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I am not on this Board often enough but in scanning the topics and posts I am surprised there is little talk about the reality of last season. Covid aside, we did not make the tournament, had a 500 record and had a slew of transfers. Why is this upcoming season different and would back to back average seasons shorten the window Coach Scheyer has to bring the program back to high performance?
Why will this year be different?
More talent, more experience, more size, more versatility, better defense, more continuity (I.e., not having the team’s most talented player yo-yoing the team), and a real offseason and preseason to allow Coach K build the team into a cohesive unit.
There have been thousands of posts on all these topics. I don't expect you'd be interested to do a deep dive into the post archives, but I promise we have discussed these things ad nauseam.Quote:
Originally Posted by Duke12
The very short answer is that we have some excellent recruits coming in, we are bulling on Moore and Williams, and Coach K is very clearly and vocally dissatisfied with the way the program ended the last two years and wants to go out on top.
As to Scheyer, I'll let others offer their perspective, but to me it seems there's a general sense of optimism based on the timing of this change and the tone of Scheyer's remarks thus far.
I'm not saying that it's all roses moving forward, but you can certainly find justification for optimism. I think everything within and beyond the program is not pleased with how things have progressed the last two seasons. But no one is out on window ledges here, at least.
Remember Duke12, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
The percentages are against back to back average seasons. Just the ability to start a season in June, like Duke teams have traditionally done for years, puts this years edition ahead of last years. Talent is better and spread out over different positions, making this a much more balanced team. While some transferred out, the one's who stayed are going to build on their freshmen experiences. They will be playing in front of fans...hopefully. K won't be dealing with an administration that didn't want to play last year during Covid. Looking forward to the season. And Jon's career too.
A TL;DR distillation of the last few months of board activity in response to your question:
- The potential of seeing Mark Williams play at the level he did in the ACCT, or even improve, over the course of a full season.
- The luxury of having a junior in Wendell Moore who has starters experience for huge swaths of his first two years, and we have every reason to believe will continue to improve.
- The fact that Paolo Banchero looks like a Top 3 (at minimum!) pick in the 2022 Draft.
- The fact that AJ Griffin appears to be showing no rust from his injury history/the pandemic year, and is showcasing elite athleticism.
- The fact that, historically, point guards make a major leap from year 1 to year 2, and a Jeremy Roach who does so will be a huge asset.
- Lingering hope that this is the year Joey Baker evolves into Joey Buckets.
And to add the bolded, the ones who transferred out were guys that either had hit their plateau as role players (Goldwire) or were not likely to play major minutes this year with the talent incoming at their positions (Brakefield and Coleman).Quote:
Originally Posted by dm9e24
Last year was an anomaly in many ways. The lack of fans, the lack of an offseason/preseason for an extremely inexperienced team, the injury, return, and departure of the team's most talented player. While it shouldn't be ignored, I don't think it has much if any utility in assessing where this coming year's team will land.
I think another variable is that the team last year had just a ridiculous number of close losses and "bad luck". It still wasn't a great team by any stretch, but was a reasonable team that would typically make the NCAAs. I think we were the top Kenpom team to not make the NCAAs in fact while many teams below us got bids (no honor in that...). Throw in COVID and some other unfortunate happenings, hitting their stride in the ACC tournament, etc. and it was a confluence of factors that will be unlikely to occur the next season. But, yes, we shouldn't assume we'll be awesome either. Lots to prove.
when you're a Duke basketball fan there are always many reasons for optimism. Others can analyze and that has its value. I go with the gut and a lifetime of results.
The 14 year old inside of me believes.
40-0 baby! 40-0! :cool::DQuote:
Originally Posted by roge054
Is this even a serious question?Quote:
Originally Posted by Duke12
Top-down: K missed the tournament twice in 35 years since ‘86. So I guess that track record & odds is why most people think that this year will be different. But maybe you like to play roulette?Quote:
Originally Posted by Duke12
Already got the tat?Quote:
Originally Posted by OZZIE4DUKE
I like to play with a good backcourt. Before I go long on Duke's 2021-22 chances I will have to see significant improvement in ball movement and distribution coming from a lineup of 3 guards that includes one So (4.0 assists/ 40 min, meh) and 2 freshmen, a combo guard ranked as the #4 shooting guard on Espn's top 100 and the other ranked in the 75-100 range who came off the bench at least part of the his senior season.Quote:
Originally Posted by SilkyJ
FWIW, the 2020-21 team had the 2nd-most assists/40 minutes of any Duke team since (and including) 2003. When it comes to ball movement and distribution, it's not just the guards that matter, and our team next year has two forwards (Banchero and Griffin) who were good distributors for their position in high school.Quote:
Originally Posted by CameronBlue
You also appear to be forgetting that Wendell Moore had 3.9 assists per 40 last season, giving our presumed starting backcourt a returning assists per 40 of 7.9. Our 2019-20 backcourt (Tre Jones and Cassius Stanley) had assists per 40 of 8.7, so we really don't need "significant" improvement from Roach and Moore to be at least that good. Also, Trevor Keels may have been ranked as a shooting guard by ESPN, but he averaged 7+ assists per game as a high school senior.
College basketball is generally a guards' game, but talent is talent. A team can certainly win when its best three players are forwards: see, e.g., 2012 Kentucky (Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Terrence Jones; with the starting backcourt combining for 7.8 assists per 40).
Backcourt + shooting is definitely the question mark. I still like k’s track record of making the tournament in 33 of the last 35 years regardless of who we have.Quote:
Originally Posted by CameronBlue
To me this is the most important difference between this year and last. It's been very nice to see the team practicing this summer.Quote:
Originally Posted by CDu