Ryan Kelly, "The Bridge" That Spanned "The Gap"

[Troublemaker]

While it's prudent to say that losing Kelly was not the ONLY factor (as life is rarely that simple such that one reason explains all), he was certainly a huge factor and imo the biggest reason for Duke's struggles at the end of the season. The coaches have confirmed that Duke couldn't adjust to his loss in both postgame and in-game interviews. It's a very, very strong "theory," and I certainly won't miss seeing Miles and Mason trying to operate together in compacted space. We needed Kelly.

That said, Austin's deterioration (fatigue?) was a huge factor as well. I'm not sure he would've had another good shooting game again this season had Duke advanced.

[Troublemaker]

Also, I hope everyone is noting what Florida is doing. They're in the Elite 8 and possibly will be in the Final Four.

And they're the exact same team as Duke, except they're even smaller on the perimeter and they shoot even more 3s.

I'm not saying I'm a huge fan of Duke's style of play during our 3-pt era (1995-2012), but you can win with any style as long as you have health/luck and get hot at the right time.

[Kedsy]

The other thing about Ryan Kelly going down is he was one of two players on our team whose offensive skills couldn't be replicated. I mean, you never want anybody to get hurt but, as an example if Mason got hurt, Miles might not be as good as Mason on the blocks but he could more or less replicate what Mason did. If Seth went down, Andre could more or less fill his niche. Same for everyone, except Austin and Ryan. So when Ryan went down, we either had to entirely change what we were doing, or suffer.

On defense, you could argue Tyler was the one guy whose skills we couldn't replicate, although it's not nearly so clear cut. Though perhaps that explains why Coach K played him so much, despite his limited offensive skill set.

[CALVET]

Since walking out of the Greensboro Coliseum 6 nights ago, taunted, cursed, and heckled by the worst of the worst UNC fans (All 15K+ of them), I have been searching for a word to describe the revelation I experienced. "Cog", "Cornerstone", "Linchpin", etc. 6 days later, having given it much thought, I still did not find the word I was looking for, so I settled on "Bridge". Forgive me if it does not accurately capture what I am ultimately trying to portray with this thread.

On the ride home, having watched the 3rd of 3 Duke games without Ryan Kelly in the lineup in person, it hit me upside the head like a brick, that I had missed something with this team all year long. Silly me. I authored one of the Phase threads, totally missing this key point. Wrote numerous other posts on this team, totally missing this point. Yeah, everyone and their mother knew this team had a problem in trying to replace Kyle Singler at Small Forward, Wing Forward (hey K does not have positions bonehead). Position defined or not, we all knew it was a gap. Which it was. No rocket science there. However, it was not "The Gap". As Mr Sumner so eloquently reminded us earlier tonight in another thread, Duke has won and won big playing 3 guards before. Those teams though, all had very versatile "forwards" to bridge the gap I am speaking of, between the true bigs and the true guards. The bigs on those team had help in the paint on both ends. This year, the Plumlee's had Ryan Kelly and no one else. One guy. Very versatile of course, but not great at guarding small forwards that took him outside like he did big guys on the other end. Still, Ryan was the one guy.

Ironically, earlier in the week preceding the Lehigh game, a good friend of mind at work who is a UNC grad, commented to me, "You know, the Plumlee's take way too much heat. They are not bad players at all. In fact, I view them as good players with Mason being a really good player. They just don't have any help. They are on the floor with 3 shrimps all night". I commented that he was correct, and we had a great discussion regarding the position the Kelly injury had put Duke in.

I love Duke hoops obviously, but watching the guys play without Kelly was downright painful. So disconnected, disjointed, like trying to put together a puzzle without the corner piece. 2 Centers in Mason and Miles, trying to play with very small guards in Seth, Tyler, Austin, Andre and Cook. Foul! You cry! Andre is 6'5 and Austin is 6'5! Yeah, but how tall did they play? Do you see them as Forwards or Guards? Did they play like Forwards or Guards? I think the obvious answer is guards. Neither were great at mixing it up in the paint. Maybe they should be better at that, but that's not really my point here. Not to leave him out, Josh had some shining moments while Ryan was out, he just struggled with his jumper and could not stretch the defense like Kelly. I hope the experience bodes well for Josh down the road. The shame of it, is all of those guys are good players in their own right. Together though, without Kelly, they were dysfunctional.

With Murph RedShirting, and Gbinije needing more time to develop, the only true "forward" this team had was Ryan Kelly. Ryan Kelly was the bridge that glued the Plums and the Guards together, and K did a wonderful job finding a way to take that one forward and make it work. With Ryan Kelly, 26-5, Maui champs, 2nd in the ACC, 8-0 on the ACC Road, with wins over Michigan, Kansas, Mich St, UNC, FSU, all away from the friendly confines of Cameron Indoor. Without Ryan Kelly: 1-2 with a loss to some school named Lehigh.
Time and time again, Mason and Miles (and Kelly during the season) would battle in the paint with other bigs, and in comes flying an opponents 6-7/6-8 forward to steal a rebound, followup dunk, block a shot, etc. Once Kelly went down, and it was just Miles and Mason, the bridge was gone. Everything down to a simple pass became more difficult to execute. Defenses packed it in against Mason, cut off driving lanes for Austin and Seth, and hedged hard on the perimeter with the threat of pick and pop gone. Ryan was just critical to this team. Way more critical than I realized most of the season.

