you can win as an elite program with either model.

Did you read the entire post? I specifically gave the Duke now vs Duke without comparison. And again, note that NOBODY matches that success. Even if you limit to maybe 10 schools, that's 120 seasons. And again, nobody has done it as well as the multi-one-and-dones have done. And that's even including a non-power program (Texas) to the one-and-done mix. If you limit it to the blue bloods (which is, admittedly, almost the entire list) the results look even slightly better.

Want to limit it to just Duke, Kentucky, UNC, and Kansas? Okay. Since 2007 (the first of the multi-one-and-dones with OSU), there have been 38 non-multi-one-and-done seasons for those teams. Those teams have just 16 elite-8s. Yes, they've won 4 titles (2008, 2009, 2010, 2017). But the overall tourney success has been much better for the multi-one-and-done teams. The 14 seasons of the multi-one-dones for Duke, UK, and KU have produced 2 titles and 9 elite-8s. A better title win rate (1 in 7 vs 1 in 9) and outright more elite-8 appearances.

[DukeFanSince1990]

One and dones are not the problem. The lack of Amile Jeffersons, and Quin Cooks are. Allen was great last year, but we needed one or two more of him. Same as this year.

[kako]

Totally agree.

This year, Duke had the chance to get the #1-#3 rated kids out of high school. Who is going to say no to that? One could argue that this was only the need because of all the freshman who went pro the year before, but the same question comes up - who was going to say no to Bagley, Carter, Duval and Trent? And the year before, and the year before...

Duke lost in the Elite 8 by *1* point. One thing in a game of thousands of things goes Duke's way, and we are all celebrating another Final Four team today.

Also if 1AD was the norm back then, Laettner would have gone pro after his sophomore year, if not his freshman year. The NBA is all about potential... which is why Cam will go this year, Duval went last year, Jackson went the year before, etc.

Yes, we need upperclassmen leadership each year with 1AD's. I believe that's why K recruited JGold. And guys like White and DeLaurier. Bolden will be a huge asset next year. The only loss this year is Vrank, all the rest of the upperclassmen come back. We should be really good again next year, again competing for a natty. Will, say, Purdue be able to do that? Will UCF? Will VaTech? They are going to lose players and not be able to reload. We will.

Finally, we are a spoiled bunch. Texas Tech and Auburn just made their first Final Fours, ever. Some schools like Xavier, BYU and Missouri have 25+ seasons in the tourney with zero Final Fours (thanks, @brevity). We are lucky to have a team that competes every year, where we have legit dreams of winning it all... We were one missed FT away from potentially going to OT again for a trip to the Final Four, like last year. And last year, we were a UCF-painful-rollout away from the Final Four. Like K says, the basketball gods sometimes smile at you, and sometimes they don't. They smiled on us versus UK in '92. They smiled on us versus Butler in '10. They didn't last year, and they didn't this year. I'm as upset as anyone about this (and I'd wager I'm in the 90th+ percentile of upset), but sometimes these things happen. And it's *not* because of 1AD.

9F

[freshmanjs]

One and dones are not the problem. The lack of Amile Jeffersons, and Quin Cooks are. Allen was great last year, but we needed one or two more of him. Same as this year.

What problem? Top 5 team in a coin toss game for the final 4. If goines misses a shot, no one is saying anything about a problem today.

[DavidBenAkiva]

This is a mic drop argument from CDu.

An interesting counter-point to the "only teams with experience win in March" is Texas Tech. The Red Raiders are the real outlier of Final Four teams. Of their 8 regular rotation players, they feature 2 grad-transfer starters in Matt Mooney and Tariq Owens. Only sophomore Jarrett Culver and senior Brandone Francis played any meaningful minutes for the Elite 8 team last season. And Francis transferred from Florida after his freshman season. They are a new team, unlike any other that has been the Final Four in recent memory - or ever as I can recall. Has a team ever featured a grad transfer starter in the Final Four before, let alone two? They didn't play together for years, developing chemistry like the so-called "experts" claim you need. It is essentially a team that won the free agency of college basketball. Maybe they are more a harbinger of the future than the Dukes and Kentuckys.

[Wander]

Did you read the entire post? I specifically gave the Duke now vs Duke without comparison.

Yes, and you did the same thing that guy did in the ridiculous "2 Final Fours in 15 years" post by conveniently cutting things off at the exact year that best supports your point. And I think that was long enough ago anyway where the better comparison is to other elite programs in the past ~10 years.

The overall point is that super elite programs have had similar levels of success recently both by relying heavily on OADs and not. There's no magic formula. You're correct that people are reacting far too much to the moment in trashing the success of the OAD model, but you're taking it too far in the other direction if you're saying the OAD model is obviously vastly superior.

[CDu]

Yes, and you did the same thing that guy did in the ridiculous "2 Final Fours in 15 years" post by conveniently cutting things off at the exact year that best supports your point. And I think that was long enough ago anyway where the better comparison is to other elite programs in the past ~10 years.

No, I didn't. I started with the year of the first multi-one-and-done team and considered all the years thereafter.


The overall point is that super elite programs have had similar levels of success recently both by relying heavily on OADs and not. There's no magic formula. You're correct that people are reacting far too much to the moment in trashing the success of the OAD model, but you're taking it too far in the other direction if you're saying the OAD model is obviously vastly superior.

No, they haven't. The teams with multiple one-and-dones have fared better. And by a comfortable margin.

Want to shorten the window to 2010 (the first of UK's one-and-done factor years)-2019 and compare among the blue bloods? Go right ahead. That only strengthens my argument.

Want to consider only 2014 (the first year two programs had multiple one-and-dones) to now? Ditto.

[DukeFanSince1990]

What problem? Top 5 team in a coin toss game for the final 4. If goines misses a shot, no one is saying anything about a problem today.

Touche

[UrinalCake]

I would also like to stop with the "we need to recruit one OAD every season and surround him with veteran players" nonsense. It's an easy narrative because it sounds like a great compromise between having elite talent while also maintaining continuity and developing players. But the last three teams we had that followed this model were:

2016 (Ingram): S16, never a legit threat to win it all
2014 (Parker): massive first round fail
2012 (Rivers): massive first round fail

And that doesn't include the seasons that we planned on going this route but the elite recruit didn't come, so we were just terrible. UNC-CHeat's 2005 team with Marvin Williams is probably the only example I can think of for a title winning team with one OAD. They of course were helped in large part by all the cheating. I don't count 2017 because Tony Bradley wasn't recruited as a OAD and barely did anything.

[Turk]

This is a mic drop argument from CDu.

An interesting counter-point to the "only teams with experience win in March" is Texas Tech. The Red Raiders are the real outlier of Final Four teams. Of their 8 regular rotation players, they feature 2 grad-transfer starters in Matt Mooney and Tariq Owens. Only sophomore Jarrett Culver and senior Brandone Francis played any meaningful minutes for the Elite 8 team last season. And Francis transferred from Florida after his freshman season. They are a new team, unlike any other that has been the Final Four in recent memory - or ever as I can recall. Has a team ever featured a grad transfer starter in the Final Four before, let alone two? They didn't play together for years, developing chemistry like the so-called "experts" claim you need. It is essentially a team that won the free agency of college basketball. Maybe they are more a harbinger of the future than the Dukes and Kentuckys.

I like this - there is certainly an uptick in grad transfers. I think there are two reasons: 1) those guys could have as much as 100 more games against D1 competition than an incoming freshman - you know exactly what you're getting and how that player would fit in with your team, and you can target a missing piece to get you one more level deeper in the tourney. 2) also they are 21 and 22 years old; people underestimate the advantage that grown men have over 18 year olds, even if they won't have the NBA career of the kids.

Texas Tech has both of these advantages even if their grad transfers hadn't played with the team last year.

[bludevil_33]

This year, Duke had the chance to get the #1-#3 rated kids out of high school. Who is going to say no to that?

Would you say no to one or two of those players who are coming in next year if Zion and RJ announced tomorrow they were staying? (We all know the answer to this)

Changes the equation of how you view OAD, doesn't it? You can't say no only because you know that they're leaving in only a year, making room for the next crop of kids you can't say no to. It's a vicious cycle.

IMO, a better system is to get the top 1, maybe two, and then load up with a bunch of solid middle-of-the-pack guys who will stay three or four years. That's the way multiple programs like MSU, UNC and Kansas have done it. Are they more successful? In some ways yes, in some ways no. But at the end of the day, I think it makes for a more enjoyable experience for everyone to not have your core starting lineup turning over every single year.

[Wander]

No, I didn't. I started with the year of the first multi-one-and-done team and considered all the years thereafter.


I was talking about cutting off the pre-OAD stuff for Duke at 2002.




No, they haven't. The teams with multiple one-and-dones have fared better. And by a comfortable margin.

Want to shorten the window to 2010 (the first of UK's one-and-done factor years)-2019 and compare among the blue bloods? Go right ahead. That only strengthens my argument.

Want to consider only 2014 (the first year two programs had multiple one-and-dones) to now? Ditto.

In the past 5 years:

Duke: 1 championship, 2 Elite 8, 1 Sweet 16, 1 second round
Kentucky: 1 Final Four, 1 Elite 8, 2 Sweet 16, 1 second round
Kansas: 1 Final Four, 2 Elite 8, 2 second round
UNC: 1 championship, 1 title game, 2 Sweet 16, 1 second round

So, Duke and Kentucky have won 27 tournament games, while Kansas and UNC have won 28 tournament games.

Like I said, there isn't a single magic formula for elite programs to be successful.

[KandG]

People look at the 2010 team and pine for it, but as of early in that season folks were questioning whether the program was done being elite: that senior class was staring at a first round loss, a second round loss, and a sweet 16 loss as all they had on their resume, with the program having gone 5 full seasons without making a Final Four.

It's fair to say that you feel more attachment to the players when they stay longer. But the tourney results themselves are decidedly in the favor of getting the best players.

People should look at the archives of this board after the end of those seasons prior to 2010...or maybe they shouldn't. The assessments of the team and the program turned the DBR boards into toxic sludge.

So much complaining about the weaknesses and character of the team because they didn't have talent, how K had lost his touch in both coaching and recruiting, several hundred posts wondering why we weren't getting players like John Wall, etc etc.

I don't miss all that. I genuinely get rooting for success stories like Scheyer, Goins, Maye etc. But as long as one and done is around, I'm more than fine with getting the best players, especially since I have pride in the vast majority of them as players and representatives of Duke even after they leave.

[CDu]

To address Wander's complaint about my analysis, here are the same trends among the blue bloods (Duke, UNC, Kansas, Kentucky) from two different time points: 2010 (the first year of UK's one-and-done factory) and 2014 (the first year that two programs sent two freshmen to the draft - Kansas and Kentucky):

2010-2019 "veteran" teams: 26 seasons, 2 titles, 1 title-game loss, 3 Final Four losses, five elite-8 losses, 2 first-round losses, 1 missed tournament
2010-2019 "young" teams: 14 seasons, 2 titles, 1 title-game loss, 1 Final Four loss, five elite-8 losses, 1 sweet 16 loss, 3 second round losses, 1 missed tournament*

2014-2019 "veteran": 13 seasons, 1 title, 1 title game loss, 1 Final Four loss, 2 elite 8 losses, 3 sweet 16 losses, 4 second round losses, 1 first round loss
2014-2019 "young": 11 seasons, 1 title, 1 title game loss, 1 Final Four loss, 5 elite 8 losses, 1 sweet 16 loss, 2 second-round losses

In both cases, the multi-one-and-dones have a better resume. Comfortably so. Way more likely to make the elite-8 (9 in 14 vs 11 in 26 from 2010-2019; 8 in 11 versus 5 in 13 from 2014-2019) and slightly to substantially more likely to win the title.

[dukebluesincebirth]

Duke may not be better off without one-and-dones, but the game of basketball surely is. That goes for college and NBA. Go back and watch a replay of some old Duke-UNC games in the early 90s. The level of play wall all-around MUCH better, and much more entertaining to watch. I'm so tired of the horrible defense, the huge inconsistencies game in and game out, the lack of fundamentals, the lack of mental/emotional balance, the lack of free throw shooting at clutch moments. I miss college basketball.

[scottdude8]

I've seen in a few different threads now folks saying that going all in on the one-and-dones hasn't worked out. This is most certainly an incorrect statement. There have been 16 college teams ever who had multiple freshmen who played and subsequently entered the draft:
Duke (2015)
Duke (2017)
Duke (2018)
Duke (2019 expected)
UK (2010)
UK (2012)
UK (2013*)
UK (2014)
UK (2015)
UK (2016)
UK (2017)
UK (2018)
Texas (2011)
OSU (2007)
KU (2014)
KU (2017)

Their tourney results are as follows: two titles, two championship game losses, a Final Four loss, five elite 8 losses, a sweet 16 loss, four second round losses, and one missed tournament*.

* - The 2013 UK team had two freshmen go pro. But their season was sabotaged by their star player (Nerlens Noel) tearing his ACL and missing the last 11 games of their season. So that's a bit of an outlier in my opinion.

So in 15 seasons without a season-ending injury involved, these teams made five final fours and TEN elite 8s. That's a phenomenal hit rate. There is no team in college basketball with that kind of a hit rate over the last 15 years. And that's with, let's say, ~300 teams over that 12 year span having a reasonable shot at a title (~25 teams per year over 12 years).

The only one close is UNC (3 titles and 8 elite 8s, and they cheated the system to accomplish that feat, managing to convince key freshmen to stick around at least longer than they should have (Barnes, McAdoo, Lawson).

You say that "well, Duke should be considered different than the rest because of Coach K". A fair suggestion. Well, let's look at the teams Duke had for the 13 years prior to going all in on the one-and-done era (2002-2014, because 2015 was where we started 3 freshmen): 1 title, 1 Final Four loss, 1 elite 8 loss, six sweet-16 losses, 1 second round loss, and 3 first round losses. Our success in the recent era where we were relying predominantly on 3-4 year players pails in comparison to our success the last 5 years (1 title, 2 elite 8 losses, 1 sweet-16 loss, and 1 second-round loss).

When Duke has been really successful with 3-4 year players has largely been back in an era where superstar college players stayed AT LEAST two years and usually longer. Jason Williams wouldn't have been a Duke player for his junior year (and possibly not for his sophomore year) had it been in the 2010s. Boozer might have been gone as a freshman or sophomore too. Unlikely that Grant Hill is back for his sophomore season. Laettner? Probably not back for his senior year.

People look at the 2010 team and pine for it, but as of early in that season folks were questioning whether the program was done being elite: that senior class was staring at a first round loss, a second round loss, and a sweet 16 loss as all they had on their resume, with the program having gone 5 full seasons without making a Final Four. Yes, we won the title that year and it was amazing. But it was the anomaly, not the norm.

It's fair to say that you feel more attachment to the players when they stay longer. But the tourney results themselves are decidedly in the favor of getting the best players.

This is right on. OAD isn't the ideal, obviously. But as K always says, at Duke you recruit the best players you can that fit the program. If they happen to be OAD, you can't begrudge them that. So many players we've had in the past would've been OAD if they played in this era.

And for those still hanging onto this fixation, consider the alternative. Would you rather Duke ignore the top 10-20 recruits each year that have the potential to be OAD and only recruit 4*s? I bet the same group complaining about OADs would then go back to the refrain of the late 2000s' that "Duke can't compete because K can't recruit top talent anymore".

Coach K is the best because he ADJUSTS to the landscape of college basketball. This decade has been driven by OADs, for better or worse. He turned that into a National Title, three Elite 8s (don't forget about the Curry/Plumlee/Kelly team), a couple of epic ACC Tournament runs, a myriad of pros that have a Duke connection that we can root for for the next decade, and a whole lot of fun. I think you can put that up against almost any other team this past decade.

[CDu]

I was talking about cutting off the pre-OAD stuff for Duke at 2002.

I didn't cut off at 2002. I cut off at 2008. I cut off any Duke comparison at 2002 because prior to that is like a totally different era of basketball. And that included a Duke team that simply wouldn't have existed in this era (the 2002 team). But feel free to include 1998-2014 if it makes you feel better. The story remains the same, though admittedly less glaringly so. But again, I'd argue that this is because 1999 and possibly 2001 don't exist if those players were in college today.


In the past 5 years:

Duke: 1 championship, 2 Elite 8, 1 Sweet 16, 1 second round
Kentucky: 1 Final Four, 1 Elite 8, 2 Sweet 16, 1 second round
Kansas: 1 Final Four, 2 Elite 8, 2 second round
UNC: 1 championship, 1 title game, 2 Sweet 16, 1 second round

So, Duke and Kentucky have won 27 tournament games, while Kansas and UNC have won tournament 28 games.

Like I said, there isn't a single magic formula or elite programs to be successful.

See my analysis below, but using 2014 (the first time two schools had multiple one-and-dones in a season). Among these four teams, 11 seasons with mulitple one-and-dones. In those 11, 8 made the elite 8. Compare that to the 13 seasons without multiple one and dones: 5 of the 13 seasons with an elite-8 or better. Same number of title game losses, Final Fours, and titles in fewer total seasons.

Things get even more starkly different if you look at 2010-2019 (2010 being when UK really ushered in the one-and-done model).

It's really been pretty consistently true that the one-and-done approach has led to more tourney success than without.

[Dukehky]

I mean, if we have one of Frank Jackson, Luke Kennard, or Gary Trent on this roster, Duke is probably still playing.

The only issue I have with one and dones, and it's a small one, is that it becomes so ingrained that you fail if you're at Duke for a second year and that kids who aren't even going in the first round, or the second round for god's sake, are leaving.

That's just the bummer. I would not trade my time with Bagley, Carter, Zion, or RJ for anything in the world. I loved watching them play.

[bludevil_33]

I mean, if we have one of Frank Jackson, Luke Kennard, or Gary Trent on this roster, Duke is probably still playing.


I dunno. I see this exercise similar to messing with time travel.

You add in all these new variables, chemistry, commitments, etc etc and who knows how things would have actually turned out differently.

[UrinalCake]

I mean, if we have one of Frank Jackson, Luke Kennard, or Gary Trent on this roster, Duke is probably still playing.

You can't blame Luke for leaving, he was a contributor getting minutes on the (terrible) Pistons last season and is in the rotation this season after overcoming his earlier injury, so it was the right time for him to go. I thought Frank should have stayed and been a lottery pick, but there's absolutely no way he would have come back again for his junior year. Trent was in a similar position as Frank, borderline first round pick who could have returned and moved up. He would have been great on this team. I thought Alex would have stepped into that role as the outside shooter but that didn't happen.

Duval coming back would have helped us as well. I know a lot of fans wanted to show him the door since we had Tre coming in, but we could have played them together like we did with Tre and Goldwire. Duval would have given us a penetrating guard who could also really push the floor, would have allowed Tre to play fewer minutes, and given us insurance when Tre got hurt.

[DarkstarWahoo]

Interesting piece from the Ringer: https://www.theringer.com/march-madness/2019/4/1/18290521/duke-coach-k-one-and-done-failure

You can quibble with parts of this article, and a lot of it rehashes arguments that have been discussed in this thread, but I thought this was an interesting point:


Not every recruit that Duke signs expects to go pro after one season. The issue for the ones who do stick around is that the identity of the team changes so dramatically each season that there is no continuity within their roles. Coach K has to start from scratch each summer. Last season’s team was built around two more traditional big men (Bagley and Carter) who struggled to defend in space, so he played a zone and slowed the tempo (no. 105 in the country in pace) to pound the ball inside. This season’s team was built around three 6-foot-7 players with inconsistent jumpers, so he played pressure defense and tried to speed up the pace (no. 27 in the country) to get out in transition. It’s no wonder his bench couldn’t keep up. Players without as much natural talent need to learn to play within a system on both ends of the floor.

[Wander]

It's really been pretty consistently true that the one-and-done approach has led to more tourney success than without.

