USA Today names R.J. Barrett POTY; R.J. and Zion named 1st Team All-Americans

[Jeffrey]

Yeah, I re-read his post three or four times and could not make heads nor tails of it. Maybe he’ll offer an explanatory post.

IMO, a CEO and a college basketball Coach are basically serving in similar positions. I suspect many CEOs, who attend Coach K's Leadership Academy, would agree.

Whether you're a CEO or a Coach, you lose people (such as K did Zion) for part or all of a season. Regardless, next play and next game. IMO, the CEO or Coach deserves credit for all of their team's wins and losses. I do not agree with Troublemaker's idea of "giving Coach K and Roy incompletes". UNC beat Duke twice and, IMO, Roy deserves credit for those two wins, not two incompletes.

[AGDukesky]

I’m totally onboard Troublemaker. Common sense says you look at UNCs weak ACC schedule plus playing Duke without Zion and discount the SOS and the “big” wins over Duke. At the end of the day I’m not sure it is enough to move UNC off the 1 line after almost everyone else lost though...

[BandAlum83]

And nowhere did I say that Duke basketball is not a business.

But I still don't see why UNC deserves a 1 seed and Roy Williams deserves national COY, haha. What are the business reasons to reward UNC and Roy over others?

I understand you're a CEO -- you, uh, drop that "fact"* frequently on here -- but that doesn't mean I can't disagree with whatever business comparison you're forcing into the conversation at any one time.

* Technically, anyone can be anything on here. I've been a clown car mechanic before on DBR (and might still be)

That seems like a pretty limiting career. I mean how many clown cars are there out there? And by geography, that's gotta be difficult. I'm thinking like Maytag repair man difficult, or worse!

[NSDukeFan]

That seems like a pretty limiting career. I mean how many clown cars are there out there? And by geography, that's gotta be difficult. I'm thinking like Maytag repair man difficult, or worse!

I assume that’s why he has been, but would probably need some other sources of income in this gig society.

[curtis325]

I assume that’s why he has been, but would probably need some other sources of income in this gig society.

Making trouble may be lucrative.

[kako]

If someone, however, were to force me to make a case for RJ as best I could (meaning I don't have to believe it, just try my hardest in a mock trial like situation), I would point out that RJ has played 345 more minutes than Zion this season. That's the equivalent of 8.6 games out of 34 games played so far, or a tad over 25%. You will often see a baseball pitcher who pitched 230 innings win the Cy Young over a pitcher that had a lower ERA / WHIP but only pitched 170 innings, for example.

Also, if you think of the regular season as basically positioning yourself seeding-wise and location-wise for the NCAA tournament, you could make the case that the main reason Duke is the overall #1 seed and in the DC regional is because of the 2-0 sweep of UVA. And RJ was MOTM in both games.

Anyway, that's my best shot at a mock trial devil's advocate defense. I think Zion should be NPOY, but I think we should congratulate RJ.

IMO I could perhaps add to your mock argument. It's not necessarily the minutes but the number of games. Missing ~20% of games (regular season, including FSU's 2nd half) isn't insignificant. If NPOY criteria means being available in a certain number of the team's games, then I think that's the argument results in strikes against Zion and pluses for Barrett. Zion's injuries over the course of the year meant he played less games than Barrett. Since NPOY does not have defined criteria, there's no way to argue that this cannot factor into a voter's decision. And the extent of impact is up to the voter.

I feel like I rep Barrett a lot on this board. I'm very happy that he's receiving recognition by well-known national media by receiving this award. And I think it can only help him and team morale that he got it. From what I have read about Zion and from the interviews I've seen, I think Zion would be the first person congratulating RJ.

That all being said, despite my admiration for Barrett, my own personal voting criteria would say that Zion's missing games only highlighted his importance to Duke and NCAAMB in general. Zion would get my vote. RJ would make 1st team AA (along with Zags' Hachimura, Murray's Morant and Tenn's Williams).

9F

[lotusland]

Eh, Roy didn't do anything besides take advantage of Duke's misfortune and then mostly holding serve in other games. Personally I think UNC is at best a 2-seed (and they were 0-2 against fellow 2-seeds UK and Michigan). There are no statistical systems or gambling odds that I'm aware of that have UNC on the level of the 1-seeds Duke, UVA, and Gonzaga. It's just that while the selection committee did a good job discounting Duke's losses without Zion, they didn't do a good job discounting any opponent victories over Duke with Zion out.

I've said this before, but I'm okay with giving Coach K and Roy incompletes instead of trying to grade what would've happened had Zion stayed healthy.

