Originally Posted by
Billy Dat
A disturbing recent trend is that our recent teams do not get better in comparison to the elite across the country as the season goes on. It's not as obvious with this year's team because we never were really good in the first place, but it was striking with the JJ era squads, and even the late Williams/Dunleavy/Boozer squads. Those teams would jump out to gaudy November/December/January starts and then lose steam in February/March just as other teams, who stumbled early, started to hit their stride. Without analyzing the "whys" too much, I can only think that it is a factor of K getting his players to play consistently harder earlier in the season. Our effort is always there from Day 1, and maybe it takes other teams a few months to gell. But, by the time February/March comes along and everyone's got 20+ games under their belts, other squads seem to surge and we seem to go flat. The ACC Tourny aside, our habit of ending our ACC regular seasons with several losses is becoming a habit, as is our early exits from the NCAAs. Does anyone else see this as a trend, or am I seeing something that's not there? Is it because K is great at coaching effort but not great at growing a team over the course of the season? I think he did a much better job of the latter in the late 80s and ealy 90s. Those teams would often have 6-7 regular season losses, lose the ACC tourny, but would crest for the NCAAs. I'd rather reach Final Fours then compile 32-4 seasons that end in the Sweet 16. Again, we've all been spoiled by the greastest run since UCLA so maybe I'm just another entitled Duke fan.