I honestly don't know how you look at the numbers for the past few years and think that the OAD results are comfortably, obviously better. Over the past 5 years, Duke/Kentucky have had nearly exactly the same tournament results as UNC/Kansas. Maybe the OAD results are ever so slightly better in your results taking it back 1 extra year to 2014, but that's clearly within the noise (you can change one shot in one game somewhere and get a slight advantage going the opposite way). The two models have recently produced essentially the same tournament results for (what I would consider to be, but I guess this is slightly arguable) the current four most elite programs.

[Matches]

Interesting piece from the Ringer: https://www.theringer.com/march-madness/2019/4/1/18290521/duke-coach-k-one-and-done-failure

You can quibble with parts of this article, and a lot of it rehashes arguments that have been discussed in this thread, but I thought this was an interesting point:

Yea that article has a TON of problems, from cherry-picking statistics to straight-up factual inaccuracies. (My favorite was that K never developed trust in Jack White - seriously?) I do think the idea that it's harder for the role players to develop when the team goes through radical changes in personnel and style every year is interesting, though.

[DarkstarWahoo]

Yea that article has a TON of problems, from cherry-picking statistics to straight-up factual inaccuracies. (My favorite was that K never developed trust in Jack White - seriously?) I do think the idea that it's harder for the role players to develop when the team goes through radical changes in personnel and style every year is interesting, though.

Oh yeah, that's par for the course with the Ringer - interesting ideas executed haphazardly. I certainly wasn't endorsing the whole thing.

[COYS]

Interesting piece from the Ringer: https://www.theringer.com/march-madness/2019/4/1/18290521/duke-coach-k-one-and-done-failure

You can quibble with parts of this article, and a lot of it rehashes arguments that have been discussed in this thread, but I thought this was an interesting point:

I’d buy into this more if Duke frequently switched back and forth between zone and M2M on the regular. In reality, 2018 was an aberration. Plus, the role players adapted well this year. Duke had its most consistent defensive season since 2011. And it likely would have looked even better without the injuries.

[CDu]

I mean, if we have one of Frank Jackson, Luke Kennard, or Gary Trent on this roster, Duke is probably still playing.

The only issue I have with one and dones, and it's a small one, is that it becomes so ingrained that you fail if you're at Duke for a second year and that kids who aren't even going in the first round, or the second round for god's sake, are leaving.

That's just the bummer. I would not trade my time with Bagley, Carter, Zion, or RJ for anything in the world. I loved watching them play.

I think the challenge - and one that we've been fairly successful at navigating thus far - is keeping a balance of talent year to year. We obviously had great talent in 2015, 2018, and 2019, and the results showed it (one title, 2 nailbiter losses in the elite 8). In 2016, we appeared to have great balance and talent going into the season, but then we lost Jefferson for the year. In 2017, we got a bonus year of Jefferson, but didn't get a healthy version of Harry Giles or (probably) Marques Bolden, and even had some nagging injuries elsewhere (Coach K, Tatum, Jefferson, Allen, and Jackson). That team started to find a groove in the ACC tournament, but accumulated too many losses and got hosed as a 2 seed playing USC in SC.

The other challenge is that transfers have more impact on your roster when there is a ton of turnover. Having a senior Thornton and Jeter as key contributors would be really nice to go along with those top four freshmen, although maybe one of Bolden and DeLaurier doesn't stick around. Similarly, having a junior Jordan Tucker next year might be nice. Or even a sophomore Jordan Tucker this year.

It's one reason why I hope we are more aggressive on the transfer/grad transfer market as needed in Coach K's remaining time at Duke (or until the one-and-done rule is changed, which may coincide fairly closely time-wise). If we can add in some veteran presences to go along with the elite freshman talent coming in, that's a nice mix. This year we didn't necessarily need that, but it sure wouldn't have hurt to come into the season with a roster with more minutes of experience than what we had - even just one more rotation guy with experience.

But we appear to have broadened our recruiting scope to include not just elite guys but a few "program" guys as well. As long as we keep landing elite talent and retaining just enough program guys to maintain continuity, we should continue to do well. Especially if those program guys develop over time as well.

[CDu]

I do think the idea that it's harder for the role players to develop when the team goes through radical changes in personnel and style every year is interesting, though.

This is the other quibble. Our roster construction has looked so different in each of the last 5 years that we've been forced to play a different system nearly every year. That's fine for most of the elite guys, especially since the system for each season is built around those elite guys. But it makes it harder for role players (who are inherently less talented and usually less versatile) to adjust.

Next year, we'll almost certainly play an entirely different style than we played this year. I'm not sure what it will look like yet, but it won't be like this. I wouldn't expect Jack White's or Marques Bolden's or Jordan Goldwire's roles to change (those guys are what they are), but guys like O'Connell and DeLaurier might be playing a very different role next year than this year. That can be hard.

[kAzE]

100% agree with CDu. This team was 1 or 2 consistent perimeter shooters from a title. I'll go to my grave believing that. We just couldn't put enough shooting around the star freshmen. Our supporting cast of sophomores and juniors were excellent glue guy types who were good enough on defense, but didn't provide the type of shooting that we needed to open up the floor.

It's tough, because you never know how things will turn out in 3-4 years when you recruit these 4 year players. Luke Kennard was way better than anticipated, and went pro after 2 years. Gary Trent went pro when he probably could have stayed 1 more year. Jack White started out the year on fire, but lost confidence, and then was set back by an injury at the worst possible time. Alex O'Connell wasn't quite ready for the big stage at this point in his career. Grayson would have helped this team in a huge way, but he graduated a year ago.

You need a lot of things to go right to win a championship. Too bad it didn't work out this year.

I have high hopes for Boogie. I think he'll be a multi-year player who can really light it up from deep.

[CDu]

100% agree with CDu. This team was 1 or 2 consistent perimeter shooters from a title. I'll go to my grave believing that. We just couldn't put enough shooting around the star freshmen. Our supporting cast of sophomores and juniors were excellent glue guy types who were good enough on defense, but didn't provide the type of shooting that we needed to open up the floor.

It's tough, because you never know how things will turn out in 3-4 years when you recruit these 4 year players. Luke Kennard was way better than anticipated, and went pro after 2 years. Gary Trent went pro when he probably could have stayed 1 more year. Jack White started out the year on fire, but lost confidence, and then was set back by an injury at the worst possible time. Alex O'Connell wasn't quite ready for the big stage at this point in his career. Grayson would have helped this team in a huge way, but he graduated a year ago.

You need a lot of things to go right to win a championship. Too bad it didn't work out this year.

I have high hopes for Boogie. I think he'll be a multi-year player who can really light it up from deep.

And even WITH all of that going wrong, we were still basically one missed assignment (or one bad reach-in decision by Zion later in the first half) from being in the Final Four with a field of teams that we'd already beaten.

And last year, we were literally a quarter of an inch from going to the Final Four with as good a chance as anyone at beating Villanova.

Boogie intrigues me. He seems like the type of kid who will excel in the college game but maybe isn't quite big enough to play SG in the NBA. Maybe that means he stays a few years. We'll see. But I like what I've seen of his game as it relates to the college level. He's that sort of fearless player as a combo guard. Not unlike a guy like Coby White, for example (though he is shorter).

[Dukebasketball2020]

My frustration lies on Coach K. One thing we got away from over the last 2 years has been recruiting really good 3-point shooting guys. My second issue is if you notice when a shot goes up everybody stands around and doesn't go after the rebound minus Zion. RJ just stands around doesn't help out on defense at all looks lost. Same thing on offense is standing around one on one ball, no plays ran. My last issue is where was Vrank and Goldwire? Goldwire would have helped us yesterday on defense he helped us beat UNC which is better than MSU I believe. Also Vrank was a waste this year he played good when he got a shot why didn't he play?

[dukebluesincebirth]

100% agree with CDu. This team was 1 or 2 consistent perimeter shooters from a title. I'll go to my grave believing that. We just couldn't put enough shooting around the star freshmen. Our supporting cast of sophomores and juniors were excellent glue guy types who were good enough on defense, but didn't provide the type of shooting that we needed to open up the floor.

It's tough, because you never know how things will turn out in 3-4 years when you recruit these 4 year players. Luke Kennard was way better than anticipated, and went pro after 2 years. Gary Trent went pro when he probably could have stayed 1 more year. Jack White started out the year on fire, but lost confidence, and then was set back by an injury at the worst possible time. Alex O'Connell wasn't quite ready for the big stage at this point in his career. Grayson would have helped this team in a huge way, but he graduated a year ago.

You need a lot of things to go right to win a championship. Too bad it didn't work out this year.

I have high hopes for Boogie. I think he'll be a multi-year player who can really light it up from deep.

Agreed about the shooting. The thing that kills me is, we HAD a guy (with experience/leadership) who was hitting open 3s around this core of talent at the beginning of the season, and it looked beautiful! He also played defense and rebounded! A perfect role player! WTF happened to JACK WHITE????!!!!???? This could easily be argued as the downfall of our season. A slump turned into a..... disappearance? Baffling.

[Matches]

My last issue is where was Vrank and Goldwire? Goldwire would have helped us yesterday on defense he helped us beat UNC which is better than MSU I believe. Also Vrank was a waste this year he played good when he got a shot why didn't he play?

Who would you have taken off the court to put Vrank or Goldwire in? Delaurier played a terrific game in the post, and Zion is, y'know, Zion. Goldwire is a solid defender but not better than Cam.

[CDu]

Agreed about the shooting. The thing that kills me is, we HAD a guy (with experience/leadership) who was hitting open 3s around this core of talent at the beginning of the season, and it looked beautiful! He also played defense and rebounded! A perfect role player! WTF happened to JACK WHITE????!!!!???? This could easily be argued as the downfall of our season. A slump turned into a.... disappearance? Baffling.

It didn't help that White got hurt at the wrong time too. If he's healthy, maybe we aren't as gassed going into the MSU game. Even if he isn't hitting a ton of 3s. And it gives us more flexibility in defending MSU with a "smaller" lineup. Obviously, if he's healthy AND hitting 35-40% of 3s, we almost certainly aren't out of the tournament.

I mean, even WITH him hurt and missing a shooter, AND with having an abysmal day in terms of our turnovers, we were still a play away from making the Final Four against the best of the #2 seeds.

[CDu]

My frustration lies on Coach K. One thing we got away from over the last 2 years has been recruiting really good 3-point shooting guys. My second issue is if you notice when a shot goes up everybody stands around and doesn't go after the rebound minus Zion. RJ just stands around doesn't help out on defense at all looks lost. Same thing on offense is standing around one on one ball, no plays ran. My last issue is where was Vrank and Goldwire? Goldwire would have helped us yesterday on defense he helped us beat UNC which is better than MSU I believe. Also Vrank was a waste this year he played good when he got a shot why didn't he play?

Defense wasn't the problem yesterday. We played an elite level of defense. Offense (and more specifically, us committing turnovers) was the problem. Neither Vrankovic nor Goldwire help on that end.

[Steven43]

I would also like to stop with the "we need to recruit one OAD every season and surround him with veteran players" nonsense.

I don’t recall anyone saying to recruit just one OAD player every year. I think the point was to maybe recruit a couple of obvious OAD guys each year, but not to have 80% of the starting lineup be OAD freshmen like it was this year. The rest of the starting lineup would hopefully be comprised of good players, but not the elite talent types that would leave after one year. By having a team each season of mostly — with the exception of a couple of elite OADs in the mix — good rather than elite players (Nolan Smith, Amile Jefferson, Grayson Allen, Mason Plumlee), you always have quality players with experience, you have program continuity, and you have guys that fans get to know and love over four years. I’m not saying it’s easy to do this, but I do think it’s worth aspiring to, and if any school could pull it off it’s Duke.

[freshmanjs]

I honestly don't know how you look at the numbers for the past few years and think that the OAD results are comfortably, obviously better. Over the past 5 years, Duke/Kentucky have had nearly exactly the same tournament results as UNC/Kansas. Maybe the OAD results are ever so slightly better in your results taking it back 1 extra year to 2014, but that's clearly within the noise (you can change one shot in one game somewhere and get a slight advantage going the opposite way). The two models have recently produced essentially the same tournament results for (what I would consider to be, but I guess this is slightly arguable) the current four most elite programs.

Kansas has been pursuing the one and done strategy too. They have only had multiple one-dones twice (vs. Duke having them 4 times), but they've tried. (Insert Adidas joke here).

Kansas has had at least one 1-done almost every year since it became a big thing.

[Kedsy]

One and dones are not the problem. The lack of Amile Jeffersons, and Quin Cooks are. Allen was great last year, but we needed one or two more of him. Same as this year.

How many recruits in the #20s and #30s do you expect to join and then stay around on a team whose best players and starters are freshmen? Or guys in the #10s who happen to be non-OAD guys?

It's hard to convince those guys to hang around -- either they get too good and leave for the NBA (Kennard), or they don't want to wait their turn so they transfer (Ojeleye, D Thornton, Jeter).

Adding in the guys who left unexpectedly, here's what the last five years would have looked like from a veteran standpoint:

2015: Cook (#31, Sr), Jefferson (#21, Jr), M Jones (#34, So), Ojeleye (#32, So)
2016: Jefferson (#21, Sr), M Jones (#34, Jr), Ojeleye (#32, Jr), Allen (#24, So)
2017: Jefferson (#21, RSr), M Jones (#34, Sr), Ojeleye (#32, Sr), Allen (#24, Jr), D Thornton (#13, So), Jeter (#14, So), Kennard (#21, So)
2018: Allen (#24, Sr), D Thornton (#13, Jr), Jeter (#14, Jr), Kennard (#21, Jr), Bolden (#11, So), DeLaurier (#35, So)
2019: D Thornton (#13, Sr), Jeter (#14, Sr), Kennard (#21, Sr), Bolden (#11, Jr), DeLaurier (#35, Jr)

The above list would suggest that the "problem" is not a recruiting problem. We've recruited plenty of talented guys expected to stay three or four years. The "problem," if there is one (which I don't believe there is), would seem to be an inability to keep a decent percentage of those recruits from leaving. Though if they were all here and playing, we probably don't get some of the amazing freshmen we've had recently. It's hard for me to imagine a team built around, e.g., Derryck Thornton, Chase Jeter, and Luke Kennard would have fared better in the NCAA tournament than the team we had, built around Zion, RJ, and Tre.


IMO, a better system is to get the top 1, maybe two, and then load up with a bunch of solid middle-of-the-pack guys who will stay three or four years.

As CDu pointed out, that's pretty much exactly what Duke did in 2012, 2014, and 2016. It didn't turn out so well for us in the NCAAT.



In the past 5 years:

Duke: 1 championship, 2 Elite 8, 1 Sweet 16, 1 second round
Kentucky: 1 Final Four, 1 Elite 8, 2 Sweet 16, 1 second round
Kansas: 1 Final Four, 2 Elite 8, 2 second round
UNC: 1 championship, 1 title game, 2 Sweet 16, 1 second round

So, Duke and Kentucky have won 27 tournament games, while Kansas and UNC have won 28 tournament games.

Like I said, there isn't a single magic formula for elite programs to be successful.

I agree there is no single magic formula. But I'm not sure Kansas should be lumped in with UNC in this regard. In the past six seasons, Kansas has had nine top-16 recruits, seven of whom were OAD, and an eighth was a transfer who played just one season for Kansas. And that's not including Dedric Lawson, a transfer who will almost certainly play just one season for Kansas. In my opinion, KU should be placed with UK and Duke for the purposes of this discussion.

And has been brought up many times, UNC is not a good example for the get-mid-range-four-year-recruits gang either, because the Heels had three top 15 recruits (plus another top 25 recruit) stay three or four years at the same time.

[kAzE]

Agreed about the shooting. The thing that kills me is, we HAD a guy (with experience/leadership) who was hitting open 3s around this core of talent at the beginning of the season, and it looked beautiful! He also played defense and rebounded! A perfect role player! WTF happened to JACK WHITE????!!!!???? This could easily be argued as the downfall of our season. A slump turned into a... disappearance? Baffling.

Yeah, totally agree. This team was playing its very best basketball when Jack White was playing well. The adversity began when Jack White's shooting slump started, around the first Syracuse game.

After that, we never really got back to the insane level we started the year at. The team rallied to win the ACC tournament, but it still never quite looked like the juggernaut that dominated Kentucky in November.

We definitely did not play at that level at any point in the NCAA tournament. Our defense was worse and our spacing on offense was worse, and as a result, our season is over.

[CDu]

I don’t recall anyone saying to recruit just one OAD player every year. I think the point was to maybe recruit a couple of obvious OAD guys each year, but not to have 80% of the starting lineup be OAD freshmen like it was this year. The rest of the starting lineup would hopefully be comprised of good players but not the elite talent types that would leave after one year. So by having a team each year compromised mostly — with the exception of a couple of elite OADs in the mix — of these good rather than elite players (Nolan Smith, Amile Jefferson, Grayson Allen, Mason Plumlee) you always have quality players with experience, you have program continuity, and you have guys that fans get to know and love over four years. I’m not saying it’s easy to do this, but I do think it’s worth aspiring to and if any school could pull it off it’s Duke.

The team has tried to do this. Derryck Thornton, Chase Jeter, and Luke Kennard would have been seniors on this year's team (and obviously juniors last year). DeLaurier, Bolden, and White were juniors on this year's team; they just haven't developed quite as quickly as hoped (in the cases of DeLaurier and especially Bolden). Frank Jackson could have been a junior this year, and would have been a sophomore last year. Jordan Tucker (who was pretty useful for Butler this year) could have been a sophomore this year.

It's hard to identify guys who you know will stick around 3-4 years. Some guys will get the itch to play and transfer. Some guys will blow up and go pro early.

I don't think the goal as of a year ago was to have 4 freshmen start this season, although I also don't think they'd have minded. Honestly, if Reddish had been better offensively, we are probably still playing. Heck, even with the limited experience and Reddish's inconsistencies/struggles, we were a single play (against a top-4 team) away from making the Final Four with 3 teams we've already beaten.

[Kedsy]

I don’t recall anyone saying to recruit just one OAD player every year. I think the point was to maybe recruit a couple of obvious OAD guys each year, but not to have 80% of the starting lineup be OAD freshmen like it was this year. The rest of the starting lineup would hopefully be comprised of good players but not the elite talent types that would leave after one year. So by having a team each season compromised mostly — with the exception of a couple of elite OADs in the mix — of these good rather than elite players (Nolan Smith, Amile Jefferson, Grayson Allen, Mason Plumlee) you always have quality players with experience, you have program continuity, and you have guys that fans get to know and love over four years. I’m not saying it’s easy to do this, but I do think it’s worth aspiring to, and if any school could pull it off it’s Duke.

It may be worth noting that if Duke had gone with the one-or-two-but-no-more "obvious OAD guys" strategy this year, Zion would most likely not have been on the team.

[flyingdutchdevil]

I'm torn on the OAD strategy. I think it's wonderful bringing in the right talent. I think it's frustration "starting over" every single year. But you can't really disagree with the impact. However, I do tend to think the media and fans overestimate the effect multiple OADs have on your team.

My real issue is the development of current players. A lot of these players are 4 and 5 star players who haven't really progressed as fast as we'd like. And this is where I think OADs come into play. The staff is so focused on OADs, getting them caught up to speed, etc that there likely isn't as much time for returning players. It's an opportunity cost trade-off; there are only so many hours where the coaching staff can work with the team.

