depth probably is harder to maintain the higher caliber of recruit you get. they don't all stay around, and people don't wanna be behind them. look at UT, we were deep as hell 2-3 years ago, when we had guys like ivey, thomas, boddicker, and mouton, but we're starting to get thinner the higher caliber of player we bring in. if every leaves that could leave this year, depth will be a problem again next year. two other things, is calhoun underrated? as much as coach K deserves enormous credit for what he's done at duke, especially the insane number of final 4's he has been to, and even though i like duke more than uconn, calhoun is sitting at 2 titles and is looking good to tie coach K with his 3rd this year. maybe uconn is just better at taking advantage of the times they are actually the best and winning without being as consistently good as duke (who is practically a 1 seed every year), but 3 titles would be pretty damn amazing. of course it helps on the all time count that he won the head to head championship game (other wise it's 4-1 right now). which brings up my next point: i still think that 1999 duke team is the best college team i've ever seen (which would only go back about 10-11 years). i still can't believe they lost to uconn. hamilton just had to be on fire and things had to go uconn's way. brand, battier, landgon, avery, maggette, they just destroyed people. they lost 2 games early and then basically seemed to not even get threatened until the title game. they were so well rounded inside with brand, outside with avery and langdon, and then had the perfect glue guy in battier. a truly remarkable team, and i think they beat uconn at least 8 out of 10 times and maybe 9 out of 10, but the damn 1 had to be the title game and that's all that matters.
Calhoun also turns relatively unknown guys into STUDS. The only guy I can remember right now being a top 3 high school recruit is Rudy Gay. The rest were top 50 types and a lot of times not even ranked.
Calhoun tends to be underrated because Uconn doesn't have a rich basketball history before 1990. He essentially built a powerhouse program in the middle of rural western Connecticut, which many elite college coaches thought would be impossible. Jim Boeheim, Coach K, Pitino and numerous others have said on many occasions that his building that program has got to be one of the most improbably things that have happened in recent college basketball history. Also, Uconn had a nasty tendency to fall short of the Final four before the 99 title run, even with superior teams. Ray Allen's 94 and 95 squades had 3-4 first rounders on the roster and were beaten in the elite eight and sweet sixteen those years. Also, a Donyell Marshall-led squad got upset in 1994 by Florida. I'd say, they should have at least 2 more final four appearances if they'd played to their potential in the mid-90s. People actually called him a choker in those days and that failure to win early on cost him prestige.
If I had known about this thread and posted this prior to the LSU game, it would have been prophetic, but alas, we have the benefit of hindsight. Here's my point... If you think Lee Melchionni provides Duke quality depth at the wing position, then you're crazy. Melchionni lacks athleticism to guard the wing and does not possess the shooting skills to keep defenders honest. When Redick leaves the game, Duke has a hard time finding outside scoring. Duke's overall athleticism (or lack thereof) is the major reason why they lost to LSU last night. As for why Duke has struggled with depth the past few years, I'd say that they haven't recruited as well as in the past. But, "they get McDonald's AAs every year!", you say. Part of the problem is how these AAs are picked. The selections are made after most of the players have signed or at least committed to sign for certain schools. When a kid had "Duke" listed as his college choice, that guy gets instant boost in the eyes of the selection committe. It's what makes recruiting analysis and recruiting lists an inexact science, at best. At worst, it's total baloney. Every year, there are more than few players left off the McD's AA rosters that are and will continue to be better players than those chosen. Duke's McD's AAs have been grossly overrated these last 2-3 years. Sean Dockery and Demarcus Nelson are not good players. Josh McRoberts is the real deal, though, but the issue with the team is that Duke needs him to be their #3 scorer/playmaker because Greg Paulus is a liability offensively. The alternatives are Dockery and Nelson, who, as I've said, are not very good. A year from now, McRoberts would be more than good enough to warrant being the #2 option on this team, but he's just a freshman. Contrast that with UNC's championship team of last year, where they had 3 big time scorers in McCants, May, and Felton...plus athleticism and defense in Jawad Williams. That meant that Marvin Williams could just do his thing and not carry the team at any point. Duke's McD's AA the last three years: 2005 McRoberts (solid this year, future stud) Paulus (jury still out on him, but he's an out-of-control freshman PG right now) Eric Boateng (complete non-factor this year) 2004 Shaun Livingston (never made it to campus, straight to the NBA) Demarcus Nelson (not a good player, imo) 2003 Luol Deng (left after one year) Kris Humphries (transferred after a few weeks at Duke) 2002 J.J. Redick (absolute monster) Sean Dockery (bench warmer until his final year) Shavlik Randolph (couldn't crack the starting lineup but still decided to leave for the NBA early) Michael Thompson (transferred) ** Shelden Williams was not a McD's AA, incredibly In four years, out of all their McD's AAs, Duke has landed: 1 super star (Redick) 1 potential super star (Deng) that left way early 1 potential star (McRoberts) and a bunch of guys that transferred, never showed up, or couldn't make the starting lineup because they suck. Carolina got 3 star players just in their 2002 class alone with May, McCants, and Felton.
This is a great analysis. Do you think that Duke seeks and gets commitments too early? Seems like some of their guys don't improve as hoped for/expected. Who was the last great athlete they had? Their players are kind of mechanical and really not much fun too watch. I like the UNC style of play much more-- whether the coach was Guthridge, Doherty or Williams. Does anybody know what ever happened to Michael Thompson? Is that the same Kris Humphries who was a #1 pick of the Jazz?
great analysis. one corrections though: Kris Humphries never enrolled, he got his release in the spring or early summer and then enrolled at Minnesota and entered the draft after his freshman year (B10 ROY).
