I will start by saying that other folks will probably fill in the details with W/L stats from past years which may or may not support my thoughts....

Welcome to March where basketball gets serious. This is when goals are or are not converted to accomplishments and expectations are meet or shattered...
First it is critical to define each term in bold.

The goal every year is to win a National Championship and several games ago Coach K mentioned he is focused on getting everyone mentally and physical ready to play their best basketball in March (I am sure he has said this in different ways over the past 40 years).

Their may be intermediate goals that help achieve the main goal: 1) get a high seed in the NCAAs 2) which can be achieved by winning the ACC tournament 3) which can be achieved by getting the top seed or one of the top 4 seeds in the ACC tournament. However, a team does not have to earn these achievements to win the NCAAs.

Their are also obvious achievements that need to be meet on the way to the NCAA title: 1) Get into the tournament (one that we often forget about as Duke fans) 2) get to the Sweet 16 and 3) get to Final 4.

We as fans have expectations for what the team will accomplish based on the talent we see on the roster, but we don' really know if these are realistic expectations until we see the team play. Coach K also mentioned a few weeks ago that his expectations are for the team to continue to get better.

So onto the patterns in Duke Basketball under Coach K. He always has some great recruits that in the pre-season he can teach pretty quickly how to play as a team. Duke then does great in November and December in non-conference games against some tough opponents (Kansas and MSU this year). This gives Duke a very good start on getting into the NCAAs and making the case for a high seed in the NCAAs.

When the conference season starts, Duke does take care of business at home with the occasional issue with other high seeded teams (Louisville). They do struggle on the road in certain locales (Clemson and NCSU). The struggles within the ACC occur due to how familiar other teams are with Duke's style and these teams going all in on mis-matching styles. This year the losses were due to other teams deciding to be really physical with Vernon and seeing if Duke could find a third scorer. These other ACC teams also spread out the offense and drive to take advantage of Duke's aggressive man to man. This trend plays itself out every ACC regular season. I also believe that part of it is Coach K trying to see if his team can handle adversity. Yes he and the team want to win every game, but learning from a few tough games in January and February helps in March.

We are now in March with a reinvigorated Coach K and a team who can see all of the goals they want to achieve still in front of them. They also have a better idea of their own strengths and weaknesses.

The pattern is similar each year and exciting because it is early March and Duke is once again in the hunt for an ACC championship, a Final Four and a National Championship!!!

Go Duke!!!