According to RSCI, Bolden was ranked #11. The two folks ranked before and the two folks ranked after him are Malik Monk, Miles Bridges, Terrance Ferguson, and Wenyen Gabriel.
According to RSCI, DeLaurier was ranked #35. The two folks ranked before and the two folks ranked after him are Udoka Azubuike (starter this year for Kansas but got a season ending injury), Ike Anigbogu (NBA flameout), Shamorie Ponds (20ppg this year), and Thon Maker (NBA).
According to RSCI, Alex O'Connell was ranked #69. The two folks ranked before and the two folks ranked after him are Nojel Eastern (28.2 mpg and 7.5ppg for E8 Purdue), Nathan Reuvers (22.9 mpg and 7.9 ppg for Wisconsin), Bruno Fernando (30.0 mpg and 13.6 ppg for Maryland), and Darius Perry (16.4 mpg and 5.4 ppg for Louisville).

Jack White wasn't ranked in RSCI and that's likely because he played HS ball in Australia. And Jack White looked to be that guy who developed significantly and contributed as part of the core rotation but ran into a laundry list of shooting woes, confidence issues, and injuries.

I hope we see better development, because all of these players aren't getting the opportunities that their peers are getting.

[Kedsy]

We definitely did not play at that level at any point in the NCAA tournament. Our defense was worse and our spacing on offense was worse, and as a result, our season is over.

Our defense (measured by adjusted points per possession) was better against Michigan State than it was against Kentucky in November.

[Dukehky]

The thing that gets me is that Clemson football will get to watch Trevor Lawrence and Justyn Ross, who are both certainly NFL ready players, for 2 more years.

I'm just jealous. I understand they want to go pro, but I just want to see them for my team more.

[CDu]

I honestly don't know how you look at the numbers for the past few years and think that the OAD results are comfortably, obviously better. Over the past 5 years, Duke/Kentucky have had nearly exactly the same tournament results as UNC/Kansas. Maybe the OAD results are ever so slightly better in your results taking it back 1 extra year to 2014, but that's clearly within the noise (you can change one shot in one game somewhere and get a slight advantage going the opposite way). The two models have recently produced essentially the same tournament results for (what I would consider to be, but I guess this is slightly arguable) the current four most elite programs.

Because I've looked at the data each year over that time span. You've lumped Duke and UK as homogenous and UNC and Kansas as homogenous. That's inaccurate: even in that tiny window, Duke has had a season without the multiple one-and-dones (two if you include 2014), and Kansas has had a season with one-and-dones (two if you include 2014). And the data are what the data are.

Also, a 5-year window is a VERY small sample size, and sort of arbitrary. At least as arbitrary (moreso, I'd argue). But even still, it favors the one-and-dones, just a bit more slightly. Then, it's 5 elite-8s in 11 for the "veteran" teams versus 7 elite-8s in 9 for the young'ns. I'd argue that we should use the entire span of the "one-and-done factory" era (2010-2019) as more appropriate. That gives a semi-large sample for the one-and-done side (14 seasons) and a reasonably large sample for the veteran side (26). And it's clear from those data that having one-and-done talent is favorable. But even over a 5-year sample, it's more favorable for the one-and-dones (as evidenced by the fairly substantial difference in elite-8 appearances). I'd feel less strongly about it over a short window, but we have a larger window that gives me more confidence in my statement. I see no good reason to restrict it to just a 5 year window.

[CDu]

It may be worth noting that if Duke had gone with the one-or-two-but-no-more "obvious OAD guys" strategy this year, Zion would most likely not have been on the team.

Or even the "no more than 3" strategy (Zion was the fourth to commit).

[kako]

My frustration lies on Coach K. One thing we got away from over the last 2 years has been recruiting really good 3-point shooting guys. My second issue is if you notice when a shot goes up everybody stands around and doesn't go after the rebound minus Zion. RJ just stands around doesn't help out on defense at all looks lost. Same thing on offense is standing around one on one ball, no plays ran. My last issue is where was Vrank and Goldwire? Goldwire would have helped us yesterday on defense he helped us beat UNC which is better than MSU I believe. Also Vrank was a waste this year he played good when he got a shot why didn't he play?

?

Cam was supposed to be one of those "really good 3-point shooting guys". Are you going to not recruit, say, Zion and get some kid who's a spot up 3 point shooter? Also, Baker was supposed to be an outside shooter, but he never materialized whatsoever as a player this year. I suppose you could blame K for not developing him earlier, but if he was so great I'd think K would have given him more minutes even after the red shirt was gone.

"Everybody stands around and doesn't go after the rebound"? I suppose Duke just got lucky with the ball falling into their hands in order to outrebound MSU by double digits yesterday?

"No plays ran"? That's ridiculous. Duke constantly sets screens, picks, swing passes, etc to free up shooters. If one only watches the ball, one only sees the ball. Duke constantly shifts players to set up plays.

"Vrank"? I don't know where to start here, so I'll just say this: I will always remember and appreciate Vrank in the Carolina game, yes. The MSU game was a plodding slog fest. Putting Vrank in the paint would have clogged up space even more for Zion. Javin can soar in from the baseline or wing. Vrank cannot.

9F

[Steven43]

It may be worth noting that if Duke had gone with the one-or-two-but-no-more "obvious OAD guys" strategy this year, Zion would most likely not have been on the team.

Interesting point. I don’t have a good response to that other than to say that Zion is an anomaly and we won’t be seeing another like him anytime soon, and maybe not ever. Therefore, I don’t think going forward we risk missing out on a guy like him by purposely limiting ourselves to a couple of OADs each year.

Regardless of whatever recruiting changes Coach K and staff do or do not implement, I’ll never root for any other school. I just hope the NBA goes to a system that allows high school graduates to go straight to the NBA while mandating a three-year college stint for those who don’t. Wishful thinking, I know.

[UrinalCake]

100% agree with CDu. This team was 1 or 2 consistent perimeter shooters from a title. I'll go to my grave believing that. We just couldn't put enough shooting around the star freshmen. Our supporting cast of sophomores and juniors were excellent glue guy types who were good enough on defense, but didn't provide the type of shooting that we needed to open up the floor.

We had O'Connell who shot 50% in limited minutes last season. He was a top-50/4-star recruit which is exactly the type of guy the anti-OAD crowd wants us to recruit. I'm not sure how much more you could possibly ask for from a roster perspective. Coach K elected not to give him any minutes (unless injuries forced him to), so he never developed. Or maybe he never developed, which is why Coach K didn't give him any minutes. We'll never know. From a recruiting perspective, we also had Joey Baker and would have had Jordan Tucker had he not transferred and probably expected to have Gary Trent for more than a season. Cam was known as a shooter. We've been recruiting plenty of shooters.

[UrinalCake]

Interesting point. I don’t have a good response to that other than to say that Zion is an anomaly and we won’t be seeing another like him anytime soon, and maybe not ever. Therefore, I don’t think going forward we risk missing out on a guy like him by purposely limiting ourselves to a couple of OADs each year.

We would have also missed out on Bagley last year, and Bolden the year before. In 2014 we would have gotten Jones and Okafor but not Winslow.

[Edouble]

Interesting point. I don’t have a good response to that other than to say that Zion is an anomaly and we won’t be seeing another like him anytime soon, and maybe not ever. Therefore, I don’t think going forward we risk missing out on a guy like him by purposely limiting ourselves to a couple of OADs each year.

We didn't know all of this about Zion before he got to campus though. Before the season started he was just the #4 player in the RSCI Final 2018 rankings behind RJ Barrett, Nassir Little and Cam Reddish.

[CDu]

We would have also missed out on Bagley last year, and Bolden the year before. In 2014 we would have gotten Jones and Okafor but not Winslow.

Yep. I am all for Duke getting the best players it can get. I do like that we've made a bit more of an effort to land a couple of next-tier guys each year too. As long as one or two per class stick around, you should be okay. In that sense, I'm glad that Baker came early, because he gives us one extra continuity piece for next year, even if the other four go pro as should be expected (with only Jones as a question mark).

For similar reasons, I'd be very sad if we weren't still trying to get Matthew Hurt, who is a top-5 recruit. No, he's not Bagley or Zion, but he'd be the second-best freshman coming in, and would help fill our second-greatest need (shooting).

[dukebluesincebirth]

One thing I need to examine before next season is how much I buy into the recruiting "hype" surrounding high school basketball players. I have a tendency to get WAY ahead of myself when tracking these guys in high school. In the past 5-10 years I've gotten much more into high school recruits than I used to, probably because of the 1 and done era. But the 1 and done era doesn't change anything about high school basketball players and their abilities to transition from high school play to division one college play. I think I've become way too enthralled with the numbers that "experts" put on these guys ( the #1 recruit, the #2best shooter, the #4 big man, etc, etc.). I'm going to try really hard to make myself stop following recruiting. When the season begins, I'll see who we have and start watching from there. I'm killing myself with the fantasy dreams of winning titles in Spring because we've secured "the # 1 recruiting class!" It means absolutely nothing, and I constantly fall for it. I usually get burned and get frustrated. There didn't used to be high school "mixtapes," or a thousand recruiting experts who write a thousand recruiting articles per week. The level of high school analyzing is over the top, and I'm guilty of buying into it. Guess what, so and so recruit is texting two other recruits on a group text to try to get them all 3 to come to Duke! It's going to be a super team! We're going to smear unc 3 times and win the national championship! I've got to stop. It only leads to letdown. I'm done checking the "crystal ball," and I'm done checking the recruiting thread to see where we stand with "the #2 player in the class." It all means nothing in March.

[UrinalCake]

^ (insert comment by grizzled veteran fan about opening the paper on the first day of practice to read who is on that year’s team)

[freshmanjs]

One thing I need to examine before next season is how much I buy into the recruiting "hype" surrounding high school basketball players. I have a tendency to get WAY ahead of myself when tracking these guys in high school. In the past 5-10 years I've gotten much more into high school recruits than I used to, probably because of the 1 and done era. But the 1 and done era doesn't change anything about high school basketball players and their abilities to transition from high school play to division one college play. I think I've become way too enthralled with the numbers that "experts" put on these guys ( the #1 recruit, the #2best shooter, the #4 big man, etc, etc.). I'm going to try really hard to make myself stop following recruiting. When the season begins, I'll see who we have and start watching from there. I'm killing myself with the fantasy dreams of winning titles in Spring because we've secured "the # 1 recruiting class!" It means absolutely nothing, and I constantly fall for it. I usually get burned and get frustrated. There didn't used to be high school "mixtapes," or a thousand recruiting experts who write a thousand recruiting articles per week. The level of high school analyzing is over the top, and I'm guilty of buying into it. Guess what, so and so recruit is texting two other recruits on a group text to try to get them all 3 to come to Duke! It's going to be a super team! We're going to smear unc 3 times and win the national championship! I've got to stop. It only leads to letdown. I'm done checking the "crystal ball," and I'm done checking the recruiting thread to see where we stand with "the #2 player in the class." It all means nothing in March.

If that will help you enjoy the season, then definitely do it. However, it is worth noting that there is a very strong correlation between quality of recruiting classes and winning.

[heyman25]

I really do not care. As a fan I like Duke winning. Yesterday was unfortunate that the majority of the game we were sloppy and impatient. We still could have won with better free throw shooting. Jack White and Alex O'Connell did not make shots that we needed. Cam Reddish great on defense not so much on shooting. Too inconsistent but he has great potential in the NBA. I do appreciate Javin DeLaurier's game yesterday. I am not a coach, but I hope next season's team gets some plays to run on offense. We were lucky to have Zion,RJ,Tre, and Cam for even 1 season.

[azzefkram]

My real issue is the development of current players. A lot of these players are 4 and 5 star players who haven't really progressed as fast as we'd like. And this is where I think OADs come into play. The staff is so focused on OADs, getting them caught up to speed, etc that there likely isn't as much time for returning players. It's an opportunity cost trade-off; there are only so many hours where the coaching staff can work with the team.

This is the issue I see as well. 2019 freshman are much better than the 2015 freshman were but the drop-off from Cook-Jefferson-Jones to Bolden-DeLaurier-White is staggering. Marques and Javin are not as far along as I expected/hoped (Jack has definitely exceeded my expectations). I have no idea how much of that is coaching/development versus who the player is.

More seasoned veterans might have helped this year's team. I thought we looked very young for much of this tournament.

[duke09hms]

?

"No plays ran"? That's ridiculous. Duke constantly sets screens, picks, swing passes, etc to free up shooters. If one only watches the ball, one only sees the ball. Duke constantly shifts players to set up plays.



Well this is actually debateable this year. There was not much off-ball movement this year compared to years where we had more of an identity i.e. motion offense. Rather, given our talent, K mostly opted to roll out the ball and let them RJ and Zion iso. It worked well, we were #7 in offense, but I'd argue that if we developed more of a system, we would be much less reliant on simply out-talenting teams with individual talent.

Also, the trope that the NBA is all iso-offense is so tired. Even the most talented teams run plays for their stars.

[Steven43]

We would have also missed out on Bagley last year, and Bolden the year before. In 2014 we would have gotten Jones and Okafor but not Winslow.

All true, and I’m fine with that. We would have instead gotten good players, but not elite OAD-type players. These good but not elite players would have been on the roster the last few years, this season, next season, and the one after that as well. The program continuity and cohesiveness this might well have engendered could have provided things — both measurable and immeasurable — that would benefit the program to a greater degree than the way things have ended up playing out. We’ll never know.

Either way I would prefer more 4-year guys that I can support and get to know as freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. And who GRADUATE in four years with a Duke degree. I’m not saying I want those guys exclusively. I’m just saying I want more of them and fewer OADs.

[Nugget]

When Duke has been really successful with 3-4 year players has largely been back in an era where superstar college players stayed AT LEAST two years and usually longer. Jason Williams wouldn't have been a Duke player for his junior year (and possibly not for his sophomore year) had it been in the 2010s. Boozer might have been gone as a freshman or sophomore too. Unlikely that Grant Hill is back for his sophomore season. Laettner? Probably not back for his senior year.

Also, let's not forget the benefit of some luck, too. How different does our 1986-1994 run look if Laettner misses one or both of the buzzer beaters against U.Conn or Kentucky? Or if Robert Brickey (about a 60% career ft shooter) had missed the front end of a 1-and-1 against Rhode Island up 2 with 13 seconds to go in the 1988 Sweet 16, rather than making goth, so that Rhode Island's late 3 was a game-winner rather than a "meaningless" shot cutting the final margin from 4 to 1?

[duke09hms]

All true, and I’m fine with that. We would have instead gotten good players, but not elite OAD-type players. These good but not elite players would have been on the roster the last few years, this season, next season, and the one after that as well. The program continuity and cohesiveness this might well have engendered could have provided things — both measurable and immeasurable — that would benefit the program to a greater degree than the way things have ended up playing out. We’ll never know.

Either way I would prefer more 4-year guys that I can support and get to know as freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. And who GRADUATE in four years with a Duke degree. I’m not saying I want those guys exclusively. I’m just saying I want more of them and fewer OADs.

But you can't know who they are until they actually stay for 4 years. There's a very strong chance they either improve so quickly that they leave early or get impatient that they transfer out early.

[Steven43]

I'm torn on the OAD strategy. I think it's wonderful bringing in the right talent. I think it's frustration "starting over" every single year. But you can't really disagree with the impact. However, I do tend to think the media and fans overestimate the effect multiple OADs have on your team.

My real issue is the development of current players. A lot of these players are 4 and 5 star players who haven't really progressed as fast as we'd like. And this is where I think OADs come into play. The staff is so focused on OADs, getting them caught up to speed, etc that there likely isn't as much time for returning players. It's an opportunity cost trade-off; there are only so many hours where the coaching staff can work with the team.

According to RSCI, Bolden was ranked #11. The two folks ranked before and the two folks ranked after him are Malik Monk, Miles Bridges, Terrance Ferguson, and Wenyen Gabriel.
According to RSCI, DeLaurier was ranked #35. The two folks ranked before and the two folks ranked after him are Udoka Azubuike (starter this year for Kansas but got a season ending injury), Ike Anigbogu (NBA flameout), Shamorie Ponds (20ppg this year), and Thon Maker (NBA).
According to RSCI, Alex O'Connell was ranked #69. The two folks ranked before and the two folks ranked after him are Nojel Eastern (28.2 mpg and 7.5ppg for E8 Purdue), Nathan Reuvers (22.9 mpg and 7.9 ppg for Wisconsin), Bruno Fernando (30.0 mpg and 13.6 ppg for Maryland), and Darius Perry (16.4 mpg and 5.4 ppg for Louisville).

Jack White wasn't ranked in RSCI and that's likely because he played HS ball in Australia. And Jack White looked to be that guy who developed significantly and contributed as part of the core rotation but ran into a laundry list of shooting woes, confidence issues, and injuries.

I hope we see better development, because all of these players aren't getting the opportunities that their peers are getting.
I really like this thoughtful post. A lot to think about here.

[UrinalCake]

But you can't know who they are until they actually stay for 4 years. There's a very strong chance they either improve so quickly that they leave early or get impatient that they transfer out early.

Or they turn into Matt Jones, Tyler Thornton, Josh Hairston, Sean Dockery, Greg Paulus, or any number of four year players who fans hated and constantly screamed that they should be getting less playing time in favor of the younger guys. Heck, a sizable part of the fan base wanted to run Grayson out of town, said they wished he had left after his sophomore year.

[YmoBeThere]

That's inaccurate: even in that tiny window, Duke has had a season without the multiple one-and-dones (two if you include 2014)

Wouldn’t those two seasons be failures in recruiting or perhaps lack of appropriate talent in the talent pool? An issue with OADs is that you have to follow the strategy every year due to the impacts on your roster. You don’t conveniently switch back and between experienced and one and done strategies. You fail to recruit well enough some years in OAD versus switching strategies.

[cruxer]

So much of the short-term OAD counter argument is being supported by the recent success of UNC, which was fueled by OAD recruits who magically stayed for more years than projected and had an amazing 2 year run. There's no way to recruit for that. Just like there was no way to project that Grayson was going to stay for 4 years or Luke would leave after 2. The whole thing is a bit of magic and I think your only choice is to recruit the best talent and personality mix to fit the system you run. Let the chips fall where they may.

For a long time, Coach didn't think that a 1-year player fit the type of program he runs. I believe coaching NBA guys in the Olympics changed his mind about that and it's hard to argue that we haven't seen more consistent deep runs in the tourney on this model. Of course the stretch doesn't match the insane 86-92 stretch, but that was a different era (as others have pointed out) and even with some elite talent wearing the right shade of blue those teams needed a bit of luck along the way (as others have pointed out). That's simply how the tourney works. We were a last shot away from the Final 4, 2 years in a row.

[wavedukefan70s]

To be honest I miss the teams that you watched every player develop into a great player.
I wish it was still that way.
But it's a different era.ill just have to love who we have.

[cruxer]

To be honest I miss the teams that you watched every player develop into a great player.
I wish it was still that way.
But it's a different era.ill just have to love who we have.

I think we OAD advocates miss that era too! 2010 may have been my favorite of the Duke championships because I also watched the core of that team get destroyed at Clemson a few years before. But they got soooo much better! I'll be really glad when the NBA changes the rule, but we should note this will not end the OAD era. Every year there will be freshmen who unexpectedly are ready for the NBA and the NBA will gladly take them. I'm not sure how you can change that.

-c

[CDu]

Wouldn’t those two seasons be failures in recruiting or perhaps lack of appropriate talent in the talent pool? An issue with OADs is that you have to follow the strategy every year due to the impacts on your roster. You don’t conveniently switch back and between experienced and one and done strategies. You fail to recruit well enough some years in OAD versus switching strategies.

Well, they are two different things actually. The 2014 team for Duke was before we had committed to the one-and-done factory approach. So, no, it was not a failure in recruiting, but rather it preceded our change in strategy. And to be honest, 2015 probably wasn't anticipated to be a "one-and-done factory" season for Duke. It turned out to be, but we hadn't started recruiting accordingly yet (hence the scramble to get Thornton to reclassify and the battle to get Ingram to commit in the end). Then, we decided to fully embrace the strategy with the next class and beyond.

