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The Best Duke Team in a Decade?

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Duke’s 32-point embarrassment of the North Carolina Tar Heels was an obvious illustration of just how bad this season’s North Carolina team is.

To put the game into perspective, it was the largest margin of victory by either side of the rivalry in Mike Krzyzewski’s 30 years at Duke.

Ouch.

While Saturday’s blowout has put even more focus on the current low point of North Carolina basketball, most overlook the fact that this Duke team is peaking at just the right time.

In fact, it’s not a stretch to say that this is the best Blue Devil team going into postseason play in a decade.

North Carolina coach Roy Williams would agree.  After Saturday’s game, he said that this Duke team is the best he’s coached against in his seven years at North Carolina.

Granted, this Duke squad isn’t as talented as, say, the 2001-02 Blue Devils.  The trio of Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy, and Carlos Boozer would certainly best Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler, and Nolan Smith in terms of talent.

The 2003-04 Blue Devils were also a more talented group.  Luol Deng, J.J. Redick and Shelden Williams all became lottery picks in the NBA drafts, and Chris Duhon wasn’t bad either.

But sometimes a team becomes something more than the collective talent of its players.  I believe that’s called “synergy,” and I’m certain this Duke team has it.

The undeniable fact is that this team, regardless of talent, is playing better basketball late in the season than any Blue Devil squad in a long while.

This is the first Duke team since 2001-02 to go into the postseason without suffering back-to-back losses the entire season.

This is the first Duke team to ever go 17-0 in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

This is the first Duke team since the 1998-1999 NCAA runner-up squad to win at least nine of its last 10 regular season games.

This might be the best rebounding Duke team in Krzyzewski’s career.

Without doubt, this is one of the most cohesive and consistent (they didn’t lose one game in February) Blue Devil teams in years.

What’s at the core of their success and momentum this season?

Two words—experience and toughness.

The Blue Devils start three seniors and two juniors.  That’s 18 years of combined college basketball experience in their starting five.

Because of how seasoned their core players are, the Blue Devils play with an amazing amount of poise.  It’s rare to see them panicked or struggling to focus.

Scheyer has probably played as many, if not more, minutes of college basketball in his career at Duke than any player on an NCAA tournament team this year.  The experience he brings into each game is one of the reasons he is one of the most mentally tough players in the game, and it’s a major reason the Blue Devils are such a difficult team to rattle.

On top of their experience, the Blue Devils play tough basketball.

Brian Zoubek played tougher than the entire North Carolina team on Saturday, and he’s not the only Duke player to bring fire and passion to each game.

Forwards Singler and Lance Thomas play hard each possession, consistently exerting more intensity than opponents night in and night out.

If you’ve watched many games, this is a team that has taken a fair amount of physical abuse.

How Singler and Mason Plumlee escaped the Wake Forest game without season-ending injuries is a mystery.  A few weeks ago, Nolan Smith took a hard screen eerily reminiscent of the Maryland screen that gave him a concussion last season.  Miles Plumlee had to have his head stapled shut against Florida State.   Thomas suffered a deep bone bruise in his knee at North Carolina, only to return for the next game.  Scheyer and Singler both spend significant amounts of time colliding with camera men as the take hard fouls inside or dive after lose balls.

The point is that Duke plays tough, and that toughness is a big reason they are looking at a No. 1 seed in the tournament.

This Blue Devil squad may not be the most talented group Krzyzewski has fielded in his tenure at Duke.  They may not even be as talented from top to bottom as they were last year.

But this team is experienced, tough, and playing at an incredibly high level at this point in the season.

Is this the best Duke team in a decade?

On paper, absolutely not.

On the court, certainly.

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Can Duke get some props, please?

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Okay, no offense to fellow bloggers writing about Duke, nor the North Carolina media or even radio hosts, but can you please give Duke the props they are due?

Duke is now atop the conference with a 12-2 record going into the Maryland game and the team has already won 25 games this season.  Add to that Kryzyzewski now has over 1000 victories and as of last evening, he passed Dean Smith of UNC as having the most all time road wins in the ACC.

I mean were we not just hearing how bad Duke is on the road, yet they are now a respectable 5-2 in hostile environments?

Instead of anyone talking of how great a job Krzyzewski has done with a team shy in guard depth or that his team has won eight straight games, we worry about Jon Scheyer’s legs or we state how Duke has not played anybody and the first athletic team will send them packing come March Madness.

I can understand some of the local media taking shots at Duke, especially the shock journalist of the radio world, but it seems to be in vogue to bash Duke or always and I do mean always see the glass as half full as some of my fellow bloggers seem to do.

I mean enough is enough!  I feel like I need a shower after reading all of the gloominess is coming stuff.

Nobody is claiming that Duke is a clear cut favorite nor that they do not have their faults as a team, but to miss what this team has done to date is to show just how jaded some of us have become.

