Originally Posted by
Kedsy
What you say is all true. But what I think is interesting about next year's team is the combination of top-shelf freshmen and top 25 returnees.
We will have three top 25 returnees (#25 Moore, #20 Roach, #25 Williams) and two top 15 freshmen (Banchero, Griffin). How many times in the past 25 years has that combination (at least three top 25 returnees and at least two top 15 freshmen) occurred? I'm glad you asked. Three.
1998: It's hard to know for sure how many top 25 returnees we had in 1997-98 (no RSCI yet), but among Langdon, Price, Domzalski, Chappell, Wojo, Carrawell, James, and McLeod, we had to have had at least three. And we had three top 15 freshmen in Brand, Battier, and Burgess. This team went 15-1 in the ACC, lost in the ACC title game, and had an 18-point lead in the Elite Eight but failed to close out the game with the Final Four on the line.
2006: The 2006 team had four top 25 returnees (S Williams, Redick, Nelson, and Dockery) and two top 15 freshmen (McRoberts, Paulus). This team went 14-2 in the ACC, won the ACC tournament, and if we hadn't run into the LSU buzzsaw in the Sweet 16 might have gone down as one of the all-time Duke greats. But like 1998, we weren't able to get to the Final Four.
2017: The 2017 team had four top 25 returnees (Allen, Kennard, Jefferson, Jeter) and four top 15 freshmen (Giles, Tatum, Bolden, and Jackson). If not for injuries, what a team this would have been. Like 2006, we won the ACC tournament but ran into a white-hot SEC team in the NCAAT and the Final Four was not to be.
But that's it. It's not so much that we won't be relying on freshmen, but the combination of returning and incoming talent is pretty rare, even for Duke. Obviously it's no Final Four guarantee, as none of the previous teams accomplished that feat, but if this brief history is any guide, next year's team should at least be something special.