So, I guess you could call the 2015 recruiting class a combination of recruiting failure (though we DID have the #1 class that year) and lack of depth of talent (it was considered a weak recruiting class overall). But that was more of Coach K being caught a bit off-guard by the success in 2015 leading to one or two extra early entries.

But 2014 was totally different, because we were very much not all-in on one-and-dones at that point (getting ~1 per year at that point and having a bunch of veterans).

[CDu]

So much of the short-term OAD counter argument is being supported by the recent success of UNC, which was fueled by OAD recruits who magically stayed for more years than projected and had an amazing 2 year run. There's no way to recruit for that. Just like there was no way to project that Grayson was going to stay for 4 years or Luke would leave after 2. The whole thing is a bit of magic and I think your only choice is to recruit the best talent and personality mix to fit the system you run. Let the chips fall where they may. .

I mostly agree, although it's not quite one-and-done talent. Yes, Williams got several top-20 recruits to stay 3-4 years in that span (Jackson, Pinson, Hicks). But only Jackson was considered a potential one-and-done. It was instead largely built on guys in the 25-70 range staying four years and really developing that drove their success: Berry, Johnson, Meeks, Paige, while the top-20 guys struggled to make an impact for several years (and in Hicks' case, never really getting there at all).

Now, UNC's successes in 2008, 2009, and the early 2010s could be classified more along these lines, with guys like Lawson, Barnes, and McAdoo staying longer than they should have (draft-wise). But the more recent successes for UNC have largely been on the backs of those next-tier guys who stuck around an developed.


I think we OAD advocates miss that era too! 2010 may have been my favorite of the Duke championships because I also watched the core of that team get destroyed at Clemson a few years before. But they got soooo much better! I'll be really glad when the NBA changes the rule, but we should note this will not end the OAD era. Every year there will be freshmen who unexpectedly are ready for the NBA and the NBA will gladly take them. I'm not sure how you can change that.

-c

I totally understand that the emotional attachment is less for the one-and-done era. I was merely commenting on the actual success of the team. Certainly agree that watching the 2010 championship team was an incredibly satisfying experience given the struggles that group went through the previous 3 years. Of course, those previous 3 years are part of the example of why I prefer the current model, where barring crazy injury misfortune we've been a true title contender every year.

[Steven43]

Or they turn into Matt Jones, Tyler Thornton, Josh Hairston, Sean Dockery, Greg Paulus, or any number of four year players who fans hated and constantly screamed that they should be getting less playing time in favor of the younger guys. Heck, a sizable part of the fan base wanted to run Grayson out of town, said they wished he had left after his sophomore year.

You are definitely right about a lot of fan grousing in regard to Jones, Thornton, Hairston, Dockery, and Paulus. As an aside, I did not hear more than a few Duke fans wanting Grayson run out of town. He’s one of the most beloved players — in the eyes of Duke fans — in program history.

Anyway, you make a fair point, no doubt. But I will add that quite a few of our OAD players haven’t been great players while at Duke. I’d rather take my chances, all things considered, with a roster of mostly good but not elite players. Notice I said “mostly”. That allows for some OAD-types.

[Nugget]

Kansas has been pursuing the one and done strategy too. They have only had multiple one-dones twice (vs. Duke having them 4 times), but they've tried. (Insert Adidas joke here).

Kansas has had at least one 1-done almost every year since it became a big thing.

Yep, it's not like Kansas has a "strategy" to avoid having multiple 1 and dones. They've definitely tried:

2013 - Wiggins, Embid as one and dones, Wayne Selden (#4 SF) was expected to be before he struggled that season;
2014 - Cliff Alexander (#1 PF before he busted) was expected to be one and done, Kelly Oubre (#4 SF) was;
2015 - Chieck Diallo (#3 PF) was one and done, Carlton Bragg (#5 PF, busted, multiple transfers) was considered a possibility;
2016 - Josh Jackson (#1 SF) was one and done, Dok (#4 C) [and they finished second to Arizona on WG Terrence Ferguson, who ended up being zero and done];
2017 - Billy Preston (#4 PF) was one and done, Malik Newman had been an expected one and done at Miss St. (#1 SG in class of 2015) before transferring to KU [and they expected to get one and done Ayton before Arizona somehow landed him];
2018 - Grimes (#2 SG) is expected to be one and done as is, effectively, transfer Dedric Lawson.

[Steven43]

II'll be really glad when the NBA changes the rule, but we should note this will not end the OAD era. Every year there will be freshmen who unexpectedly are ready for the NBA and the NBA will gladly take them. I'm not sure how you can change that.

You change that by having a rule that says if you do decide to come to college you have to stay a minimum of three years. That’s what both baseball and football do. Why should basketball be any different?

[Kedsy]

That's simply how the tourney works.

Yeah, this whole debate only makes sense if you believe there is some magic ingredient to NCAA tournament success AND that the ingredient is something other than having the most talent.

If instead of looking at how many games we advanced in the tournament, we looked at a metric that didn't involve the whole season hinging on one play and/or a great deal of luck, something like final AP rank (since KenPom and its ilk didn't exist in the 1980s and 1990s). Consider these three 9-year periods:

1998-2006 (three Final Fours (including one championship); one Elite Eight; five Sweet 16s)
-----------
1998: 3
1999: 1
2000: 1
2001: 1
2002: 1
2003: 7
2004: 6
2005: 3
2006: 1
----------
AVG Final AP Rank: 2.7

2011-2019 (one Final Four (including one championship); three Elite Eights; two Sweet 16s; one R32; two R64)
-----------
2011: 3
2012: 8
2013: 6
2014: 8
2015: 4
2016: 19
2017: 7
2018: 9
2019: 1
-----------
AVG Final AP Rank: 7.2

1986-1994 (seven Final Fours (including two championships); one Sweet 16, one R32)
-----------
1986: 1
1987: 17
1988: 5
1989: 9
1990: 15
1991: 6
1992: 1
1993: 10
1994: 6
----------
AVG Final AP Rank: 7.8

Which is more likely, that the nine-year stretch with the worst average ranking of the three really contained the best teams (compared to their same-season peers) of the three, or that we got lucky in those years in a one-and-done tournament?

[UrinalCake]

Anyway, you make a fair point, no doubt. But I will add that quite a few of our OAD players haven’t been great players while at Duke. I’d rather take my chances, all things considered, with a roster of mostly good but not elite players. Notice I said “mostly”. That allows for some OAD-types.

I think you'll start to see that shift soon. Carey is a likely OAD but Ellis and Moore as well as Baker if you want to count him are more along the lines of the next-tier guys who we should get at least a couple years out of. Not sure about Hurt if we are fortunate to land him. Regardless, we will be relying on our upperclassmen much more heavily next season than in years past. And the following season even more so. By then we'll have the end of the OAD rule in our
sights and I honestly think we'll look back at this 2015-2019 window as one very unique chapter in the history of Duke basketball. We'll still have one- and two- year players after the rule goes away and even after Coach K retires, but not the wholesale turnover every season.

[heyman25]

From Hollywood
Final 4 viewing audience may go down.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/ncaa-tournament-2019-tv-ratings-rise-elite-eight-1198505

[scottdude8]

Here's the other thing that is getting lost in this debate: the rest of college basketball has gotten better over time! In our "dominant" period I doubt anyone would argue there was as much depth and parity in the game than there is now. This year, earning a No. 1 seed got you a date with MSU, Texas Tech or Purdue in the Elite 8, and UNC lost too Auburn and would've had to face Kentucky... I'd argue that a game against any of those five teams is as tough or tougher than most Elite 8 opponents Duke faced in the nine-year stretch in which we went to seven final fours.

Fact is it's getting harder and harder to get to Final Fours and win National Championships because there are more and more teams capable of doing so. That's why it's so difficult (IMHO impossible and pretty useless) to compare teams and success from different eras.

[91Duke]

I can see the arguments either way, but in general I have come to accept that the presence of OADs (or not) by itself does not guarantee success or failure. But what I can say for certainty is that I *enjoy* the recent OAD teams less than earlier iterations of Duke basketball. Note: this doesn't mean that I haven't enjoyed watching the teams with Bagley, Zion, etc... but just that I have enjoyed these teams less.

[CDu]

I can see the arguments either way, but in general I have come to accept that the presence of OADs (or not) by itself does not guarantee success or failure. But what I can say for certainty is that I *enjoy* the recent OAD teams less than earlier iterations of Duke basketball. Note: this doesn't mean that I haven't enjoyed watching the teams with Bagley, Zion, etc... but just that I have enjoyed these teams less.

Not to put words in your mouth, but I suspect that you probably enjoyed these four multi-one-and-done seasons (2015, 2017-19) more than, say, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, and 2014.

[Billy Dat]

This has been an interesting and inevitable thread.

-Something that has been said but bears repeating is that if you look closely at every program, none of them stand up to the impossible standards being set forth. If you want to argue that Virginia is the closest in that they have begun to have consistent conference success and have now reached their first final 4 with lower ranked talent, then I'd say let's see how long they can keep it going.

-The next piece is the desire for a "system" that players learn that never changes. Personally, I am not a fan because I think it ultimately makes you easier to defend. Our offense has been elite for the entire OAD era, as elite as it can really be. Defense has been less so, but K seems to have adapted there, too, as it has been elite for the past 2 years.

-Most of the teams that make the Final Four have a handful of transfers in their rotation, so not all talent is nurtured in the system over the years. When Gonzaga nearly won the title a few years ago, they had 2-3 of their top six that had recently transferred in.

-I do think K can be criticized for not developing his bench. But, he's been that way for a long time, short rotations that get shorter as the year goes by. Do I wish he were more like Leonard Hamilton playing 10 guys no matter what? I don't know. But, I do know that AOC held his own, wasn't great but held his own, against VTech in the Sweet 16 and was only given 2 minutes before he was yanked for the rest of the game. K's tendency with the "supporting cast" is to go big with them in one game and then go away from them for long stretches. I don't think it aids their development. Which leads to the next and ultimate point...

-K won't be here much longer. The restrictions on players going to the NBA is going to change and he will be gone. As CDu said, the timing on those two events will be in pretty close proximity. The next Duke head coach won't be K, nor will the next, nor the next after that. So, for those that want change, it's coming soon. Let's watch this space when it does....which makes me think...

-It's easy to say, "There were those on DBR screaming for more talent in the late 2000s" or quoting some other trope. The fact is, it's rare that anyone on DBR really changes their stance. The glass half empties show up only after losses, the "I hate OADs" are pretty consistent, those who are enjoying the OAD era are pretty consistent, and the debate on the boards over these topics is typically waged by the same people taking the same positions. That's about as consistent as it gets.

[Kedsy]

Here's the other thing that is getting lost in this debate: the rest of college basketball has gotten better over time! In our "dominant" period I doubt anyone would argue there was as much depth and parity in the game than there is now. This year, earning a No. 1 seed got you a date with MSU, Texas Tech or Purdue in the Elite 8, and UNC lost too Auburn and would've had to face Kentucky... I'd argue that a game against any of those five teams is as tough or tougher than most Elite 8 opponents Duke faced in the nine-year stretch in which we went to seven final fours.

Fact is it's getting harder and harder to get to Final Fours and win National Championships because there are more and more teams capable of doing so. That's why it's so difficult (IMHO impossible and pretty useless) to compare teams and success from different eras.

I completely disagree with this. From a talent standpoint, all of college basketball is worse than it was when almost all players stayed four years. There was a lot more depth then, since the top freshmen played multiple years. With regard to parity, or the idea that more teams are "capable" of winning the national championship now than then, a #8 seed won the natty in 1985, a #6 seed won in 1988, and two 3-seeds played for the championship in 1989.

The luck we had in 1986 to 1994 was not that the top teams weren't good, it was that we often didn't play the top teams. In 1986, we played a 12-seed in the Sweet 16 and a 7-seed in the Elite Eight; in 1988, we played an 11-seed in the Sweet 16 (and a 6-seed in the Final Four; and that Temple team we played in the Elite Eight was #1 in the country, probably better than most of the teams you mention); in 1989, we played an 11-seed in the Sweet 16 (and the Georgetown team we beat in the Elite Eight was way better than this year's Texas Tech or Purdue or Auburn or Kentucky, or frankly even Michigan State); in 1990, we played a 7-seed in the Sweet 16 (rather than the #2), and won on a last-second shot in the Elite Eight (against a very good UConn team); in 1991, we played an 11-seed in the Sweet 16 and a 4-seed in the Elite Eight (instead of the #1); in 1992, we won on "the shot" in OT (and played a 6-seed in the championship game); in 1994, we played a 6-seed in the Sweet 16 (instead of the #3; and the Purdue team we played in the Elite Eight was really good too). A great deal of luck played into that run, but college basketball not having good teams wasn't really part of it.

[CDu]

I completely disagree with this. From a talent standpoint, all of college basketball is worse than it was when almost all players stayed four years. There was a lot more depth then, since the top freshmen played multiple years. With regard to parity, or the idea that more teams are "capable" of winning the national championship now than then, a #8 seed won the natty in 1985, a #6 seed won in 1988, and two 3-seeds played for the championship in 1989.

The luck we had in 1986 to 1994 was not that the top teams weren't good, it was that we often didn't play the top teams. In 1986, we played a 12-seed in the Sweet 16 and a 7-seed in the Elite Eight; in 1988, we played an 11-seed in the Sweet 16 (and a 6-seed in the Final Four; and that Temple team we played in the Elite Eight was #1 in the country, probably better than most of the teams you mention); in 1989, we played an 11-seed in the Sweet 16 (and the Georgetown team we beat in the Elite Eight was way better than this year's Texas Tech or Purdue or Auburn or Kentucky, or frankly even Michigan State); in 1990, we played a 7-seed in the Sweet 16 (rather than the #2), and won on a last-second shot in the Elite Eight (against a very good UConn team); in 1991, we played an 11-seed in the Sweet 16 and a 4-seed in the Elite Eight (instead of the #1); in 1992, we won on "the shot" in OT (and played a 6-seed in the championship game); in 1994, we played a 6-seed in the Sweet 16 (instead of the #3; and the Purdue team we played in the Elite Eight was really good too). A great deal of luck played into that run, but college basketball not having good teams wasn't really part of it.

I think the better way to say it is that, at the top, the teams were better back then. Because everyone stayed 3-4 years, and because there was less TV coverage of b-ball all the best players went to the same few programs. So the top teams were absolutely loaded. But I don’t think there were nearly as many good college players in the 80s and 90s. The game has grown SOOOO much, both here in the US and globally, that there is way more quality depth now. And the expansion of TV coverage has allowed more programs to emerge because TV coverage is less of a selling point. So I think the next tier of teams is better and deeper now than before, but the best teams are relatively worse.

But I agree that our 80s success was buoyed by some tourney fortune.

[Kedsy]

But, I do know that AOC held his own, wasn't great but held his own, against VTech in the Sweet 16 and was only given 2 minutes before he was yanked for the rest of the game.

I disagree with this. Alex's defense was terrible against Virginia Tech. He didn't "h[o]ld his own." If Cam was available, Alex wouldn't have played much in that game, either.



The next Duke head coach won't be K, nor will the next, nor the next after that. So, for those that want change, it's coming soon. Let's watch this space when it does...which makes me think...

Yeah, based on how the board has treated Coach G's successor, I'm not sure I'll want to watch this space after K retires.



-It's easy to say, "There were those on DBR screaming for more talent in the late 2000s" or quoting some other trope. The fact is, it's rare that anyone on DBR really changes their stance. The glass half empties show up only after losses, the "I hate OADs" are pretty consistent, those who are enjoying the OAD era are pretty consistent, and the debate on the boards over these topics is typically waged by the same people taking the same positions.

I don't think this is true. From 2007 to mid-2010 a LOT of people were complaining about K not recruiting enough talent. I don't feel like going back and culling through the old posts, but I bet a lot of those same people are complaining about OADs now.

[Kedsy]

And, by the way, for those who think one or two OADs plus an experienced cast would have made a difference in the NCAAT, this year's UNC team was pretty much exactly the roster for which you've been clamoring: a top six consisting of three overachieving seniors, an overachieving sophomore, and two probable one-and-done freshmen, plus four more guys getting between 8 and 12 mpg. Recipe for tournament success, right? Right?

[Bike4Fun]

I LOVED this OAD team. I've never had so much fun and anticipation going to every game than this year, and I've had season tickets since 1985. I like winning basketball by a team that I bond with, whether they are OADs are not. I would have hated watching our guys this year playing for someone else. Would any of you traded away the opportunity to get any one of this teams freshmen? I wouldn't. If you stayed away this year because we had OAD or if you didn't get vested in the team because of OAD, then you missed a spectacular show from our Duke kids. You need luck to win it all. We had a lot of that for 2 NCAA games in a row, and then simply needed just one thing to happen from a long list of possible things to have won yesterday. Yesterday, we didn't make our own luck.

The 2017-2018 team had just as many OAD, but it didn't touch this year's team in my joy watching them play. The 2015 team was close to the 18-19 team for me. In the end, it wasn't about whether we won the final game. It helps my enjoyment if we win it all and probably distorts my memory of teams I liked, but in the moment I can truly say this was my favorite team ever. So, get me OAD teams like this one and I'm fine if I'm having fun (and yes that does require winning a lot of games). When the rules for OAD change, I want to watch the best players who qualify for admission who the coaches think will cohere, and I'm all in.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

And, by the way, for those who think one or two OADs plus an experienced cast would have made a difference in the NCAAT, this year's UNC team was pretty much exactly the roster for which you've been clamoring: a top six consisting of three overachieving seniors, an overachieving sophomore, and two probable one-and-done freshmen, plus four more guys getting between 8 and 12 mpg. Recipe for tournament success, right? Right?

But it worked pretty well for us in 2015.....and it seemed we were missing that this season. I enjoyed the failure by Roy and the boys.....and appreciate your example.....and I certainly would never say turn down Zion and RJ because you don't like OAD on the whole.....but a Quin Cook or Amile Jefferson would've made a world of difference to this team IMO.

[rocketeli]

I went and looked at the draft info and NCAA championships won since the current one-and-done started in 2006.
I looked (all numbers hand counted, not responsible for any lapses...)
First overall draft;
2006-2018 141 college teams had a player drafted 83 had more than one, 43 had 5+, only 12 had 10+

those were
KY 28
Duke 24
Kansas 22
UCLA 20
UNC 19
Arizona 15
Texas 15
Syracuse 15
Mich St 13
Ohio St 13
Washington 13
Louisville 10

in the span 2006-2018 8 teams won the NCAA championship-the total one and done and draftees is for 2006-18
team one and done at time total one and done draftees total draftees
2006 Florida 0 0 9
2007 Florida 0 0 9
2008 Kansas 0 7 22
2009 UNC 0 2 19
2010 Duke 0 11 24
2011 UConn 0 0 7
2012 KY 1 20 28
2013 Louisville 0 0 10
2014 UConn 0 0 7
2015 Duke 3 11 24
2016 Villanova 0 1 9
2017 UNC 0 2 19
2018 Villanova 0 1 9

Now someone will look at this and say "See I told you, one and dones don't help." But the problem is such a small sample size, when you use NCAA championships as the only measure of success. You don't see most of the teams with no one and dones on this list, because they didn't win anything either. One and done are also rare-about 122 over 13 years, during which time about 15,000 people played division I men's basketball. However, it does seem that having more talent in general is helpful--all of these teams have way more NBA draftees than most college teams. And even that didn't help Arizona, Washington, Texas, Ohio State, UCLA and Syracuse. There are just so many factors that can happen in a single elimination 6 game tournament--injuries, coaching decisions, match-up, someone having a career day, or a career bad day...

[Ian]

I don't think this is true. From 2007 to mid-2010 a LOT of people were complaining about K not recruiting enough talent. I don't feel like going back and culling through the old posts, but I bet a lot of those same people are complaining about OADs now.