He is definitely the greatest recruiter of all time. Complaining about Dukie's bench this year? Well, they had 3 top 15 blue chip frosh on their team this year, similar to what Kansas has. The problem is that Rush, Wright and Chalmers developed while the frosh Dukies were never able to show any consistency, probably due to the dominant plays of Williams and JJ.
Okay, so it's difficult to prove the reason why the Duke freshmen haven't shown consistency is because of the dominant play of Duke's seniors or because they're just not that good. I think McRoberts is a good player, but I'm not impressed with Greg Paulus (even using freshmen PG standards) and as for Eric Boateng...have you even heard of this guy? Anyway, my point is that perhaps Duke doesn't get as many good players as you would assume if you simply looked at the number of McD's AAs on their roster. Michael Thompson transferred to Northwestern, I think, and had a thoroughly forgettable career. I stand corrected on Kris Humphries. He would have been a pretty good player for Duke, had he followed through with his letter of intent.
As for Duke and depth? That is common to most all programs now, it is the norm. It is the exception that a good NCAA team has depth, a couple of great players and 3-4 role players makes a team that has a shot. Since the norm of young prospects has been to jump strait to the pros (mid 90s?) I can only think of some Uconn teams and late 90s Kentucky teams that were very deep. Good point. Wooden by far the best recruiter and coach of all time. Not even close. I'd go with Dean Smith as the #2 all time recruiter, best since Wooden. That isn't the best Duke team I have seen. Hill, Laettner, Hurley +5 more good role players. Further the UNLV team with Larry Johnson, Anthony, Augman, + 2-3 other borderline NBAers was even better than the Duke team--they detstroyed everyone they played when the won the the title and were on the way to a 2nd and undefeated season until a very close loss to Duke in the final four (UNLV smoked them by like 40 the 1st time). Best college team I have seen (basically since the 80s) was Worthy, Jordan Perkins + 3 or so good role players--Carolina team. Most talented to come away with nada? I might go with the late 80s Cuse teams with Coleman, Seikaly, Douglass, Owens, Thompson, Ellis or the Michigan Fab 5. Interesting, love him or hate him (I lean towards the latter), Bobby Knight took a team whose best pro was a 2nd rate center who over 5 years to make in the NBA (Dean Garrett) and beat a powerhourse Cuse team with 3-4 good pros. Funny thing is now people respect Boheim as an x's and o's coach yet he was on the short end of the biggest coaching spanking I can remember.
Oh, I thought he was talking Bobby Knight and I would agree. Bobby Knight is an SOB, but he can coach basketball. I know the the other K (MK) is a disciple, but MK is nowhere near as proven he can "do more with less" like his mentor (BK), every successfull Duke team has been loaded, unlike some successfull Indiana and TTech teams.
I know Duke's academic standards are very high compared to the likes of UNC, Uconn, or any other successful Div-1 school. So K has to find the smartest and cleanest of the all americans and recruit those kids! Gotta give him props for reeling those guys in one after the other. When you really think about it, why would a potential NBA player want to goto Duke? The location isn't that great, you have to work harder academically than at other places, Duke has the most active alums in the NBA, but almost all of them have fallen short of expectations. The only advantages seem to be networking with a bunch of rich kids and getting your ass kissed by Bilas and Vitale.
LOL. Nope. They tweaked that a little bit (the admission standard) so that every high school blue chip superstar could go to Duke.
LOL! He managed to post a terrible losing record with 5 Big Mac AAs on his team - Wojo, Trajan Langdon, Ricky Price, Parks, and whoever that the names slipped me, and Dick V. loud mouthed in front of national TV that K was not the blame because Duke was lacking the 'talent' on the team. If I remember correctly, Dukie once had 8 Mac AAs on its roster. Unless you feel that Mac AAs don't mean anything for high school players, yeah, K always had much much talent to work with. And most of the times since 1994, it was much ado about nothing.
Oddly enough, the basketball academinc standards are no different than the standards of most other universities. As for why you'd go there? You get to be on one of the best teams in the country, with probably more airtime than any other to help get you exposure into the NBA. Then, their players are consistently drafted higher than they should be, meaning if you're going to be a mediocre NBA guy, you have a chance to get paid more than you should by being drafted much higher.
And I think this is perfectly justified to do this. Duke's men’s BB income surely floats their entire men’s and women’s athletic department, probably allows for tons of scholarships for non-professional athletes or non-athletes in general where their supplemented Duke education will be quite meaningful. I have no problem with money making athletic programs like Duke BB having different academic standards than for non-athletes than their general population of students. Now for non-revenue athletics (those except most men’s BB and football programs, maybe a couple of baseball programs), I don't understand the looser standards at all. Stanford for instance has much looser academic requirements for any of their NCAA athletic teams--that I don't understand unless they just think it is great PR to have a great men’s lacrosse team or women's field hockey team or whatever. Now I do have a problem with Duke (BB) or ND (football) fans whining about their lack of ability to recruit because of bogus standards that don't really exist in a meaningful way, the bottom line is their athletic standards are not remotely like their standard for non-athletes, it is a hypocritical argument that they are the good guys or smart athletes or have some nostalgia that they are just their overall student body, or some other BS like that.