I love humor as much as the next person, but it seems that media is becoming more about entertainment than to actually look at tangible facts or study the subject matter more closely.  It’s easy to appeal to a certain faction of the fan base by drudging up the same old arguments like Duke has tired legs and needs to play more people or else doom and gloom and same old, well, you’ve heard it all before.

I mean, Syracuse is ranked number one as of today and they play how many players?  They play seven for those who take the time to look it up.

So pardon me if I exclaim that Duke is having a helluva year and that I am personally excited to cover Duke versus Maryland and North Carolina this week from press row.  Hey, I am chomping at the bit to attend the ACC Tournament as well.  I am just plain excited that this is March 1st and that Duke has an opportunity to win the ACC regular season championship if they can defeat Maryland on Wednesday evening.

Talk about a huge game in the ACC or pick Duke apart if that is your schtick, but do not spill my glass which is half full with whiny rants and loosely researched accusations stated  as if it was an authoritative fact.

It’s cool to be in the entertainment business but is is also cool to sometimes appreciate the positives  instead of digging up the oh-so overused usual gripes from spoiled Duke fans.

Take a deep breath and enjoy the season if you are a Blue Devil fan and quit assuming the worst is bound to happen  in order to enjoy the team you pull for.

Or buy into the “negative Nellies,” that permeate the web these days and sit there finding faults after every win.

The bottom line is that until Wednesday, Duke is the best the ACC has to offer and that in itself is a situation most fans would die to be in.

So enjoy the coming week where Duke has ESPN’s Gameday in for the UNC game and the contest on Wednesday?  It’s simply the biggest game in the ACC season to date.

And for positive and accurate coverage of all things Duke, visit my website Blue Devil Nation.  You will find that we cover the Duke Athletic beat in a most hands on manner.

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Duke Is Better Than You Think They Are

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

After Georgetown’s convincing domination of the Blue Devils last weekend, most are backing off from talking about Duke as a possible Final Four candidate this season.

It’s easy to understand why.

Their performance against Georgetown was extremely reminiscent of last year’s embarrassing loss to Clemson, and even if that 27-point thrashing isn’t a perfect comparison, Saturday’s game was at the very least a repeat of West Virginia’s man-handling of the Blue Devils in the second round of the 2007-08 NCAA tournament.

There is no way to sugarcoat it—Duke played played poorly against Georgetown, very poorly.

But despite Duke’s awful performance (let’s just be brutally honest about it), don’t be fooled into thinking this is the same Duke team from recent seasons, destined for an early exit from the Big Dance come March.

The ratings experts would disagree with that assumption.

Right now, Duke ranks No. 2 in the Pomeroy rating.

If you’ve never tried to wrap your head around Ken Pomeroy’s rating system, do yourself a favor and try to figure out what’s going on in ABC’s Lost instead—that would be much easier.

Suffice it to say that Pomeroy’s “pythagorean calculation for expected winning percentage” is an extremely reliable snapshot of how well teams are playing at any given moment in a season.

Last year, two of Pomeroy’s top four rated teams, North Carolina and Connecticut, were in the Final Four.

In 2008, all four of his formula’s top four rated teams played in the Final Four.

Four of his top six rated teams made the Final Four in 2007.

To state the obvious, Pomeroy’s formula is ridiculously accurate.

Need more convincing?

Jeff Sagarin’s ratings currently place Duke as the third best team in the nation.  His rating system has been heralded for years.

But how is that possible?  How can this 17-4 team that lost lopsided games to Georgetown and North Carolina State in recent weeks score so high in some of the most respected ratings systems in sports?

Maybe it’s because the rating systems see things fans often overlook.

Most fans of the game look at the Blue Devils and see the same team from last season minus Gerald Henderson, their best athlete.  All they see is a slow, non-athletic group of skilled shooters trying to make threes like it’s the only way to score.

What most do not see is the second most efficient offense (points per 100 possessions) in the nation.

They do not pay attention to the fact that Duke is tied for first in national team free throw percentage.

Fans forget that the Blue Devil’s point guard has the fifth highest assist-to-turnover ratio in the nation because many hesitate to refer to Jon Scheyer as a point guard in the first place, opting instead to dream about Kyrie Irving’s prophesied dominance of ACC basketball.

The point is that, like Scheyer, Duke is deceptively good.

The Blue Devils may not have some of the obvious tell-tale signs of an elite team, but they are an extremely good team that has simply had some missteps in January, a pretty common phenomenon for elite teams as they transition into conference play (just ask this season’s Texas team or, better yet, North Carolina last year).

Scheyer has struggled a bit, Nolan Smith has been up and down, Kyle Singler is fighting through a wrist injury, and Duke’s best two freshmen, Andre Dawkins and Mason Plumlee, have disappeared in the last few games.