I don't think this is true. There were complaints about not having enough talent, but it was not just about recruiting. Greg Paulus was a very highly rated recruit, so was DeMarcus Nelson etc. I think the complaint was as much about about scouting and development. Sure people always wanted to get more talent by signing the top rated guys. But in the midde 00's we have a lot of highly rated players who didn't become stars and fairly well rated players who did nothing.
Take the class of 2005 for example, Duke signed the RSCI #1, #13, #39, #53 and #60 players. That's a terrific class by the numbers, the problem was only 2 of the 5 ever started a game in their careers for Duke, and the #1 player left after two years (to be expected). If I were to complain about recruiting of that class, I certainly wouldn't complain that "we didn't go after the top players enough". I'd complain that we went after the wrong players and did a terrible job of player evaluation.

[Kedsy]

I think the better way to say it is that, at the top, the teams were better back then. Because everyone stayed 3-4 years, and because there was less TV coverage of b-ball all the best players went to the same few programs. So the top teams were absolutely loaded. But I don’t think there were nearly as many good college players in the 80s and 90s. The game has grown SOOOO much, both here in the US and globally, that there is way more quality depth now. And the expansion of TV coverage has allowed more programs to emerge because TV coverage is less of a selling point. So I think the next tier of teams is better and deeper now than before, but the best teams are relatively worse.

But I agree that our 80s success was buoyed by some tourney fortune.

Maybe, but I think you could argue that "all the best players [go] to the same few programs" in today's CBB too. And even if you disagree with that statement, my guess is for every Ja Morant now there were guys like Larry Bird (though he was in the late 70s and not in the mid-80s to 90s), and Lionel Simmons and Dan Majerle.

And I don't think there's more parity now than there was then, either. There were just as many, if not more, early-round upsets in the tournament in those days. And the distribution of champion's seeds was a little more diverse then (rather than less):

First ten tourneys in the 64-team era:
won by #1: 5
won by #2: 2
won by #3: 1
won by lower than #3: 2 (#6 and #8)

Most recent ten tourneys (not counting this season since we don't know the champion yet):
won by #1: 7
won by #2: 1
won by #3: 1
won by lower than #3: 1 (#7)

So I don't agree that the best teams now are relatively worse than they were then.

[superdave]

And, by the way, for those who think one or two OADs plus an experienced cast would have made a difference in the NCAAT, this year's UNC team was pretty much exactly the roster for which you've been clamoring: a top six consisting of three overachieving seniors, an overachieving sophomore, and two probable one-and-done freshmen, plus four more guys getting between 8 and 12 mpg. Recipe for tournament success, right? Right?


The 3-point shot is a much larger part of today's game that it was in 1990. Duke averaged 24 3-point attempts per game this year and 11 attempts per game in 1989.

It's easier for lesser teams to get hot and change the outcome of the game in a way that makes that game an outlier.

Also, I'd point out that talents gets drained from majors (Zion) and way off the radar teams (Morant) equally. So I dont think the talent distribution is necessarily as different today as some suggest. Experience maybe....

The older I get, the more I realize the NCAA tournament is a total crap shoot. Unc and Texas Tech were the hottest teams the last 6 weeks. One is still playing and the other went home after getting blown out.

One loss and you go home is a recipe for wild outcomes. That makes it fun and frustrating.

[Kedsy]

But it worked pretty well for us in 2015...and it seemed we were missing that this season. I enjoyed the failure by Roy and the boys...and appreciate your example...and I certainly would never say turn down Zion and RJ because you don't like OAD on the whole...but a Quin Cook or Amile Jefferson would've made a world of difference to this team IMO.

Well, I hardly think you can point to a three-OAD team as an example of success for a one-or-two-OAD model. Also, if you look at the stats, 2019 Javin DeLaurier basically was 2015 Amile Jefferson, though Javin played fewer minutes (16.3 mpg vs. 21.3 mpg for Amile), turned the ball over a bit more, and was a bit better on defense. And while we could have used Quinn's shooting, he was a much worse defender than Cam Reddish (the player he would have had to replace in the starting lineup), so I'm not sure the overall effect would have been positive.

And again, we should remember that from a recruiting/planning perspective (which is what we're talking about, right?), Luke Kennard, Derryck Thornton, and Chase Jeter were all supposed to be on this year's team.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Let's please stop the "we're better off without multiple one-and-dones" nonsense

1. It's not nonsense, it's a valid opinion.

2. There are different ways to look at it. Your original post highlighted all of the reasons why Duke has been successful with the OADs, but that is only one metric. I'm with those that can't wait for the OAD era to be over, so I can once again enjoy following teams again, and groups of guys again.

Also, there is obviously no way to say rightly or wrongly that our successes would have been any less had K not gone with the model, nor any worse. After all, he IS an excellent coach, and I'm sure he would have figured out a way to make teams built on experienced players work. Sadly we won't know how "the might-have-beens" would have worked out, but hopefully he'll still be coaching for a few years and we'll get to see after 2022.

[Steven43]

And, by the way, for those who think one or two OADs plus an experienced cast would have made a difference in the NCAAT, this year's UNC team was pretty much exactly the roster for which you've been clamoring: a top six consisting of three overachieving seniors, an overachieving sophomore, and two probable one-and-done freshmen, plus four more guys getting between 8 and 12 mpg. Recipe for tournament success, right? Right?

Right. Exactly. UNC just choked. Not to mention that they weren’t particularly successful in developing one of their OADs (Little) for whatever reason. Also, I think Duke has better overall coaching than UNC. Given their roster I think Duke would have done more with it.

[freshmanjs]

Right. Exactly. UNC just choked. Not to mention that they weren’t particularly successful in developing one of their OADs (Little) for whatever reason. Also, I think Duke has better overall coaching than UNC. Given their roster I think Duke would have done more with it.

Not directed at you specifically. This is the kind of thing I don't get. If another team loses, it's easy for folks to say they choked or they had bad luck or a bad matchup. If Duke loses, it's a systemic problem that needs a major correction.

[Steven43]

Not directed at you specifically. This is the kind of thing I don't get. If another team loses, it's easy for folks to say they choked or they had bad luck or a bad matchup. If Duke loses, it's a systemic problem that needs a major correction.

I don’t typically say a team choked just because they lose a game, but in this case UNC definitely choked. They didn’t come close to playing to their top level. I consider that a choke. And occasionally Duke chokes, also. However, the loss to Michigan State was not a case of choking, as it was not dissimilar to how they had played all season. In that sense it was quite foreseeable.

[CDu]

I don’t typically say a team choked just because they lose a game, but in this case UNC definitely choked. They didn’t come close to playing to their top level. I consider that a choke. And occasionally Duke chokes, also. However, the loss to Michigan State was not a case of choking, as it was not dissimilar to how they had played all season. In that sense it was quite foreseeable.

I disagree. We turned it over way more than usual, struggled to score inside, didn’t score in transition. But we absolutely killed it on the defensive boards against an elite rebounding team, and we shot 3s and FTs better than usual. This loss looked very little like our play this season.

[cruxer]

You change that by having a rule that says if you do decide to come to college you have to stay a minimum of three years. That’s what both baseball and football do. Why should basketball be any different?

Football's rule is actually an NFL rule that has, inexplicably IMHO, withstood legal antitrust challenges. Baseball actually has a real farm system and does use college as a supplementary developmental league. Players routinely sign with teams but then play college ball. The NCAA made allowances for high school baseball players to have "advisors" to navigate their relationship with the team that drafted them. Now baseball players don't even have to settle for an advisor, they can even hire an agent! (Hint: the advisors were always agents.)

Coach K has rightly criticized the NCAA for doing exactly 0 of the legwork to figure out what the heck the landscape will look like when this rule change is forced upon them. Heck they didn't even change the rule for baseball! The power 5 conferences changed it and everyone else just followed along. I suppose that's what will need to happen for basketball too. The NCAA is beyond a useless institution.

-c

[Steven43]

I disagree. We turned it over way more than usual, struggled to score inside, didn’t score in transition. But we absolutely killed it on the defensive boards against an elite rebounding team, and we shot 3s and FTs better than usual. This loss looked very little like our play this season.

We shot 33% from the 3-pt. line. That is very close to the season average. We shot 62% from the FT line. That also is close to the season average. We did well on the defensive boards in part because MSU missed 40 shots. That allowed for a lot of defensive rebounds. We had 17 turnovers instead of the season average of 13. I don’t consider that to be statistically significant considering the high level of the opponent compared to the average team we played during the season. So no, I cannot agree with your comment that this loss looked very little like our play this season.

[Steven43]

Coach K has rightly criticized the NCAA for doing exactly 0 of the legwork to figure out what the heck the landscape will look like when this rule change is forced upon them. Heck they didn't even change the rule for baseball! The power 5 conferences changed it and everyone else just followed along. I suppose that's what will need to happen for basketball too. The NCAA is beyond a useless institution.

Agree 100%. The NCAA proved how useless they are in their handling of UNC’s systemic cheating.

[Wander]

Because I've looked at the data each year over that time span. You've lumped Duke and UK as homogenous and UNC and Kansas as homogenous. That's inaccurate: even in that tiny window, Duke has had a season without the multiple one-and-dones (two if you include 2014), and Kansas has had a season with one-and-dones (two if you include 2014). And the data are what the data are.

The roster of the 2016 Duke team was still heavily shaped by the OAD in the surrounding years and had 3 freshman in the rotation, 2 of which left before their sophomore year. They may not technically fit the definition of a OAD focused team you gave in your original post, but it's similar enough in spirit.



And has been brought up many times, UNC is not a good example for the get-mid-range-four-year-recruits gang either, because the Heels had three top 15 recruits (plus another top 25 recruit) stay three or four years at the same time.

I totally agree that UNC fell into their roster make-up by accident and lucked out with a combination of who was recruited and who didn't leave early. Nonetheless, intentional or not, they're an example of an elite program whose recent rosters haven't been as centered on OADs as much as Duke's and Kentucky's.

So, yeah, no magic formula. I can understand why people would prefer one system or the other for non-strategic reasons, like the pure excitement of watching Zion or getting to see more players develop over multiple years.

[CDu]

We shot 33% from the 3-pt. line. That is very close to the season average. We shot 62% from the FT line. That also is close to the season average. We did well on the defensive boards in part because MSU missed 40 shots. That allowed for a lot of defensive rebounds. We had 17 turnovers instead of the season average of 13. I don’t consider that to be statistically significant considering the high level of the opponent compared to the average team we played during the season. So no, I cannot agree with your comment that this loss looked very little like our play this season.

Number of misses has nothing to do with my statement about rebounding. We GREATLY exceeded the DReb%. And did so against one of the absolute best offensive rebounding teams in the country. And we had 17 turnovers against the 7th WORST team in the country at forcing turnovers. So not only did we commit 33% more turnovers than average, we did so against a team that absolutely does not force turnovers.

So, yeah, I stand by what I said. If we had played our typical game (forcing 3-4 more turnovers and committing 3-4 fewer), we win by 5-6 points or more.

[freshmanjs]

I totally agree that UNC fell into their roster make-up by accident and lucked out with a combination of who was recruited and who didn't leave early. Nonetheless, intentional or not, they're an example of an elite program whose recent rosters haven't been as centered on OADs as much as Duke's and Kentucky's.


And a walk-on who ends up as a 2nd team All-ACC player as a Senior and also made a game winner in the elite 8 as a sophomore.

[Steven43]

Number of misses has nothing to do with my statement about rebounding. We GREATLY exceeded the DReb%. And did so against one of the absolute best offensive rebounding teams in the country. And we had 17 turnovers against the 7th WORST team in the country at forcing turnovers. So not only did we commit 33% more turnovers than average, we did so against a team that absolutely does not force turnovers.

So, yeah, I stand by what I said.

Those numbers are interesting, but set those particular stats aside for a moment and just look at how the two previous games had gone. We were lucky we didn’t lose in the second round to UCF. And then we were lucky again that we didn’t lose in the third round to Virginia Tech. So losing to Michigan State in the fourth round was not exactly a shocker after those two games was it?

[Kedsy]

We did well on the defensive boards in part because MSU missed 40 shots. That allowed for a lot of defensive rebounds.

We did well on the defensive boards based on our grabbing a larger than expected percentage of available defensive rebounds. Doesn't matter how many shots they missed.



We had 17 turnovers instead of the season average of 13. I don’t consider that to be statistically significant considering the high level of the opponent compared to the average team we played during the season.

We had 17 turnovers in a 68 possession game, which comes to turning the ball over on 25% of our possessions. For the season (before the MSU game), we averaged 12.7 turnovers per game on 73.3 possessions per game, which comes to turning it over on 17.3% of our possessions. In other words, we turned the ball over 44.5% more than usual (even ignoring the fact that Michigan State normally isn't very good at forcing turnovers), which I do think is significant, statistically or otherwise.

[Kedsy]

I totally agree that UNC fell into their roster make-up by accident and lucked out with a combination of who was recruited and who didn't leave early. Nonetheless, intentional or not, they're an example of an elite program whose recent rosters haven't been as centered on OADs as much as Duke's and Kentucky's.

So, yeah, no magic formula. I can understand why people would prefer one system or the other for non-strategic reasons, like the pure excitement of watching Zion or getting to see more players develop over multiple years.

All true. The problem for those who wish to emulate UNC's 2016/2017 "system," is it really isn't reproducible.

[CDu]

The roster of the 2016 Duke team was still heavily shaped by the OAD in the surrounding years and had 3 freshman in the rotation, 2 of which left before their sophomore year. They may not technically fit the definition of a OAD focused team you gave in your original post, but it's similar enough in spirit.



I totally agree that UNC fell into their roster make-up by accident and lucked out with a combination of who was recruited and who didn't leave early. Nonetheless, intentional or not, they're an example of an elite program whose recent rosters haven't been as centered on OADs as much as Duke's and Kentucky's.

So, yeah, no magic formula. I can understand why people would prefer one system or the other for non-strategic reasons, like the pure excitement of watching Zion or getting to see more players develop over multiple years.

No, the 2016 team is NOT the same thing. One guy transferred after his sophomore year because he wasn’t good enough to play major minutes for him. The other transferred because of a combination of things including not being good enough. Both have since gone on to be 5-year players. That is decidedly different than having multiple guys play well enough to go pro as freshmen, which was the premise here.

And one of Kansas’ good seasons involved a pair of one-and-dines, yet you’ve rolled them into the not one-and-done group.

So you have criticized my analysis for bias, yet you’ve chosen an entirely arbitrary time frame AND changed the definition of multiple one and dones (and flat out disregarded that one team had a multi-one-and-done year) to fit your narrative. And it STILL suggests the results are slightly better for the one-and-done model.

I would say you are doing a great job of making my case for me here.

As I said, people are more than welcome to prefer one approach or the other. I totally get the “we want to cheer for familiar faces” viewpoint. But don’t say that we would be better off going away from the one and dones. The facts are facts, and the facts are that teams with multiple one-and-done freshmen have performed better in the tournament than those without. And the more one-and-dones, the better the results.

No, there is no magical formula for winning a title. But teams with the most talent tend to fare better than those with more experience but less talent.

[jimmymax]

From my selfish perspective, I like to watch players progress over four years. And I like Duke student-athletes to earn degrees. I might even prefer these two things to winning championships. Unsurprisingly I also prefer an eight team ACC tournament and find the designated hitter an abomination. But as they say, change is hard...

[Steven43]

We did well on the defensive boards based on our grabbing a larger than expected percentage of available defensive rebounds. Doesn't matter how many shots they missed.



We had 17 turnovers in a 68 possession game, which comes to turning the ball over on 25% of our possessions. For the season (before the MSU game), we averaged 12.7 turnovers per game on 73.3 possessions per game, which comes to turning it over on 17.3% of our possessions. In other words, we turned the ball over 44.5% more than usual (even ignoring the fact that Michigan State normally isn't very good at forcing turnovers), which I do think is significant, statistically or otherwise.
I don’t put a whole lot of stock in statistics from one game. Regardless, I do get your general point that Duke played a bit differently than usual against MSU.

[CDu]

Those numbers are interesting, but set those particular stats aside for a moment and just look at how the two previous games had gone. We were lucky we didn’t lose in the second round to UCF. And then we were lucky again that we didn’t lose in the third round to Virginia Tech. So losing to Michigan State in the fourth round was not exactly a shocker after those two games was it?

The results were similar. The ways those results happened were not. The UCF game was a case of facing a freak of nature allowed to foul without whistle and a guy having an out-of-body experience. The Va Tech game was against a top-10 caliber team and without a key starter and with another key reserve barely functional. The MSU game was lost because we made too many careless turnovers against a team that doesn’t turn teams over.

And losing ANY game other than the first (and only then when you are a top 3- 4 seed) in the tourney isn’t a shock. That doesn’t mean the game was anything like the others.

[simplyluvin]

One and dones are not the problem. The lack of Amile Jeffersons, and Quin Cooks are. Allen was great last year, but we needed one or two more of him. Same as this year.

Completely agree here. CDu's analysis is compelling, and reasonable minds would not dispute the value of OAD or the success of the OAD era teams. My issue is the need to balance this (as I've said in other threads so sorry for the repeat here) with more developed three and four year players, especially scoring wings and veteran PGs (i.e., Josh Hart, Marcus Paige, Jalen Brunson, Cassius Winston type guys). We had Grayson last year, but that was not enough. 2015 had Quinn Cook AND Amile, with Matt Jones providing additional experience albeit as a Sophomore.

Two questions arise:
1. Are OADs and the ability to develop multi-year guys a trade-off?
2. Why aren't our role players and multi-year guys developing better? Does anyone think AOC or Baker will develop into a Kyle Guy type of player? I really hope so.

[CDu]

Completely agree here. CDu's analysis is compelling, and reasonable minds would not dispute the value of OAD or the success of the OAD era teams. My issue is the need to balance this (as I've said in other threads so sorry for the repeat here) with more developed three and four year players, especially scoring wings and veteran PGs (i.e., Josh Hart, Marcus Paige, Jalen Brunson, Cassius Winston type guys). We had Grayson last year, but that was not enough. 2015 had Quinn Cook AND Amile, with Matt Jones providing additional experience albeit as a Sophomore.

Two questions arise:
1. Are OADs and the ability to develop multi-year guys a trade-off?
2. Why aren't our role players and multi-year guys developing better? Does anyone think AOC or Baker will develop into a Kyle Guy type of player? I really hope so.

There is no reason they should be mutually exclusive. And, honestly, we HAVE had some developmental success stories. Smile Jefferson is one. Marshall Plumlee another. Jack White and DeLaurier made great strides this season and will hopefully do so again next year as seniors. Luke Kennard absolutely blew up as a sophomore.

The problem doesn’t seem to be that we can’t do it, but rather that we haven’t had it happen often enough. And that we lost a few of the potential growth candidates to early entry (Kennard) or transfer (Jeter, Thornton).

[HereBeforeCoachK]

The results were similar. The ways those results happened were not. The UCF game was a case of facing a freak of nature allowed to foul without whistle and a guy having an out-of-body experience. The Va Tech game was against a top-10 caliber team and without a key starter and with another key reserve barely functional. The MSU game was lost because we made too many careless turnovers against a team that doesn’t turn teams over.

And losing ANY game other than the first (and only then when you are a top 3- 4 seed) in the tourney isn’t a shock. That doesn’t mean the game was anything like the others.

This....4 for 4......correct.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

We had 17 turnovers in a 68 possession game, which comes to turning the ball over on 25% of our possessions. For the season (before the MSU game), we averaged 12.7 turnovers per game on 73.3 possessions per game, which comes to turning it over on 17.3% of our possessions. In other words, we turned the ball over 44.5% more than usual (even ignoring the fact that Michigan State normally isn't very good at forcing turnovers), which I do think is significant, statistically or otherwise.