They beat us convincingly twice and we won a toss up at the buzzer on a neutral court. Without Zion they demonstrated they were better yet Duke would have been favored pre-season even without Zion based on our talent with RJ, Cam and Tre. Coby White has performed above expectations and we’ve been a little giddy about Nas struggling yet here they are with a 1 seed again. Idk if it’s luck or skill but K has out-recruited Roy by a wide margin since 2015 but Roy’s teams have performed better. It’s a bitter pill but terping about someone listing Roy as COY is bad form imo.

[Troublemaker]

They beat us convincingly twice and we won a toss up at the buzzer on a neutral court. Without Zion they demonstrated they were better yet Duke would have been favored pre-season even without Zion based on our talent with RJ, Cam and Tre. Coby White has performed above expectations and we’ve been a little giddy about Nas struggling yet here they are with a 1 seed again. Idk if it’s luck or skill but K has out-recruited Roy by a wide margin since 2015 but Roy’s teams have performed better. It’s a bitter pill but terping about someone listing Roy as COY is bad form imo.

First of all, I don't really care what USA Today says. It's not a major award.

But look, UNC is 1-4 against 1 and 2 seeds, including 0-2 against 2 seeds. The whole reason they are a 1-seed is because of the two wins against Duke without Zion.

It's not "bad form" or "terping" to disagree with you. I just think it's somewhat idiotic to think Roy had the best performance of any coach in the nation this year. He was decent, nothing more, and the biggest beneficiary of Zion's injury. Your mileage may and obviously does vary.

[Phredd3]

IMO, a CEO and a college basketball Coach are basically serving in similar positions. I suspect many CEOs, who attend Coach K's Leadership Academy, would agree.

Whether you're a CEO or a Coach, you lose people (such as K did Zion) for part or all of a season. Regardless, next play and next game. IMO, the CEO or Coach deserves credit for all of their team's wins and losses. I do not agree with Troublemaker's idea of "giving Coach K and Roy incompletes". UNC beat Duke twice and, IMO, Roy deserves credit for those two wins, not two incompletes.

Let's just make sure we are also looking at the flip side of that argument: It's Duke with the number one overall seed, as I recall. It seems to me our "CEO" did just fine, even with the loss of some key personnel at some inconvenient times. If you're looking for results, I don't think it is only Roy who deserves credit.

You did acknowledge that up-thread, but I just think it doesn't hurt to emphasize for clarity...

[mkirsh]

Not to mention that recruiting might have been different. Maybe we land EJ Montgomery if Zion doesn't come to Duke. Not that he would replace Zion at all, but he would give us another weapon among our post guys. And, like you said, we'd just have developed the team differently. Probably not as good as this team (because Zion is Zion), but not nearly the same as just this team today without Zion.

And Joey Baker's red-shirt might have been burned in January...

[Jeffrey]

Let's just make sure we are also looking at the flip side of that argument: It's Duke with the number one overall seed, as I recall. It seems to me our "CEO" did just fine, even with the loss of some key personnel at some inconvenient times. If you're looking for results, I don't think it is only Roy who deserves credit.

You did acknowledge that up-thread, but I just think it doesn't hurt to emphasize for clarity...

I completely agree! The games happened, the results are well known, and, IMO, both "CEOs" had great years!

I think it would be inappropriate to give K and Roy an "incomplete". I doubt either would approve of such a wimpy grading system.

[BandAlum83]

First of all, I don't really care what USA Today says. It's not a major award.

But look, UNC is 1-4 against 1 and 2 seeds, including 0-2 against 2 seeds. The whole reason they are a 1-seed is because of the two wins against Duke without Zion.

It's not "bad form" or "terping" to disagree with you. I just think it's somewhat idiotic to think Roy had the best performance of any coach in the nation this year. He was decent, nothing more, and the biggest beneficiary of Zion's injury. Your mileage may and obviously does vary.

Must be that new math the kids are learning these days.

uNC is 1-4 against 1 and 2 seeds, but 2-1 against us?

Maybe that's why I switched majors from physics to political science and economics. There's no real math in either of those.

[Troublemaker]

Must be that new math the kids are learning these days.

uNC is 1-4 against 1 and 2 seeds, but 2-1 against us?

UNC is 0-1 against Duke :-)

UNC is 2-0 against Zion-less Duke, which was not a 1 or 2 seed team.

That seems like a pretty limiting career. I mean how many clown cars are there out there? And by geography, that's gotta be difficult. I'm thinking like Maytag repair man difficult, or worse!

You'd be surprised at how many clown cars we service at -- and can fit into -- my garage. From the outside looking in, more and more and more just keep rolling out of there, all perfectly tuned.