As those issues get sorted out, the Blue Devils will begin to look more and more like a team poised for a deep run in March.

January is over, and if the Blue Devils can learn from the lessons their losses have taught them (stop going for traps and steals in the open court), they will be a team that surprises a lot of fans, but not the ratings experts, in March.

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Duke Takes Down Clemson in ACC Opener

Monday, January 4th, 2010

This is a different Duke team than last year, it’s evident in the manhandling that occurred Sunday Night in Cameron. Duke took the initiative, got tough and took it to Clemson.

It was good to see Duke rid itself of last years demons by completely destroying the Clemson Tigers in this game 74-53. Duke gave up only 12 points in the first half and minus a few minute spurt by Clemson after halftime Duke never had any real threat from Clemson. It was good to see Duke show toughness in this game, something they used to defeat UCONN earlier. On a Singler block of Trevor Booker, Booker and Singler stood face to face for a few seconds, Booker recognized that this was not the same Duke team as last year and acknowledged Singler with a smile. I’m sure coach K stressed to this in the week of practice.

The Clemson press bothered the Devils but not enough to be a factor, Duke had several press busting plays but did have a few instances of bad passes and sloppy play. Overall Duke did a good job, having as many competent ball handlers as they do, it was bound to work out in their favor.

Duke did it’s defensive damage defending the post against the Clemson bigs but will have to get even better against much bigger and more experienced teams. With Georgia Tech coming up soon, its going to be a tough road, Duke will have to get more from the Plumlees and Brian Zoubek on the boards and in the scoring column. Lance Thomas may be a bit limited against these bigger teams due to his slender frame but his energy is always an asset.

Clemson had no answer for Dukes guards in this game, they put up numbers against Clemson, big numbers. 22 for Nolan Smith, 22 for Jon Scheyer and Singler 16. Just to look at the numbers it’s hard to really find where Duke dominated in this game, rebounding margin was only 4, Duke made 3 more from beyond the arc. There was only a difference of 2 in the turnover dept., you have to dig deep into the percentages, Duke shot an even 50% while Clemson had to struggle to get theirs up to 32.7% for the game. It clearly was all about defense for the Devils, holding Trevor Booker to 10 points on 4 for 11 shooting was essential. Taking away the best that Clemson has to offer was obviously the game plan going in and it certainly worked, this could be a defining win and statement for the Devils.

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Duke wins consecutive ACC games for the first time since 1994

Monday, October 26th, 2009

After Duke’s soggy 17-13 win over Maryland, Duke head coach David Cutcliffe led off his press conference by saying, “When’s the last time any of you saw Duke win an ugly football game?  I bet it’s been a long time.”  Duke had a season high 12 penalties and lost the ball twice on fumbles in scoring position, but still managed to pull out a key win.

While the game was indeed ugly due to weather conditions, the win looks beautiful for Duke when one takes a look at the ACC Standings.  The win pushed Duke to 2-1 in conference and 4-3 overall and postponed basketball season a bit longer for some fans.

One would think Duke’s second consecutive ACC win, the first time since 1994, would get more exposure, but the kick off to the basketball season with Countdown to Craziness and exhibition game and ACC Operation Basketball grabbed most of the headlines. For more on that, visit Blue Devil Nation.

Once again Thaddeus Lewis showed up big going 30 for 43 for 371 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.  It was the seniors third consecutive 300 yard plus game.  Lewis also moved into 10th in the ACC all time leaders list in passing yards.

“We made some mistakes but in the end we were fortunate enough to come out on top,” said Lewis.  He then continued by saying, “Our defense came through when we needed them too.”

And it was Duke’s defense which held up.  In fact, take away Maryland’s biggest play from scrimmage, a 61 yard pass play on broken coverage, and the Terps would have had less than 200 yards of offense.  This is a testament to the hard work Duke Defensive Coordinator Mike McIntyre has done with a defense that has many freshman in the two deep.

The Blue Devil receivers showed up once again as well with Austin Kelly leading the way with 9 catches, Donovan Varner hauled in 8 for 120 yards and a score and true freshman Conner Vernon had 5 catches for 102 yards.  Johnny Williams may have had the biggest catch when he dug a pass off the ground during a key series in the game.

Williams was considered Duke’s top threat in the pre season and defenses have been covering him tightly, but his numbers should soon go up for teams that are unable to play off any of the Duke wide outs.

Duke will next travel to Virginia as a six point underdog this weekend.  Duke handled the Cavaliers easily in Wallace Wade last season and you can bet this game has been circled for revenge.  While it may seem a daunting task for Duke to win a third consecutive game on the road in the ACC, more and more people are starting to believe in Duke Football and there is no doubt that Cutcliffe and his staff have the Devils a little bit ahead of schedule as he rebuilds a once historically dominant team on the Methodist Flats.

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