...yep, and did not have the defense or the shooting to overcome that out of the blue turnover problem.....

[Steven43]

Many of the comments on this thread have been interesting and thought-provoking, but I’m just waiting for Coach K to come on here and share the recruiting changes he plans to implement after learning so much from us. That’s the moment I will know this has all been worth it.

[devilsadvocate85]

Small quibble - baseball players can hire/pay for an advisor to assist in determining a players market value. They cannot accept benefits from the advisor/agent, cannot sign to have the advisor/agent represent the player in the future, the advisor/agent cannot have direct conversations with the drafting team about that player and the player cannot sign with the team and then play in college. Other than that, you got it right.


Football's rule is actually an NFL rule that has, inexplicably IMHO, withstood legal antitrust challenges. Baseball actually has a real farm system and does use college as a supplementary developmental league. Players routinely sign with teams but then play college ball. The NCAA made allowances for high school baseball players to have "advisors" to navigate their relationship with the team that drafted them. Now baseball players don't even have to settle for an advisor, they can even hire an agent! (Hint: the advisors were always agents.)

Coach K has rightly criticized the NCAA for doing exactly 0 of the legwork to figure out what the heck the landscape will look like when this rule change is forced upon them. Heck they didn't even change the rule for baseball! The power 5 conferences changed it and everyone else just followed along. I suppose that's what will need to happen for basketball too. The NCAA is beyond a useless institution.

-c

[DarkstarWahoo]

Football's rule is actually an NFL rule that has, inexplicably IMHO, withstood legal antitrust challenges. Baseball actually has a real farm system and does use college as a supplementary developmental league. Players routinely sign with teams but then play college ball. The NCAA made allowances for high school baseball players to have "advisors" to navigate their relationship with the team that drafted them. Now baseball players don't even have to settle for an advisor, they can even hire an agent! (Hint: the advisors were always agents.)

-c

One small clarification: I’m pretty sure baseball players can’t sign with teams and maintain eligibility anymore. Draft-and-follow went away 10-15 years ago.

[Furniture]

Not allowed to spork you.

I also think the front page article is great too so whoever linked that....Thanks.

Here it is again for those that didn’t notice the link the first time.

https://www.dukebasketballreport.com/2019/4/1/18290568/scotts-take-on-dukes-season-2019-ncaa-tournament-zion-williamson-rj-barrett-tre-jones-cam-reddish

[UrinalCake]

Not directed at you specifically. This is the kind of thing I don't get. If another team loses, it's easy for folks to say they choked or they had bad luck or a bad matchup. If Duke loses, it's a systemic problem that needs a major correction.

Very true. I just saw a clip of some ringer video claiming this was Coach K’s worst coaching job ever, that playing a switching defense was lazy and that there’s no excuse for not winning it all with that much talent. These same people had us ranked #4 in the preseason, well behind the presumptive favorites Kansas and Kentucky, saying that no team that was so reliant on freshmen could ever succeed.

UNC has now gotten blown out in the tournament by 20-ish points in consecutive years, but Roy literally just won coach of the year from USA Today.

[UrinalCake]

From my selfish perspective, I like to watch players progress over four years. And I like Duke student-athletes to earn degrees. I might even prefer these two things to winning championships. Unsurprisingly I also prefer an eight team ACC tournament and find the designated hitter an abomination. But as they say, change is hard...

Not that you were suggesting this, but I think it’s a bit naive to suppose that every four year player has the same educational experience as the typical Duke student. They do go to class and genuinely learn a lot, but they’re primarily at school to play basketball. I’ve heard stories of four year players who did the bare minimum to stay eligible, and I’ve heard of OAD’s who went to every class and soaked in everything they could for their two semesters. Similarly, there are four year players who leave and never felt invested in the program and there are one year guys who bleed Duke blue. Kyrie played 11 games for us, yet called out Calipari in the closing credits of his movie by pronouncing “I’m a Blue Devil.” So for me, I feel more connected to some players than others but it has nothing to do with whether they play for one year or four.

[Kedsy]

My issue is the need to balance this (as I've said in other threads so sorry for the repeat here) with more developed three and four year players, especially scoring wings and veteran PGs (i.e., Josh Hart, Marcus Paige, Jalen Brunson, Cassius Winston type guys).


Honest question, how easy do you think it is to sign a Marcus Paige (#28), Jalen Brunson (#18), Cassius Winston (#29), or Kyle Guy (#32) and ask them to accept an extreme bench role? People say stuff like this all the time, but whenever Duke does get a guy like this, they often transfer if they don't play immediately. So while we got lucky Quinn Cook and Matt Jones stuck around for four years, it's not as easy as simply choosing to recruit these kinds of players. As I've said in this thread three times now, Derryck Thornton, Luke Kennard, and Chase Jeter were all supposed to be seniors this season.



2. Why aren't our role players and multi-year guys developing better? Does anyone think AOC or Baker will develop into a Kyle Guy type of player? I really hope so.

Was Kyle Guy ever a role player at Virginia? As I said above, he was ranked #32. Joey Baker was #37 and Alex O'Connell was #61. Generally guys in Alex's range don't develop into guys in Kyle Guy's range, though obviously it happens sometimes. A lot less difference between Joey Baker's ranking and Kyle Guy's, so maybe for Joey, but I don't think we've seen enough of him to know what he'll be.

[Steven43]

Very true. I just saw a clip of some ringer video claiming this was Coach K’s worst coaching job ever, that playing a switching defense was lazy and that there’s no excuse for not winning it all with that much talent. These same people had us ranked #4 in the preseason, well behind the presumptive favorites Kansas and Kentucky, saying that no team that was so reliant on freshmen could ever succeed.

UNC has now gotten blown out in the tournament by 20-ish points in consecutive years, but Roy literally just won coach of the year from USA Today.
It’s maddening to see sports commentators consistently make the mistake of equating probable NBA draft position — which is one barometer of “talent” — with on-court success at the collegiate level. I have seen so many mediocre (and worse) performances throughout college basketball by players who ended up being OADs. It makes you wonder if these guys even watch the games.

[pfrduke]

This has been alluded to in some of the posts above, but I think there’s a fan preference dynamic at work here that is asking for more production out of freshman-oriented teams than the alternative. It’s something along the following lines: I prefer watching teams filled with players who develop over 3-4 seasons; I will sacrifice that preference only if it produces materially better* results; since it hasn’t produced materially better results (per prior definition), I prefer that we not go the one-and-done route.

*definition unclear, but something like Final Fours at least every other year.

That’s not a wrong point of view from the fan perspective. I’m not sure it’s one that I share - I do feel less closely attached to some of the recent teams than some of the prior ones, but it’s impossible to identify a root cause of that given different life situations between, say, 2001 and today - but if someone were to say, all in I’d rather have the UVA experience over the past 4-6 years, I’d understand that (I wouldn’t trade, particularly given our title and our not being the first 1 seed to lose to a 16, but I would understand someone who said they would trade). But it definitely means that people aren’t approaching this discussion from an equal perspective. People can agree with the basic information reported at the top of this thread but react very differently to it - some will say, see, this is objectively better, full stop; others will say it’s not enough better given the trade offs it calls for in the way I relate to the team as a fan.

[Nugget]

Maybe, but I think you could argue that "all the best players [go] to the same few programs" in today's CBB too. And even if you disagree with that statement, my guess is for every Ja Morant now there were guys like Larry Bird (though he was in the late 70s and not in the mid-80s to 90s), and Lionel Simmons and Dan Majerle.

I took as a proxy for dispersion of talent, teams that got Top 4 seedings in the NCAA Tournament and compared the 9 years of Coach K's first run (1986-1994) vs. the last nine years since the recruitment of Kyrie (2011-2019) and it does appear that the talent was slightly more concentrated back then (which surprised me a bit as it seems the recruits organize more package deals for themselves now), although there were a few more instances of powerhouse schools missing the tournament entirely -- mostly because it seems there were more teams being hit with serious probation back then (e.g., Kentucky, Kansas, UNLV and Illinois).

From 1986-1994:

12 Teams got 5 or more Top 4 seeds, accounting for 75 of 144 total available spots (52%): Duke (8 of 9 times), North Carolina (8), Indiana (7), Arizona (7), Syracuse (7), Kansas (6), UNLV (6), Michigan (6), Oklahoma (5), Kentucky (5), Louisville (5), and Arkansas (5).

Another 5 teams got 4 Top 4 seeds, bringing the total to 95 of 144 (66%): Georgetown, Illinois, Seton Hall, Purdue and Missouri.

And 30 teams got 1-3 Top 4 seeds: 8 got it three times, 6 got it twice and 16 got it once.

From 2011-2019:

10 Teams got 5 or more Top 4 seeds, accounting for 63 of 144 total available spots (44%): Duke (all 9 times), Kansas (9), North Carolina (7), Kentucky (6), Michigan St. (6), Louisville (6), Villanova (5), Gonzaga (5), Virginia (5), and Michigan (5).

Again, 5 more teams got 4 top 4 seeds, for a total of 83 of 144 (58%): Arizona, Wisconsin, Syracuse, Purdue and Florida.

And 37 teams got 1-3 Top 4 seeds: 5 got it three times, 14 got it twice and 18 got it once.

[Nugget]

Completely agree here. CDu's analysis is compelling, and reasonable minds would not dispute the value of OAD or the success of the OAD era teams. My issue is the need to balance this (as I've said in other threads so sorry for the repeat here) with more developed three and four year players, especially scoring wings and veteran PGs (i.e., Josh Hart, Marcus Paige, Jalen Brunson, Cassius Winston type guys). We had Grayson last year, but that was not enough. 2015 had Quinn Cook AND Amile, with Matt Jones providing additional experience albeit as a Sophomore.

Two questions arise:
1. Are OADs and the ability to develop multi-year guys a trade-off?
2. Why aren't our role players and multi-year guys developing better? Does anyone think AOC or Baker will develop into a Kyle Guy type of player? I really hope so.

I'd echo the same points as CDu and Kedsy, and add some further thoughts:

1. To some degree OADs and "the ability to develop multi-year guys" is an obvious trade-off -- if nothing else, the "multi-year guys" you are talking about "developing" will transfer if they see themselves not having PT opportunities due to the presence of OADs (e.g., Thornton, Tucker, Semi, Jeter).
2. As others have noted, some of our "role players and multi-year guys" HAVE developed -- e.g., Kennard (RSCI #21) and Grayson (RSCI #24). Jack White certainly looked like he was trending that way earlier this year. I was hopeful for Alex based off his good shooting last year, but he just hasn't played good enough defense to stay on the floor.
3. "Development" of someone like Josh Hart is very much a crapshoot. He was #93 in his RSCI class; if Semi Ojeleye (#32 in that class) couldn't be induced to stick it out through limited PT, how do you expect a Josh Hart-type to do so?

On the issue trying to "balance" an experienced PG vs. a one and done, UNC is often held up as a model we should be emulating. Here's their PG recruiting since 2009-2010 vs. ours:

UNC
Class of 2010, Kendall Marshall (RSCI #25; between #6-#8 PG behind Kyrie, Brandon Knight, and others) – 2 year starter, #13 pick in NBA Draft.
2011: no top 100 PG
2012: Marcus Paige (RSCI #28, #4 PG in a weak class behind Rodney Purvis, Kriss Dunn and Yogi Ferrell) – 4 year starter.
2013: Nate Britt (RSCI #93) – career backup, no real on-court impact.
2014: Joel Berry (RSCI #25, #4 PG behind Mudiay, Tyus, and Tyler Ulis) – backed up Paige as Freshman (and battled injury), then 3 year starter.
2015: no top 100 PG
2016: Seventh Woods (RSCI #40, #10 PG) –career backup with little impact to date; if UNC lands Cole Anthony for next season, likely same is true next year also
2017: no top 100 PG
2018: Coby White (RSCI #27, #7 PG) – home run impact as freshman; one and done.


Duke:
2010: Kyrie (RSCI #2, #1 PG)
2011: Quinn Cook (RSCI #31, #5 PG)
2012: no Top 100 PG (and anyone good would have been discouraged by ball-dominant Austin Rivers)
2013: no Top 100 PG
2014: Tyus Jones (RSCI #7, #2 PG)
2015: Derryck Thornton (RSCI #13, #2 PG behind Isiah Briscoe and ahead of #19 Jalen Brunson and #20 Jalen Adams -- how is one supposed to know of those four roughly-equally ranked guys, which one will become a first team All-American as a Jr. and which three will have little-to-no impact?)
2016: Frank Jackson (RSCI #14, #4 PG)
2017: Trevon Duval (RSCI #5, #1 PG); Jordan Goldwire (unranked)
2018: Tre Jones (RSCI #13, #2 PG)

It's not obvious to me that Carolina has made better recruiting decisions than we have, only that we've (successfully) shot a little higher than them, and they got lucky that early-mid career injuries kept Paige and Berry in school longer than might have been the case.

Alternatively, I suppose Roy gets some credit for "developing" Marshall, Paige, Berry and White (all of whom were outside the RSCI Top 20) into top level players.

But, what would you have had Coach K do? Not land Kyrie (#1 PG), Tyus (#2 PG), Jackson (#4 PG), Duval (#1 PG) and Tre (#2 PG)?

It may just be as simple as Joel Berry being willing to stick it out behind/with Paige, vs. Derryck Thornton's uncle pushing him to leave Duke with visions of an early NBA entry.

[Dukehk]

I'd echo the same points as CDu and Kedsy, and add some further thoughts:

1. To some degree OADs and "the ability to develop multi-year guys" is an obvious trade-off -- if nothing else, the "multi-year guys" you are talking about "developing" will transfer if they see themselves not having PT opportunities due to the presence of OADs (e.g., Thornton, Tucker, Semi, Jeter).
2. As others have noted, some of our "role players and multi-year guys" HAVE developed -- e.g., Kennard (RSCI #21) and Grayson (RSCI #24). Jack White certainly looked like he was trending that way earlier this year. I was hopeful for Alex based off his good shooting last year, but he just hasn't played good enough defense to stay on the floor.
3. "Development" of someone like Josh Hart is very much a crapshoot. He was #93 in his RSCI class; if Semi Ojeleye (#32 in that class) couldn't be induced to stick it out through limited PT, how do you expect a Josh Hart-type to do so?

On the issue trying to "balance" an experienced PG vs. a one and done, UNC is often held up as a model we should be emulating. Here's their PG recruiting since 2009-2010 vs. ours:

UNC
Class of 2010, Kendall Marshall (RSCI #25; between #6-#8 PG behind Kyrie, Brandon Knight, and others) – 2 year starter, #13 pick in NBA Draft.
2011: no top 100 PG
2012: Marcus Paige (RSCI #28, #4 PG in a weak class behind Rodney Purvis, Kriss Dunn and Yogi Ferrell) – 4 year starter.
2013: Nate Britt (RSCI #93) – career backup, no real on-court impact.
2014: Joel Berry (RSCI #25, #4 PG behind Mudiay, Tyus, and Tyler Ulis) – backed up Paige as Freshman (and battled injury), then 3 year starter.
2015: no top 100 PG
2016: Seventh Woods (RSCI #40, #10 PG) –career backup with little impact to date; if UNC lands Cole Anthony for next season, likely same is true next year also
2017: no top 100 PG
2018: Coby White (RSCI #27, #7 PG) – home run impact as freshman; one and done.


Duke:
2010: Kyrie (RSCI #2, #1 PG)
2011: Quinn Cook (RSCI #31, #5 PG)
2012: no Top 100 PG (and anyone good would have been discouraged by ball-dominant Austin Rivers)
2013: no Top 100 PG
2014: Tyus Jones (RSCI #7, #2 PG)
2015: Derryck Thornton (RSCI #13, #2 PG behind Isiah Briscoe and ahead of #19 Jalen Brunson and #20 Jalen Adams -- how is one supposed to know of those four roughly-equally ranked guys, which one will become a first team All-American as a Jr. and which three will have little-to-no impact?)
2016: Frank Jackson (RSCI #14, #4 PG)
2017: Trevon Duval (RSCI #5, #1 PG); Jordan Goldwire (unranked)
2018: Tre Jones (RSCI #13, #2 PG)

It's not obvious to me that Carolina has made better recruiting decisions than we have, only that we've (successfully) shot a little higher than them, and they got lucky that early-mid career injuries kept Paige and Berry in school longer than might have been the case.

Alternatively, I suppose Roy gets some credit for "developing" Marshall, Paige, Berry and White (all of whom were outside the RSCI Top 20) into top level players.

But, what would you have had Coach K do? Not land Kyrie (#1 PG), Tyus (#2 PG), Jackson (#4 PG), Duval (#1 PG) and Tre (#2 PG)?

It may just be as simple as Joel Berry being willing to stick it out behind/with Paige, vs. Derryck Thornton's uncle pushing him to leave Duke with visions of an early NBA entry.


If you go even further back, it becomes even more apparent that our recruiting methods/targets have not changed much at all. We have always tried to target the best players in each class - regardless of whether we think they would go pro early or not.

Think back to the 2010 national championship team. Kyle Singer was the #4 player in the country (according to ESPN). Nolan Smith was #6 in the country. Both graduated! We had to wait till their Junior years before we won a title, and most likely would have won another one in their Senior year had Kyrie not gone down injured.

Sometimes it really is about luck and other circumstances which are out of our control.

I'd also add that if we had Chase Jeter in the fold as a senior this year, we would probably be an even better squad.

[Bay Area Duke Fan]

I'd also add that if we had Chase Jeter in the fold as a senior this year, we would probably be an even better squad.

Chase was injured a lot this year (as he was in his Duke career). He helped lead Arizona to a 17-15 record (its worst in years), 8th place in the weak PAC12. I don’t understand how he could have helped Duke be better.

[weezie]

Chase was injured a lot this year (as he was in his Duke career). He helped lead Arizona to a 17-15 record (its worst in years), 8th place in the weak PAC12. I don’t understand how he could have helped Duke be better.

Somehow I managed to catch a fair amount of AZ games (not that I could watch for more than 20 minutes, good lord what awful games) this past season on the teevee. That team was absolutely dreadful, yes, but the big investigation cloud pushed Miller into the psycho zone. I think the team tuned Miller out most of the year.

But Chase played pretty well. He was aggressive and not afraid to bang under the basket and his hands were strong. He could catch, turn and put it in (without the dribble into someone's foot) something we didn't see consistently from Bolden. Chase made a mistake leaving Duke. And, a mistake with that weird shorts wearing tic. Just seemed like a cry for attention in what must have been a bitter, disjointed locker room.

[weezie]

...If another team loses, it's easy for folks to say they choked or they had bad luck or a bad matchup. If Duke loses, it's a systemic problem that needs a major correction.

The will of the plebians to destroy their betters.


...I’m just waiting for Coach K to come on here and share the recruiting changes he plans to implement after learning so much from us. That’s the moment I will know this has all been worth it.

First laugh of the day.


...I just saw a clip of some ringer video claiming this was Coach K’s worst coaching job ever... but Roy literally just won coach of the year from USA Today.


I'm sure many saw that Ringer link. It was pretty brutal but also 100% wrong. So's that coaching award for Roy. Doubt very much that K has ever pined for coach of the year plaques. I don't put much faith into what the vast majority of sports writers say as a general rule. Mostly people who can't "do" sports but think they have it all figured out.

[Steven43]

If you go even further back, it becomes even more apparent that our recruiting methods/targets have not changed much at all. We have always tried to target the best players in each class - regardless of whether we think they would go pro early or not.

Think back to the 2010 national championship team. Kyle Singer was the #4 player in the country (according to ESPN). Nolan Smith was #6 in the country. Both graduated.

