I believe it is. I cannot remember Coach using eight players regularly. It was always the norm to use seven and rarely just six. But these eight guys are all getting good minutes.
Well, pretty sure only 7 have played so far today. This is the point of the season where the rotation shrinks to 7.
He did get some minutes. But they were not very productive.
Last edited by porkpa; 01-12-2019 at 04:47 PM.
In terms of top to bottom talent? Absolutely not.
Seven or seven point five man rotation at this point, pretty much par for the course. O'Connell wasn't a good fit defending FSU. Maybe he'll make it eight.
1999 team played 9 guys.
I'd say eight on the 1999 team getting any significant minutes. Casey Sanders would have been the eighth man.
Nah, it might be the most talented Duke team ever, but definitely not the deepest.
Going by the first 15 games, I'd say there's 6.5 guys Coach K trusts on this roster. I would expect the rotation in the postseason to reflect that, unless Alex takes a pretty significant step forward over the next month and a half.
I’m going to say no, because K has coached since 1980. The math is with me here: one of those teams had to be deeper.
Once Alex O'Connell can give productive minutes in a close game on the road, with a starter out, we can revisit this.
The 1998 team is frequently cited as K's deepest. But Brand's foot injury distorts that. Domzallski got a lot of PT during that span but disappeared when Brand came back. By the end of the season, K was playing seven guys.
The 1988 team had nine players go for over 300 minutes and that was without any significant injuries.
For the record.
Danny Ferry-1138
Kevin Strickland-1036
Quinn Snyder-1005
Billy King-984
Robert Brickey-809
Phil Henderson-561
John Smith-534
Greg Koubek-357
Alaa Abdelnaby-320
Duke played 35 games that season and each of these guys played at least 34 of them.
The 1983 team had nine players average at least 10 mpg. But there are a lot of DNP-CDs mixed in and that team lost 17 games. So, I suspect that's not what we're looking for.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Here are a few attempts to quantify Jim's statement.
So far this season, Duke has not had a single game where the 8th man* has played more than 6 minutes in a game decided by 15 points or less.
In the previous 38 seasons since Coach K arrived, Duke's 8th man* has played more than 6 minutes in almost half (349 of 783, or 45%) of games decided by 15 points or less.
Put another way, Duke has had 17 previous seasons where they regularly went 8 deep** in games decided by 15 points or less.
*I am defining the 8th man as whoever played the 8th most minutes in a particular game, not whoever played the 8th most minutes over the course of the season.
**I am defining "regularly went 8 deep" as any season in which Duke's 8th man played 7+ minutes in more than half of games decided by 15 points or less.
Trivia question: The most an 8th man has ever played in a game decided by 15 points or less since Coach K arrived at Duke is 17 minutes. This has happened twice. Sporks to the first person who can name one of the two games. Hint: They were both overtime games (not surprisingly).