Improvements for Next Year.......

[CMS2478]

SPEED.................This is my personal opinion so if you disagree, by all means disagree. But watching the game last night, the announcers kept talking about how tired we looked and YES we looked tired. But we also looked slow. Most people on here have conceded that our defense was suspect this year and I feel is largely to the fact that we are SLOW!!! I'm not going to call names bc this is not a bashing Duke players post, but as an overall team WE CANNOT GUARD THE OTHER TEAM. Maynor continully went by us last night and they continually beat us up and down the court. I hope our team improves next year, but with the exception of Nolan Smith, I don't see a whole lot of speed coming in. Not saying their not good, just not fast. Am I way off here???

P.S. If Jumbo, Bob Green, Watzone, or anyone else has solid proof that McRoberts is leaving I would love to know. Just a "yes" answer will do, I don't have to know your "sources."

Well let the healing begin and I hate this saying but "there's always next year":(

[Bob Green]

Josh is gone.

Bob Green
Yokosuka, Japan

[Troublemaker]

I agree with you that speed was an issue last night. We need Henderson, Pocius, and Smith to develop to the point where K trusts them to log major minutes against opponents like VCU that play three or four quick perimeter players at the same time. Paulus and Scheyer had a difficult time last night on defense. Nelson is only one guy and he doesn't have great height.

[mcdukie]

SPEED!!!! I couldn't agree with you more. A basic concept in sports is that speed kills, we need more. Also, whether Josh comes back or not we need a true go to scorer. Scheyer is too slow shooting the ball for it to be him, I hope it can be Singler. The problem with that is he will only be a frosh. I also will not be holding my breath on that scorer being Nelson, after 3 years he is what he is.

[ehdg]

What I believe a few of our players need to work on.

Zoubek needs to work on foot work, his hands and strength. He should spend some quality time this off season in the weight room.

Gerald needs to work on ball handling so he can help out more bringing the ball up court when the team is facing pressure and his mid range jumper.

Demarcus needs to work more on ball handling.

LT needs to work on foot work, shooting, strengthening his upper body and ball handling.

Scheyer needs to work more on his speed, foot work, ball handling and shooting.

[CMS2478]

What I believe a few of our players need to work on.

Zoubek needs to work on foot work, his hands and strength. He should spend some quality time this off season in the weight room.

Gerald needs to work on ball handling so he can help out more bringing the ball up court when the team is facing pressure and his mid range jumper.

Demarcus needs to work more on ball handling.

LT needs to work on foot work, shooting, strengthening his upper body and ball handling.

Scheyer needs to work more on his speed, foot work, ball handling and shooting.


EVERYONE NEEDS TO WORK ON FREE-THROWS!!! :mad:

[throatybeard]

Improvements for Next Year.......

More restrooms in Cameron, and cleaner ones in Wade.

[buddy]

More restrooms in Cameron, and cleaner ones in Wade.

Amen to that. Just having enough paper towels would be an improvement!

[Duke76]

Speed has passed us by, no doubt.
As additional evidence look at Bobby Frasor who was Greg's equal in reputation in recruiting wars; he has been reduced to a spot player at UNC.

Until Greg learns how to turn the corner and penetrate middle from the top of the key we will have problems. If you look at all our great seasons we had a guard that could drive the middle effectively. Hurley and Williams were particularly effective at this.

You can't start the offense from the left or right wings 10 feet from the top of the circle. Look at the tape of the VCU game and all the other games we lost. Greg would get pushed to the wings all the time and no one else we have can do any better.

To do this effectively in the current basketball environment one needs speed above all.

[Sixthman]

It is true that we could use more speed, or, a more effective means of dealing with the other team's speed. However, simply shooting ten to 12 percent higher rate as a team at the free throw line would have cut our losses this season by more than half. We would still be playing in the NCAAs, we would have gotten out of the first day of the ACCS, and we would have won the games we lost to Virginia, FSU and Virginia Tech during the regular season. Free throws you can practice, conditioning (which may effect speed but certainly impacts free throw accuaracy) can be improved (and this conditioning issue is one point for which having a young team really is an excuse, as it takes the year after freshman year to begin to approach the level of conditioning we expect). My point is we would have finished tied for first during the regular season, perhaps played in the ACC finals and who knows what else if we had done the things I described above. There are a lot of factors that contribute, including intensity, court smarts, speed, not having a clear go to guy, the incosistency of some of the key players, but in the final analysis, something as simple as free throws was alone, enough to be the difference between a year we celebrate and one which leaves a bad taste in our mouths.

[Duke76]

I agree in the VCU game if we had hit our free throws we would have won. But more importantly, game in and game out if it takes 10 to 15 seconds to start our offense because our point guard can't get past the pressure just inside half court and gets pushed to the wings we're doomed. How many possessions in the 2nd half of the VCU game ended in a turnover without a shot being taken because we never got into our offense? Too many.