I don’t think anyone is questioning that Coach K has always tried to recruit the best available players who are also a good academic fit for Duke. What has changed is those top recruits usually leave after one year at Duke when in the past most — not all, but most — would stay multiple years and often all four. Plus, he used to have to factor in whether or not his recruits couid handle four years of rigorous academics at Duke and also graduate. Does he even have to consider that anymore with most of his recruits?

Based on these clear changes in the typical elite recruit’s college aims I don’t see how you can say that Coach K should not at least consider altering his long-time recruiting focus of trying to get the very top recruits when he knows just as well as we do that they are likely to leave after just one season. Things have changed dramatically so why shouldn’t his recruiting focus potentially also change?

[Dukehk]

I don’t think anyone is questioning that Coach K has always tried to recruit the best available players who are also a good academic fit for Duke. What has changed is those top recruits usually leave after one year at Duke when in the past most — not all, but most — would stay multiple years and often all four. Plus, he used to have to factor in whether or not his recruits couid handle four years of rigorous academics at Duke and also graduate. Does he even have to consider that anymore with most of his recruits?

Based on these clear changes in the typical elite recruit’s college aims I don’t see how you can say that Coach K should not at least consider altering his long-time recruiting focus of trying to get the very top recruits when he knows just as well as we do that they are likely to leave after just one season. Things have changed dramatically so why shouldn’t his recruiting focus potentially also change?

To be fair, if Tre Jones comes back then we might change our viewpoint in recruiting so called "top players". Once in a while (or very often if you are the holes), you get one or two that stay and basically the rewards of that happening usually outweigh the cons. Furthermore, I don't think its necessarily a bad thing to have elite players like Zion and RJ. We have won a national title with Freshmen before, and probably should have won one this year were it not for the poor showing against msu.

The only issue is that this years team did NOT surround the Freshmen with legit upperclassmen leaders and stars, similar to Quinn Cook and Amile Jefferson. Bolden, Javin and Jack all pretty much failed to develop in this regard. Or another way to look at it is that our super class of Freshmen came "a year too early" as the upperclassmen aren't Seniors but rather they are Juniors who haven't reached their full college potential yet.

[Rich]

It’s maddening to see sports commentators consistently make the mistake of equating probable NBA draft position — which is one barometer of “talent” — with on-court success at the collegiate level. I have seen so many mediocre (and worse) performances throughout college basketball by players who ended up being OADs. It makes you wonder if these guys even watch the games.

When players stayed 3-4 years I think that was true. A team's collegiate success could generally be tied to how many future NBA players they had on the roster. Given that those players were not only talented and elite, but also provided experience and leadership, it makes sense. Those guys were NBA ready, not NBA potential. In the one-and-done era that's clearly no longer the case. Those players are still NBA caliber based on potential, and talent alone will win many games, but no longer provide the leadership so desperately needed when it comes to March.

[azzefkram]

Well, I hardly think you can point to a three-OAD team as an example of success for a one-or-two-OAD model. Also, if you look at the stats, 2019 Javin DeLaurier basically was 2015 Amile Jefferson, though Javin played fewer minutes (16.3 mpg vs. 21.3 mpg for Amile), turned the ball over a bit more, and was a bit better on defense. And while we could have used Quinn's shooting, he was a much worse defender than Cam Reddish (the player he would have had to replace in the starting lineup), so I'm not sure the overall effect would have been positive.

And again, we should remember that from a recruiting/planning perspective (which is what we're talking about, right?), Luke Kennard, Derryck Thornton, and Chase Jeter were all supposed to be on this year's team.

Javin was not basically 2015 Amile. Javin turned the ball over a lot more, was a worse rebounder and fouled a lot more. He was better at blocks and steal but how we played defense in 2015 could be a factor in that. Quinn was a respectable defender by his senior year but definitely a step down from Cam. Quinn was a much better offensive player than Cam. I'm not sure they would be a one-for-one substitution though. If the 2019 team had 2015 Quinn on it, I think we would have seen a lot more of Zion at the 5 so both Cam and Quinn would be on the floor.

Luke and Derryck definitely could have helped out this year's team. I'm not sure there was anything K could do to help that though.

[Steven43]

When players stayed 3-4 years I think that was true. A team's collegiate success could generally be tied to how many future NBA players they had on the roster. Given that those players were not only talented and elite, but also provided experience and leadership, it makes sense. Those guys were NBA ready, not NBA potential. In the one-and-done era that's clearly no longer the case. Those players are still NBA caliber based on potential, and talent alone will win many games, but no longer provide the leadership so desperately needed when it comes to March.

You’re right. OAD freshmen simply cannot provide much in the way of experience, savvy, and mature leadership. It’s really not possible to have those attributes in one’s first year of college.

[Matches]

You’re right. OAD freshmen simply cannot provide much in the way of experience, savvy, and mature leadership. It’s really not possible to have those attributes in one’s first year of college.

I mean.. Tyus Jones (at least where savvy and mature leadership are concerned).

You're certainly right that, in general, freshmen are less mature then upperclassmen, and I get that Tyus had Cook around as a mentor. I thought our team played with poise well beyond its experience level this season until Sunday.

[Rich]

I mean.. Tyus Jones (at least where savvy and mature leadership are concerned).

You're certainly right that, in general, freshmen are less mature then upperclassmen, and I get that Tyus had Cook around as a mentor. I thought our team played with poise well beyond its experience level this season until Sunday.

After which Coach K admitted in the press conference that he spent half the game just trying to calm them down. And I would posit it was the first three games as well. We did not play typical 2018-19 season Duke basketball this whole tournament.

In retrospect, I think we somewhat kidded ourselves with excuses that the first half of North Dakota State was just jitters, that Tako Fall and UCF presented quirks we were unaccustomed to, and that Buzz Williams knew our system and they were under seeded given the return of their point guard. While I can accept the VTech game, the other two would normally be blowouts with better on-the-floor leadership. I just don't think you can run statistics into the value of such leadership.

Again, I'll turn to the press conference where Coach K admitted we played young while Cassius Winston was the steady embodiment of Coach Izzo on the floor. That's not talent, that's leadership and experience, not everyone brings that to the table, and it's not quantifiable. While I love Marques, Javin and Jack and wouldn't trade them, they do not bring the level of leadership needed in March that a Quin Cook or Cassius Winston offer.

And I'll throw this in - if you haven't watched the entire post game press conference, especially the Coach K and Izzo parts, I highly recommend it. It provides fantastic insights into how K viewed the game and Izzo views the Duke program. Really good stuff.

[robed deity]

After which Coach K admitted in the press conference that he spent half the game just trying to calm them down. And I would posit it was the first three games as well. We did not play typical 2018-19 season Duke basketball this whole tournament.

In retrospect, I think we somewhat kidded ourselves with excuses that the first half of North Dakota State was just jitters, that Tako Fall and UCF presented quirks we were unaccustomed to, and that Buzz Williams knew our system and they were under seeded given the return of their point guard. While I can accept the VTech game, the other two would normally be blowouts with better on-the-floor leadership. I just don't think you can run statistics into the value of such leadership.

Again, I'll turn to the press conference where Coach K admitted we played young while Cassius Winston was the steady embodiment of Coach Izzo on the floor. That's not talent, that's leadership and experience, not everyone brings that to the table, and it's not quantifiable. While I love Marques, Javin and Jack and wouldn't trade them, they do not bring the level of leadership needed in March that a Quin Cook or Cassius Winston offer.

And I'll throw this in - if you haven't watched the entire post game press conference, especially the Coach K and Izzo parts, I highly recommend it. It provides fantastic insights into how K viewed the game and Izzo views the Duke program. Really good stuff.

Really interesting watching those. K even mentioned the guys not running what was drawn up a couple times, again probably because of nerves or wanting it too much. I can't imagine the pressure that was on the freshmen. Because of the attention and hype all year, the pressure in the tournament was immense, and they played like it. Really hard to blame them.

[Furniture]

Somehow I managed to catch a fair amount of AZ games (not that I could watch for more than 20 minutes, good lord what awful games) this past season on the teevee. That team was absolutely dreadful, yes, but the big investigation cloud pushed Miller into the psycho zone. I think the team tuned Miller out most of the year.

But Chase played pretty well. He was aggressive and not afraid to bang under the basket and his hands were strong. He could catch, turn and put it in (without the dribble into someone's foot) something we didn't see consistently from Bolden. Chase made a mistake leaving Duke. And, a mistake with that weird shorts wearing tic. Just seemed like a cry for attention in what must have been a bitter, disjointed locker room.
I also think Chase made a mistake leaving Duke and the same might be said for most of the transfers Duke has had. Semi is one exception but for the most part my feeling is that they would be better staying at Duke even as a role player. Several of our role players have made it to the NBA. Some are still very close like Amile. Chase is done now unless he comes back as a grad student.

[A-Tex Devil]

I am not going to read all 4 pages, and I would agree that the teams with significant one and dones have overall been successful.

But it isn't as fun to root for Duke as it used to be. Maybe that is because I am in Austin and far away. Maybe it's because I am old and have young children so I can't do the 365 day cycle anymore. I don't know. But essentially since 2010, it's felt like 9 completely different teams, and as each year begins, there are maybe 2 guys that were of any importance from the year before, and it's ACC play before I really know everyone on the team. Zion was awesome and I am sad I missed him live in a Duke uniform. But, honestly, if I am going to deal with playing below our seed on a constant basis, I prefer 4 years of JJ Redick or Daniel Ewing leading the team so there is a connection.

In any event, I hope the one and done goes away and just let these kids go to the NBA if they want to. From a pure basketball perspective, RJ and Zion belonged in the NBA this year (K has acknowledged as much, I believe). Zion probably made materially more money coming to college given the exposure he received this year (so I won't deny that positive), but that wasn't a guarantee in October. I know they enjoyed playing together, but given the choice, both would have preferred going straight to the NBA, I suspect. They should be allowed to do so. If you decide to come to college, ideally, there is a 2 or 3 year wait if you want to re-enter the draft after bypassing it to go to college. But I think there is enough money from CBS et al in the NCAA that we can still root for our teams the way we have in the past AND have some continuity while also letting those that can, or think they can, go straight to the league, or Europe, or knowingly hone craft in the G-League, do so if they want to. We allow that in baseball, after all. Why do we "know better" in basketball? Truly what is the difference now that the G-League has developed and a vibrant international market exists?

TL: DR - I don't criticize us for taking advantage of one and done. But I enjoy it less.

[NSDukeFan]

It may be worth noting that if Duke had gone with the one-or-two-but-no-more "obvious OAD guys" strategy this year, Zion would most likely not have been on the team.
Ouch. Don’t think I would have liked that nearly as much.

The team has tried to do this. Derryck Thornton, Chase Jeter, and Luke Kennard would have been seniors on this year's team (and obviously juniors last year). DeLaurier, Bolden, and White were juniors on this year's team; they just haven't developed quite as quickly as hoped (in the cases of DeLaurier and especially Bolden). Frank Jackson could have been a junior this year, and would have been a sophomore last year. Jordan Tucker (who was pretty useful for Butler this year) could have been a sophomore this year.

It's hard to identify guys who you know will stick around 3-4 years. Some guys will get the itch to play and transfer. Some guys will blow up and go pro early.

I don't think the goal as of a year ago was to have 4 freshmen start this season, although I also don't think they'd have minded. Honestly, if Reddish had been better offensively, we are probably still playing. Heck, even with the limited experience and Reddish's inconsistencies/struggles, we were a single play (against a top-4 team) away from making the Final Four with 3 teams we've already beaten.
The bolded is the whole key, I think. Ideally, the team would get the absolute best 3-4 year players. The team wouldn’t be the absolute most talented, but would have the best combination of talent and experience.

I'm torn on the OAD strategy. I think it's wonderful bringing in the right talent. I think it's frustration "starting over" every single year. But you can't really disagree with the impact. However, I do tend to think the media and fans overestimate the effect multiple OADs have on your team.

My real issue is the development of current players. A lot of these players are 4 and 5 star players who haven't really progressed as fast as we'd like. And this is where I think OADs come into play. The staff is so focused on OADs, getting them caught up to speed, etc that there likely isn't as much time for returning players. It's an opportunity cost trade-off; there are only so many hours where the coaching staff can work with the team.

According to RSCI, Bolden was ranked #11. The two folks ranked before and the two folks ranked after him are Malik Monk, Miles Bridges, Terrance Ferguson, and Wenyen Gabriel.
According to RSCI, DeLaurier was ranked #35. The two folks ranked before and the two folks ranked after him are Udoka Azubuike (starter this year for Kansas but got a season ending injury), Ike Anigbogu (NBA flameout), Shamorie Ponds (20ppg this year), and Thon Maker (NBA).
According to RSCI, Alex O'Connell was ranked #69. The two folks ranked before and the two folks ranked after him are Nojel Eastern (28.2 mpg and 7.5ppg for E8 Purdue), Nathan Reuvers (22.9 mpg and 7.9 ppg for Wisconsin), Bruno Fernando (30.0 mpg and 13.6 ppg for Maryland), and Darius Perry (16.4 mpg and 5.4 ppg for Louisville).

Jack White wasn't ranked in RSCI and that's likely because he played HS ball in Australia. And Jack White looked to be that guy who developed significantly and contributed as part of the core rotation but ran into a laundry list of shooting woes, confidence issues, and injuries.

I hope we see better development, because all of these players aren't getting the opportunities that their peers are getting.
The problem for “game” development at Duke is that Duke is more consistently good than any other program. To play at Duke, you have to be really good. Equally talented players might not get as many game opportunities at Duke as at other programs. Hopefully, Duke’s players still get better in practice and if they stick around for 3-4 years are strong enough to be solid upperclassmen contributors.

Our defense (measured by adjusted points per possession) was better against Michigan State than it was against Kentucky in November.
That’s very interesting.

But you can't know who they are until they actually stay for 4 years. There's a very strong chance they either improve so quickly that they leave early or get impatient that they transfer out early.
Exactly. It is much easier to recruit retrospectively than prospectively.

Or they turn into Matt Jones, Tyler Thornton, Josh Hairston, Sean Dockery, Greg Paulus, or any number of four year players who fans hated and constantly screamed that they should be getting less playing time in favor of the younger guys. Heck, a sizable part of the fan base wanted to run Grayson out of town, said they wished he had left after his sophomore year.
I really enjoyed following all those guys.

This has been an interesting and inevitable thread.

-Something that has been said but bears repeating is that if you look closely at every program, none of them stand up to the impossible standards being set forth. If you want to argue that Virginia is the closest in that they have begun to have consistent conference success and have now reached their first final 4 with lower ranked talent, then I'd say let's see how long they can keep it going.

-The next piece is the desire for a "system" that players learn that never changes. Personally, I am not a fan because I think it ultimately makes you easier to defend. Our offense has been elite for the entire OAD era, as elite as it can really be. Defense has been less so, but K seems to have adapted there, too, as it has been elite for the past 2 years.

-Most of the teams that make the Final Four have a handful of transfers in their rotation, so not all talent is nurtured in the system over the years. When Gonzaga nearly won the title a few years ago, they had 2-3 of their top six that had recently transferred in.

-I do think K can be criticized for not developing his bench. But, he's been that way for a long time, short rotations that get shorter as the year goes by. Do I wish he were more like Leonard Hamilton playing 10 guys no matter what? I don't know. But, I do know that AOC held his own, wasn't great but held his own, against VTech in the Sweet 16 and was only given 2 minutes before he was yanked for the rest of the game. K's tendency with the "supporting cast" is to go big with them in one game and then go away from them for long stretches. I don't think it aids their development. Which leads to the next and ultimate point...

-K won't be here much longer. The restrictions on players going to the NBA is going to change and he will be gone. As CDu said, the timing on those two events will be in pretty close proximity. The next Duke head coach won't be K, nor will the next, nor the next after that. So, for those that want change, it's coming soon. Let's watch this space when it does...which makes me think...

-It's easy to say, "There were those on DBR screaming for more talent in the late 2000s" or quoting some other trope. The fact is, it's rare that anyone on DBR really changes their stance. The glass half empties show up only after losses, the "I hate OADs" are pretty consistent, those who are enjoying the OAD era are pretty consistent, and the debate on the boards over these topics is typically waged by the same people taking the same positions. That's about as consistent as it gets.
Recruiting is difficult business. I believe ideally you would want one or two of the absolute best players mixed in with the most talented 3-4 year players. So, how do we recruit the most talented 3-4 year players? The Duke staff is looking for high character players that they hope they can work with and would fit in well at Duke. They begin identifying these players at 15/16 years old and need to prioritize who to try to start building relationships with. If, at that point, they were to identify the 25th-49th ranked players, how many of those would also be ranked 25th-49th two years later, and of those, how many would not transfer out if they didn’t get immediate playing time and how many wouldn’t leave early, if they were good enough to play early? And, of course, those 15/16 year olds have to want to establish a relationship (probably not too difficult for the GOAT) and then choose Duke over all the other programs as 17 year olds. I’m glad that’s not my job.

[freshmanjs]

I've seen in a few different threads now folks saying that going all in on the one-and-dones hasn't worked out. This is most certainly an incorrect statement. There have been 16 college teams ever who had multiple freshmen who played and subsequently entered the draft:
Duke (2015)
Duke (2017)
Duke (2018)
Duke (2019 expected)
UK (2010)
UK (2012)
UK (2013*)
UK (2014)
UK (2015)
UK (2016)
UK (2017)
UK (2018)
Texas (2011)
OSU (2007)
KU (2014)
KU (2017)

Their tourney results are as follows: two titles, two championship game losses, a Final Four loss, five elite 8 losses, a sweet 16 loss, four second round losses, and one missed tournament*.

* - The 2013 UK team had two freshmen go pro. But their season was sabotaged by their star player (Nerlens Noel) tearing his ACL and missing the last 11 games of their season. So that's a bit of an outlier in my opinion.

So in 15 seasons without a season-ending injury involved, these teams made five final fours and TEN elite 8s. That's a phenomenal hit rate. There is no team in college basketball with that kind of a hit rate over the last 15 years. And that's with, let's say, ~300 teams over that 12 year span having a reasonable shot at a title (~25 teams per year over 12 years).

The only one close is UNC (3 titles and 8 elite 8s, and they cheated the system to accomplish that feat, managing to convince key freshmen to stick around at least longer than they should have (Barnes, McAdoo, Lawson).

You say that "well, Duke should be considered different than the rest because of Coach K". A fair suggestion. Well, let's look at the teams Duke had for the 13 years prior to going all in on the one-and-done era (2002-2014, because 2015 was where we started 3 freshmen): 1 title, 1 Final Four loss, 1 elite 8 loss, six sweet-16 losses, 1 second round loss, and 3 first round losses. Our success in the recent era where we were relying predominantly on 3-4 year players pails in comparison to our success the last 5 years (1 title, 2 elite 8 losses, 1 sweet-16 loss, and 1 second-round loss).

When Duke has been really successful with 3-4 year players has largely been back in an era where superstar college players stayed AT LEAST two years and usually longer. Jason Williams wouldn't have been a Duke player for his junior year (and possibly not for his sophomore year) had it been in the 2010s. Boozer might have been gone as a freshman or sophomore too. Unlikely that Grant Hill is back for his sophomore season. Laettner? Probably not back for his senior year.

People look at the 2010 team and pine for it, but as of early in that season folks were questioning whether the program was done being elite: that senior class was staring at a first round loss, a second round loss, and a sweet 16 loss as all they had on their resume, with the program having gone 5 full seasons without making a Final Four. Yes, we won the title that year and it was amazing. But it was the anomaly, not the norm.

It's fair to say that you feel more attachment to the players when they stay longer. But the tourney results themselves are decidedly in the favor of getting the best players.

Thankfully, 2019 UNC will now make the multiple one and done data look a little bit worse :)

[CDu]

Thankfully, 2019 UNC will now make the multiple one and done data look a little bit worse :)

Yep, will have to edit for the future.