This is ending up longer than I had intended, but allow me just a few more thoughts. Imagine this team with Mason/Miles at the 5, Kelly/Tony Lang at the 4, Brian Davis/Andre at the 3, and everything else the same. Think Mason isn't a beast with that kind of help? How good is that team defensively and offensively?


At the end of the day, "bridge" is probably the wrong word. Feel free to pick a better one. I just know now that Kelly was key. Losing him derailed the season. I don't know how far Duke would have went in either tourney if Kelly never goes down, I just know now, without him, they were doomed to go home early.

With all due respect to Mr. Sumner, Duke may have won big in the past with a 3-guard alignment but since they have never won the whole shooting match with such I asked the question: Does the difference in size at the small forward and the matchup on defense and rebounding create so small a margin for error that superior 3-point shooting cannot consistently compensate over six straight games in the tourney against different types of teams?

This year we were also small at the 2-guard position as well much of the time. Duke has had incredible marksmen over the last couple of decades and K's philosophy obviously works much of the time because of that. Weighing the attempt to balance team recruiting needs and optimization of available talents, it's hard to argue against Mike's approach to maintain a high level of achievement.

But questions remain because Duke seems to be smaller at the 3 than most of the other power schools like Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse, etc over the last decade. Is the competition to sign turnkey big small forwards (who qualify and are good citizens) too fierce and/or does he prefer a ready-made offense with 3-guard line-up rather than try to offensively develop blue collar big small forwards (unless like Kyle they morphed from the 4 or 5 positions). In the interest of fairness, is he just trying to adapt to incumbents or does he believe that a goodshooting two (like Dawkins) is genuinely a better fit at small forward than a bigger player with other advantages.

At the risk of sounding anal, is it a matter of statistics for Mike by making more 3s than opponents and the margin without Ryan was too slim and would a guy like Lance have been a good compliment to Ryan? Is the formula to have at least three long distance marksman always on the floor never sacrificing more than two positions for defensive and/or rebounding priority? Finally, does coach K sacrifice the great team every four years or so in order to have an acceptable good team every year?

[CALVET]

Also, I hope everyone is noting what Florida is doing. They're in the Elite 8 and possibly will be in the Final Four.

And they're the exact same team as Duke, except they're even smaller on the perimeter and they shoot even more 3s.

I'm not saying I'm a huge fan of Duke's style of play during our 3-pt era (1995-2012), but you can win with any style as long as you have health/luck and get hot at the right time.

Florida got beat today but also had 11 losses this season, got hammered by Kentucky twice, and also went on a hot shooting streak in a very easy tourney path thus far mainly because of style matchups with very small teams in Norfolk St. and Marquette. Louisville is not much bigger but will give Kentucky a little tougher game than Florida would've. I would also argue that Brad Beal plays much bigger than 6'3" on defense (ala an oversized Demarcus Nelson) because of his length and high set shoulders where Austin and Andre do not play bigger than their listed size.

[CDu]

Also, I hope everyone is noting what Florida is doing. They're in the Elite 8 and possibly will be in the Final Four.

And they're the exact same team as Duke, except they're even smaller on the perimeter and they shoot even more 3s.

I'm not saying I'm a huge fan of Duke's style of play during our 3-pt era (1995-2012), but you can win with any style as long as you have health/luck and get hot at the right time.

It's also important to note that UF avoided their matchup problems in getting to the Elite 8. In the Round of 64 they faced an overmatched UVa team that was decimated by injury and transfer and as such got into the tourney based on their 2011 performances. In the Round of 32 they faced a #15 seed who surprised the #2 seed Mizzou and wasn't in position to punish UF either. In the Sweet 16 Marquette wasn't the type of team that could punish UF by going small, because Marquette themselves are small. Even in the Elite-8 UF got a fair matchup in that Louisville doesn't really focus their offense inside. So if we get the right matchups we can make an Elite-8 or Final Four. But we aren't the type of team that can match up with anybody like UNC (pre Marshall) or UK or perhaps OSU.

I'll say this though. If we happen to get Zeigler and Oriakhi (not that I'm saying we should expect to get either guy), I think we get right back to being capable of matching up with anybody. They would address two very key holes for next year's team in terms of doing the blue collar stuff and defense.

[Kedsy]

I'll say this though. If we happen to get Zeigler and Oriakhi (not that I'm saying we should expect to get either guy), I think we get right back to being capable of matching up with anybody. They would address two very key holes for next year's team in terms of doing the blue collar stuff and defense.

I agree (and also agree that getting both these guys -- or either of these guys -- should be viewed as a long shot). With Rasheed Sulaimon (who comes with a reputation as a good high school defender), Zeigler and Oriakhi, all of a sudden we'd have a pretty formidable defense.