Count me in this camp as well. I'm not sure if it's excitement about Paolo, the number of returning contributors we have, the desire to get the bad taste of last season out of my mouth, or just the need for my go-to distraction from 18 months of pandemic stress, but I'm raring to go for this season and super optimistic as to our ceiling.
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Of course we should likely lose at least one of those games, especially so if Griffin is out for any of them. And there is a good chance we'll lose a game or two that we have no business losing. That doesn't mean we won't be REALLY good, nor does it mean we shouldn't be really exciting about the team's chances.
Go look back at some of our best teams of the 2000s. They almost all had some head-scratching losses (the 2001 team being the lone exception, and even they got beat by double-digits by Maryland in Cameron). That didn't mean they weren't great teams and obviously didn't prevent a title.
It sounds from other related threads like you are on record as being a bit pessimistic until the results pour in. So, duly noted.
I have no preconceived notions that this team will go undefeated. That's just too hard in this era of team turnover and youth unless you are in an inferior league like Gonzaga (who at least does schedule up for their out-of-conference slate). Between injuries, academic fatigue, illness, and just the occasional youthful performance, I am sure we'll get skinned a few times this year. But I do think we're going to be REALLY good this year. Whether that is "just" top-15 good or legitimate title contender good remains to be seen.
IIRC, the 2000 team had two losses before December, to Stanford (when they were a strong program) and UConn, but I don’t recall either being a bad performance. I certainly was optimistic about the team going into ACC play, despite the November losses to experienced teams.
Of course, that 2000 team was very young and missed Will Avery.
Carolina delenda est
Yeah, opening with losses in back-to-back games.
To be fair, that team was probably not as good as they played the rest of the year. It was a down year in the conference and I think we played over our heads in ACC play. There was a ton of talent, but it was pretty young and still finding its sea legs. And there was absolutely no depth, especially when Dunleavy got mono.
Still, losing that Sweet-16 game to Florida, especially having led late, was heartwrenching.
Let me offer some perspective: who cares if we are any good? It is not the outcome that matters to me, it is the return of real college basketball, played in front of fans, with Coach K and all of his coaches completely aligned for one final season under his watch. The early season tinkering with lineups, the doghouse, the mad scientist in his lair, plotting with his generals, finding out how to connect to the team, developing the team, building a monster that, I suspect, will at some point click on all cylinders and just blow the doors off another quality team.
This will literally be a season unlike any other at Duke. Put me in the enthusiastic camp, but about seeing this team’s journey.
Carolina delenda est
My man, how can a team not be as good as they played during the course of an entire year of basketball?
I kid. I agree that their W-L record was probably inflated by their competition, but they were still a very good team, just young, no depth (as you say) and missing a point guard that could play lock-down D and run the offense. Luckily in only took one year to fix those issues!
Carolina delenda est
I'm relentlessly positive every year. Hell, I even had a good time last year and was completely convinced we were going to win the ACC tournament. This year we have one elite skill. Low post play and huge size. And it is elite. I don't think anyone can throw the skill and size combination at folks that Duke can. All the guards need to do is get Duke into the offense and not turn it over. If they can make 35% from 3 then Duke is going to be hard to deal with because of that length and athleticism.
Yeah, small sample size yadda yadda yadda . Definitely benefited from a weak conference (Maryland was 2nd in conference and a 10-loss team; UNC and UVa were bubble teams, nobody else was over .500 in conference and only 3 teams made the tourney). They also were a bit lucky in close games that year, going 4-2 in OT games and 6-3 in games decided by OT. It was probably more like a #3 or #4 seed nationally in terms of quality, but they punched above their weight all season and earned a 1 seed even after the brutal 0-2 start.
And yes, it's crazy what one year and one recruit can do to improve a team. Even losing a 1st-Team All-ACC senior, the addition of Duhon and the development of Williams, Battier, Dunleavy, and Boozer was phenomenal. That 2001 team still was super-light on depth (really just one ACC-level reserve, and after that they were doing it with smoke and mirrors. But that top-6 in 2001 was SOOO good!
With you on this one. And I still think we stood a very good chance of winning the ACC tournament, had we not had to withdraw.
Very excited about the upcoming season. As far as undefeated goes, I don’t expect any team to go undefeated. Having said that, right before any individual game, I fully expect us to win. I know it is internally inconsistent.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
I don't know if we'd have beaten UNC last year, as it was a bad matchup for us. Similar with FSU. But I do think we were MUCH better at season's end than our overall record suggests. Heck, I think we were better than our overall record suggests even over the course of the season due to bad fortune in close games.
I don't think that's inconsistent at all. Probabilistically, we'll probably be favored in 25 of our 31 regular season games. Looking only at each of those ~25 games individually, we'd be expected to win each time (probability ranging from ~55% to 99%). But the probability of going 25-0 in those games is really low (probably <1%). We'll almost certainly lose one of those games, but we just won't know ahead of time which one(s).
Conversely, there are probably 5-6 games in which we'll be the underdog (Gonzaga, @OSU, @UNC, @Louisville, @FSU, maybe @Notre Dame). In each of those games, we'll be expected to lose. But the probability of going 0-6 in those games is pretty low (<10%).
we're currently 27-4 vs individual game results. This doesn't include whatever in-season tournament we're playing in, which I assume we will end up favored in one game, and maybe a toss up in whatever the final is (I haven't looked at that to see who's playing).
The 4 losses are
gonzaga
@osu
@fsu
@ND
with the latter 2 effectively a toss up.
To your first point, duke was one of the unluckiest teams in the country (347th out of 257). And that's even with the blowout vs UNC to end the season. The record was a combination of not being that good of a team, and losing more close games than we won. If that luck were flipped, there's a chance we are able to sneak into the tournament...or at least not be as far off the bubble as we ended up. For better or worse, actually winning games is a tournament criteria, as I think it should be. Sometimes it means a better team might get snubbed, but if you don't value actually winning games at some point, then IMO, what's the point? Such is the way of sports. Sometimes the better team isn't the one who advances.
1200. DDMF.