[Kedsy]

But, honestly, if I am going to deal with playing below our seed on a constant basis, I prefer 4 years of JJ Redick or Daniel Ewing leading the team so there is a connection.

What I think some people don't understand is that if JJ Redick was a freshman in recent years, we would not have gotten four years of him in a Duke uniform (maybe two, if we were lucky). Not Shelden Williams, either. Or Kyle Singler. Or probably Mason Plumlee and Nolan Smith, and possibly Chris Duhon. Certainly not Grant Hill or Christian Laettner or Bobby Hurley or Danny Ferry. It's a completely different world in this regard, and if those who "prefer" the way in was in 2006 or 2001 or 1992 or 1989 think we could possibly go back to doing it that way today, they are simply engaging in wishful thinking.

[CDu]

What I think some people don't understand is that if JJ Redick was a freshman in recent years, we would not have gotten four years of him in a Duke uniform (maybe two, if we were lucky). Not Shelden Williams, either. Or Kyle Singler. Or probably Mason Plumlee and Nolan Smith, and possibly Chris Duhon. Certainly not Grant Hill or Christian Laettner or Bobby Hurley or Danny Ferry. It's a completely different world in this regard, and if those who "prefer" the way in was in 2006 or 2001 or 1992 or 1989 think we could possibly go back to doing it that way today, they are simply engaging in wishful thinking.

Yep. See: Kennard, Luke.

In this era, guys like Grayson Allen are the exception.

In order to win, you need guys to play like stars. But if they play like stars, there is a good chance they go pro.

[frb]

multiple OAD isn't the problem... 4 or 5 OAD's can be. 2015 had 3 but also had Quinn Cook who was the second leading scorer on the team. Remove Reddish and insert Q Cook in the 2019 line up (with his 2015 skill set) and we win it all. Is Cook a better prospect? No. More efficient/productive as a Sr because of experience, maturity and 4 years of skill development in the program than Reddish as a Frosh? Yes. You could tell Coach K wanted to pull back on Reddish.. he just didn't have anyone else to go with.

[Kedsy]

Remove Reddish and insert Q Cook in the 2019 line up (with his 2015 skill set) and we win it all.

I hate when people say stuff like, "if [insert whatever here] then we win it all." No matter who you magically transport onto this year's team there's no guarantee of anything.

For example, in 2015, in our Sweet 16 game against Utah, we had 5 assists to 14 turnovers, got clobbered on the boards, and shot poorly. We still won, by just 6 points, primarily because Utah - the 7th best three-point shooting team in the country that year at 40.4% - chose that night to shoot 25% from three. If we'd played this year's Michigan State team on the night they beat us (or probably this year's VaTech team on the night we beat them by 2) instead of that year's Utah team on that night, we lose. Even with senior Quinn Cook, who shot 40% in the game for 11 points.

Quinn Cook, even in 2015, wasn't half the defender Cam Reddish is. If we made the switch you suggest, our offense would have been more consistent but our defense less so. My guess is it's no better than a wash. Not to mention, were we supposed to just manufacture a Quinn Cook out of thin air? As I've noted in this thread several times already, we were supposed to have Derryck Thornton, Chase Jeter, and Luke Kennard as seniors this season.

[Wander]

Quinn Cook, even in 2015, wasn't half the defender Cam Reddish is.

Nah. Quinn was an excellent defender in the 2015 NCAA tournament - better than Reddish. How he made that jump for the tournament after years of being a not-great defender will forever be one of the mysteries of Duke basketball to me.

[UrinalCake]

You could tell Coach K wanted to pull back on Reddish.. he just didn't have anyone else to go with.

My recollection is that Reddish was the second player to commit after Tre. Barrett was next, and finally Zion. At the time nobody expected us to get Zion and he was seen as a "luxury" recruit. Reddish was considered a strong Duke lean for as long as I can remember. Calipari wanted him really, really badly but he always wanted to come to Duke.

What we really need is a time machine so we can go back and pick and choose the players we want after we know how good they'll all be and how long each of them will stay.

[ballfour]

Awesome thread. So many measured arguments on both sides. The discourse here is always first-rate.

I'll admit I am not a OAD fan just because I like continuity and a chance to get to know and enjoy the players. I do not in any way begrudge those that leave early, and when you know you're a wanted commodity, you probably should go. Everyone knows that. If Zion stayed in college another year, he's getting horrible career advice. I loved watching Tatum and Winslow, and so many others just here for a year.

But here's what I would theoretically ask:

Let's say you had a choice of two recruits, and you KNEW what their college production would be. One player would basically be Zion Williamson, an instant star and ostensibly the best player in college, but you'd have him for just one year. The second player would basically be Marcus Paige, a starter from Year 1 and a star for his final three years, a four-year player in all.

Which "hit" impacts you more?

I think you're much better off when you find a Paige, or a Quinn Cook for that matter.

Obviously the 4-star recruits are no sure thing. Some will be much worse than you think, and some will outperform their projection and leave quickly. Tyler Ennis looked like a possible Paige or Cook type and he stayed one year at Syracuse, exceeded expectations, and (reasonably) jumped to the NBA from there. Michigan thought Nik Stauskus would be 3-4 years (RSCI 78), then he was very good as a frosh and blew up as a sophomore. Maybe my theoretical is pointless because it's damn hard to find the Paiges and the Cooks and the Scottie Reynoldses (I will swear for all time he was at Villanova for 17 years).

But I think it might be the best part of the stream to fish. I'm not saying OAD is a mistake or a losing angle; I just think you get much better mileage when you click with a slightly lower tier. And if you look at all the past classes by RSCI, those Top 10 recruits are almost never staying around long. The WAR leaders on the page are overwhelmingly from those secondary tiers.

[frb]

My recollection is that Reddish was the second player to commit after Tre. Barrett was next, and finally Zion. At the time nobody expected us to get Zion and he was seen as a "luxury" recruit. Reddish was considered a strong Duke lean for as long as I can remember. Calipari wanted him really, really badly but he always wanted to come to Duke.

What we really need is a time machine so we can go back and pick and choose the players we want after we know how good they'll all be and how long each of them will stay.

I'm not talking about the recruiting process. I am referring to this season. At times, he was playing himself out of the line up. White would go in but he didn't do enough to surpass Reddish and get his minutes. There were times Reddish was causing more harm than good. 35.6% shooter from the field. I don't even know how someone so skilled can shoot that poorly. I wonder what Baker could've done if given a 2-3 game trial.. give him 20 mins and see.

[clinresga]

Let's say you had a choice of two recruits, and you KNEW what their college production would be. One player would basically be Zion Williamson, an instant star and ostensibly the best player in college, but you'd have him for just one year. The second player would basically be Marcus Paige, a starter from Year 1 and a star for his final three years, a four-year player in all.

Which "hit" impacts you more?

I think you're much better off when you find a Paige, or a Quinn Cook for that matter.

Obviously the 4-star recruits are no sure thing. Some will be much worse than you think, and some will outperform their projection and leave quickly. Tyler Ennis looked like a possible Paige or Cook type and he stayed one year at Syracuse, exceeded expectations, and (reasonably) jumped to the NBA from there. Michigan thought Nik Stauskus would be 3-4 years (RSCI 78), then he was very good as a frosh and blew up as a sophomore. Maybe my theoretical is pointless because it's damn hard to find the Paiges and the Cooks and the Scottie Reynoldses (I will swear for all time he was at Villanova for 17 years).

But I think it might be the best part of the stream to fish. I'm not saying OAD is a mistake or a losing angle; I just think you get much better mileage when you click with a slightly lower tier. And if you look at all the past classes by RSCI, those Top 10 recruits are almost never staying around long. The WAR leaders on the page are overwhelmingly from those secondary tiers.


I wonder if there's a long term threat from eliminating OAD's in college that hasn't been discussed much. I loved pre-OAD college basketball as much as anyone, but the likely future of post-OAD college basketball will not be a return to the glory days of Laettner and Hurley. The new post-OAD era will be very different. Future Laettners and Hurleys, and Zions and RJs will head straight to the Association. And I think it's very likely that the NBA commits to enhancing the G League. If that happens, many of the current day Tre Jones/Gary Trent/Nolan Smith types--potential NBA players with a couple more years of experience--may choose that route rather than college for a mandatory 3 or 4 years.

Over time, you might predict that the talent drain to NBA/G League would make college less and less attractive as a place to showcase skills leading to a pro career. If most players with pro potential do not play college ball, what does college ball look like? How would we feel if, for example, this year's roster had a starting five of, say, Vrank, Javin, J Rob, AOC, and J Gold? Fun to watch, but distinctly "minor league." Indeed, could the worst case scenario be that college hoops gradually declines to a level of interest similar to the current interest in college baseball, with its parallels to the G League-NBA relationship?

While many others may not, I still love following Duke players into the NBA. It would be a loss to no longer have many former Blue Devils playing at the highest possible level. Is it possible that in 20 years, we'll be whining about the marginalization of college basketball and pining for the good old days of the OADs?

[UrinalCake]

Let's say you had a choice of two recruits, and you KNEW what their college production would be. One player would basically be Zion Williamson, an instant star and ostensibly the best player in college, but you'd have him for just one year. The second player would basically be Marcus Paige, a starter from Year 1 and a star for his final three years, a four-year player in all.

Which "hit" impacts you more?


I think the more accurate question would be, would you rather have four years of Marcus Paige or four years of Zion, Bagley, Giles, and Okafor? Because that is the game we're playing now. Churning out OAD's leads to more OAD's wanting to come, while relying on four year players makes it difficult to attract the OAD's. Obviously there's no guarantee that we'll land the #1 player every single year, but I think the tradeoff is still in favor of having the more talented guys for one year each.

I remember UNC fans saying they would rather have four years of Kennedy Meeks than one year of Okafor. We laughed at them when Okafor abused him and we went on to win the title in 2015. But Meeks stuck it out and went on to be part of two consecutive final four teams, one of which won a title of their own. I think that with the four year player model you are solid every year but not really a legit threat until the stars happen to align for a season, you have some players either outperform their expectations or stay longer than expected (or in the case of UNC, both). But then there's typically a big dropoff after that happens, as we've seen with both UNC the past two seasons and Villanova this season. With the OAD model of reloading every year, you are always a title threat and you have the excitement of seeing elite individual talent, but also the uncertainty of playing with freshmen so it's more boom or bust.

[UrinalCake]

I'm not talking about the recruiting process. I am referring to this season. At times, he was playing himself out of the line up. White would go in but he didn't do enough to surpass Reddish and get his minutes. There were times Reddish was causing more harm than good. 35.6% shooter from the field. I don't even know how someone so skilled can shoot that poorly. I wonder what Baker could've done if given a 2-3 game trial.. give him 20 mins and see.

There were many fans calling for White to start over Reddish back in January. Shortly after that thread got created, Reddish missed the Syracuse game with an illness and White went 0 for 10 and his season pretty much spiraled downwards after that. So I'm not sure White was the answer. I wish Alex had gotten more minutes over the season, but the reason Reddish continued to play heavy minutes is that his defense was always really good. He didn't put up the highlight blocks or steals like Zion and Tre, but he was fundamentally sound and played good positional defense which is every bit as important. Alex would come in and immediately get burned on D and Cam would come right back in.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

I wonder if there's a long term threat from eliminating OAD's in college that hasn't been discussed much. I loved pre-OAD college basketball as much as anyone, but the likely future of post-OAD college basketball will not be a return to the glory days of Laettner and Hurley. The new post-OAD era will be very different. Future Laettners and Hurleys, and Zions and RJs will head straight to the Association. And I think it's very likely that the NBA commits to enhancing the G League. If that happens, many of the current day Tre Jones/Gary Trent/Nolan Smith types--potential NBA players with a couple more years of experience--may choose that route rather than college for a mandatory 3 or 4 years.

Over time, you might predict that the talent drain to NBA/G League would make college less and less attractive as a place to showcase skills leading to a pro career. If most players with pro potential do not play college ball, what does college ball look like? How would we feel if, for example, this year's roster had a starting five of, say, Vrank, Javin, J Rob, AOC, and J Gold? Fun to watch, but distinctly "minor league." Indeed, could the worst case scenario be that college hoops gradually declines to a level of interest similar to the current interest in college baseball, with its parallels to the G League-NBA relationship?

While many others may not, I still love following Duke players into the NBA. It would be a loss to no longer have many former Blue Devils playing at the highest possible level. Is it possible that in 20 years, we'll be whining about the marginalization of college basketball and pining for the good old days of the OADs?
Was college baseball something that people ever really watched?

i think some are blowing all of this out of proportion. I suspect Top 10-15 ranked recruits will rarely attend college in the future. But most others will still go to school. Just because there is an alternate path to the NBA for some does not change the fact there are only so many draft spots available each year. So mid ranked kids will have to decide if foregoing education in pursuit of a dicey opportunity to play against an aggregation of top talent (in the G league) and maybe maybe maybe get drafted in a year or two is really worth it.

[CDu]

Was college baseball something that people ever really watched?

No, but college basketball has had this system in place since before the proliferation of TV coverage. So it's sort of apples and oranges.


i think some are blowing all of this out of proportion. I suspect Top 10-15 ranked recruits will rarely attend college in the future. But most others will still go to school. Just because there is an alternate path to the NBA for some does not change the fact there are only so many draft spots available each year. So mid ranked kids will have to decide if foregoing education in pursuit of a dicey opportunity to play against an aggregation of top talent (in the G league) and maybe maybe maybe get drafted in a year or two is really worth it.

Well, every year more than 60 kids enter the draft early - not including seniors and foreign kids. I am not sure that we should assume that high school kids will look at this logically and say "well, there are only so many draft spots available..." If the number of draft picks available isn't deterring kids from leaving early now, why would it deter kids who have never experienced college life from choosing to skip college?

[Acymetric]

I wonder if there's a long term threat from eliminating OAD's in college that hasn't been discussed much. I loved pre-OAD college basketball as much as anyone, but the likely future of post-OAD college basketball will not be a return to the glory days of Laettner and Hurley. The new post-OAD era will be very different. Future Laettners and Hurleys, and Zions and RJs will head straight to the Association. And I think it's very likely that the NBA commits to enhancing the G League. If that happens, many of the current day Tre Jones/Gary Trent/Nolan Smith types--potential NBA players with a couple more years of experience--may choose that route rather than college for a mandatory 3 or 4 years.

Over time, you might predict that the talent drain to NBA/G League would make college less and less attractive as a place to showcase skills leading to a pro career. If most players with pro potential do not play college ball, what does college ball look like? How would we feel if, for example, this year's roster had a starting five of, say, Vrank, Javin, J Rob, AOC, and J Gold? Fun to watch, but distinctly "minor league." Indeed, could the worst case scenario be that college hoops gradually declines to a level of interest similar to the current interest in college baseball, with its parallels to the G League-NBA relationship?

While many others may not, I still love following Duke players into the NBA. It would be a loss to no longer have many former Blue Devils playing at the highest possible level. Is it possible that in 20 years, we'll be whining about the marginalization of college basketball and pining for the good old days of the OADs?

I think this is worthwhile to think about, but I don't ultimately see it as a problem. Not enough players will leave early to dilute the product to the point where there is a significant loss of interest.


Well, every year more than 60 kids enter the draft early - not including seniors and foreign kids. I am not sure that we should assume that high school kids will look at this logically and say "well, there are only so many draft spots available..." If the number of draft picks available isn't deterring kids from leaving early now, why would it deter kids who have never experienced college life from choosing to skip college?

Agreed, I don't think it will necessarily be a deterrent. That said, that 60 does include sophomores, juniors, and may even include rs juniors who graduated but had an additional year of eligibility (I don't know whether your 60 player figure includes RS Juniors or not). In the last two years, 18 players were drafted as one-and-dones each year (this was easier to find than the number who declared, which is higher but probably not significantly so). Not all of them would have been seen as likely one-and-done players during their senior year of high school, so somewhere in the range of 10-20 players declaring straight out of high school is probably a reasonable floor-ceiling range. If something were to change to make the G-League significantly more appealing that might change things, but I think those changes to the G-League are further away than the change to the one-and-done rule and far from certain. There is also the fact that the NCAA might eventually make changes ($$$) that make coming to college more appealing than the G-League for some of the more marginal players.

Then the question is, out of the remaining group of players who don't leave college early, how many will end up being 1-2-3 and done players? This is really hard to project, I would guess the number of players leaving after 2-3 years will be similar to what we have now, but the number of one-and-dones will decrease. Without doing any formal analysis, I would expect there might be a noticeable talent disparity (but not necessarily production disparity) among the top 20-30 college players now vs. the top 20-30 college players in the high school-NBA future, but that after that the talent level and distribution will be similar to what it is now. My guess is that arrangement still makes for compelling games, compelling tournaments, and compelling storylines enough that the college game won't suffer much.

[NSDukeFan]

My recollection is that Reddish was the second player to commit after Tre. Barrett was next, and finally Zion. At the time nobody expected us to get Zion and he was seen as a "luxury" recruit. Reddish was considered a strong Duke lean for as long as I can remember. Calipari wanted him really, really badly but he always wanted to come to Duke.

What we really need is a time machine so we can go back and pick and choose the players we want after we know how good they'll all be and how long each of them will stay.

I say two years ago we give that Morant kid another look. I know he’s not rated that highly, but he has good athleticism, he’s playing with Zion, who we are recruiting. I think he’s worth a flier.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

I say two years ago we give that Morant kid another look. I know he’s not rated that highly, but he has good athleticism, he’s playing with Zion, who we are recruiting. I think he’s worth a flier.

That was a very spot on call on your part.....sporks two years late

[Steven43]

I say two years ago we give that Morant kid another look. I know he’s not rated that highly, but he has good athleticism, he’s playing with Zion, who we are recruiting. I think he’s worth a flier.

Why didn’t you tell Coach K back then? Gee whiz, NSDF, I’m perturbed with you now.

[NSDukeFan]

That was a very spot on call on your part....sporks two years late


Why didn’t you tell Coach K back then? Gee whiz, NSDF, I’m perturbed with you now.

Oh shoot, did I just post this now? I meant to share my wisdom a couple of years ago. 😀

[RPS]

But, honestly, if I am going to deal with playing below our seed on a constant basis, I prefer 4 years of JJ Redick or Daniel Ewing leading the team so there is a connection.
I wrote some of this in another thread, but the idea that we have played below our seed on a constant basis is not supportable. There is immense randomness built into sports outcomes in general and into a win-or-go-home format in particular. The "better team" does not always win on a game-to-game basis and the "best team" wins the tournament only a small percentage of the time. Last year's overall #1 seed lost in the opening round. Since tournament expansion in 1985, one of the four #1 seeds has won the championship only 21 times in 34 years and the final AP #1 team has won the tournament only five times (15% of the time) during that span. We Duke fans are spoiled and have nothing to complain about.

[CDu]

I wrote some of this in another thread, but the idea that we have played below our seed on a constant basis is not supportable. There is immense randomness built into sports outcomes in general and into a win-or-go-home format in particular. The "better team" does not always win on a game-to-game basis and the "best team" wins the tournament only a small percentage of the time. Last year's overall #1 seed lost in the opening round. Since tournament expansion in 1985, one of the four #1 seeds has won the championship only 21 times in 34 years and the final AP #1 team has won the tournament only five times (15% of the time) during that span. We Duke fans are spoiled and have nothing to complain about.

Yep. The idea that we have played below seed expectation since going all-in on one-and-dones is way off. In 2015, we won 2.64 more games than our seed expectation. In 2016, we won 0.5 more than a 4 seed should. In 2017 we were 0.4 less than a 2 seed should. In 2018 we won 0.6 more, and were a quarter inch from adding to that. This year, we were 0.36 wins under, but one possession from exceeding.

Basically, we have played to seed over the last 4 years and played well above seed 5 years ago. In total, we have won about 3 more games over the past five years than our seed would suggest.