Blue Devils excited about what the future holds

[stwainfan]

Still don't get that "young Tennessee" attribution, and apparently neither do many of the Vol fans from what I read elsewhere. A team with one freshman among its top seven scorers along with two seniors, a junior, and three sophomores seems more middle-aged than young. Maybe a tad younger than Duke overall, but still pretty squarely in the middle and certainly not like a 2003 UConn team that had a frosh leading the team in minutes and two others in the top 7. I guess youth is in the eye of the beholder.

A team that had five new players on roster. A roster of mostly freshman and sophomores. This season coming up there will be a more experienced team.

 

[doggydaddy]

A team that had five new players on roster. A roster of mostly freshman and sophomores. This season coming up there will be a more experienced team.

And three of those players (one due to injury) didn't play any significant minutes.

Most of the rotation were experienced. What a bogus statement to say there were 5 new players.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

It's not really that Duke hasn't made a Final Four so much as they've looked like crap not getting there. It's one thing to lose to Uconn, but when was the last time they even seriously challenged Uconn? They looked woefully unprepared against Stanford last year, totally listless against Notre Dame in the second half this year (a game that was there for the taking), lost to Brittney Griner and a bunch of scrubs in 2010, in the second round (as a #1 seed) in 2009, and easily defeated by a good but not great Texas A&M team in the S16 in 2008. In short, they've advanced to their seed every season other than 2009, but that's been as far as it's ever gone. They've lost by double digits every time they've been eliminated except 2010, when they were the higher seed standing. They've taken half a step back since Coach G left. Next year is put up or shut up time.

If you look at the losses in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, all were in the Elite Eght to teams who went on to lose in the Final Four. We are not losing to the national champs or even to the other team in the finals. Every team we lost to went on to lose in the national semis. And the last three losses were by double digits, while two of the four involved games where Duke could not score more than 48 points.

The roster is littered with McDonalds and WBCA All-Americans, more than any other school. Yet zero Final Fours in six years of the McCallie era. She has had more talent and depth than Goestenkors ever had (except maybe 2006), and McCallie cannot sniff the Final Four.

 

[connboy77]

If you look at the losses in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, all were in the Elite Eght to teams who went on to lose in the Final Four. We are not losing to the national champs or even to the other team in the finals. Every team we lost to went on to lose in the national semis. And the last three losses were by double digits, while two of the four involved games where Duke could not score more than 48 points.

The roster is littered with McDonalds and WBCA All-Americans, more than any other school. Yet zero Final Fours in six years of the McCallie era. She has had more talent and depth than Goestenkors ever had (except maybe 2006), and McCallie cannot sniff the Final Four.

Then maybe its time to get rid of McCallie. With all the talent Duke currently has there is no reason that they should not at least reach the final four. If Duke does not reach the final four next year heads should roll.

 

[Kibitzer]

It seems to me that Cam views his Duke coach in a sort of a glass-half-empty way, while Stwain evaluates the potential of her LadyVols team, er, program from a glass-half-full perspective.

I'll stick to UConn. I just like our chances. Always.

 

[triaddukefan]

I do like your avatar.
Stop taking California girls to Duke.
You dont see USC or UCLA going after NC girls.

Do you like it better than my previous Paper Tiger Avatar ??

Duke has only taken 4 girls from California in the past decade or so.... You talk like its a yearly raid..

Well NC doesnt produce much in the way of elite girl basketball players, but the Cal schools are welcome to come after them all they'd like.

The roster is littered with McDonalds and WBCA All-Americans, more than any other school. Yet zero Final Fours in six years of the McCallie era. She has had more talent and depth than Goestenkors ever had (except maybe 2006), and McCallie cannot sniff the Final Four.

The last 3 years you are correct, but I disagree about 2010. They sniffed the final 4.... but apparently didnt like the scent and preceded to throw up all over the place and let Baylor sneak away with the victory in the closing minutes

 

[diggerfoot]

The roster is littered with McDonalds and WBCA All-Americans, more than any other school. Yet zero Final Fours in six years of the McCallie era. She has had more talent and depth than Goestenkors ever had (except maybe 2006), and McCallie cannot sniff the Final Four.

Sorry, but this combines a little bit of cherry-picking with a little bit of misdirection. Your first two sentences taken together would imply that Duke had more AAs than any other school in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. Even if that was the case, on a small five-person team two top players is worth more than any ten second tier AAs. Only Williams is arguably a top player like Stewart, or KML, or Diggins, or Griner, or the Ogwumikes .... or Alanna Beard. For all the JPM years but the last one both UConn's and Stanford's roster had more starting quality, quantity of AAs be damned. Earlier on Tennessee's had more starting quality, later on Baylor's did. Already we have three teams that on paper should always have been in the FF instead of Duke in the JPM era, and we haven't even touched Notre Dame.

You can fault Duke for never upsetting teams to get the job done, like Louisville, Notre Dame or Texas A&M were able to do. You could make an argument that they should have beaten a team with a young Griner, though it didn't really surprise people at the time (except maybe Duke fans). In general what happened to them was what this neutral observer expected based on their placement and seeding each year. In my mind they should have been a #1 out West, or at least a #2 this past year, then I would have expected them to get to the FF. Once they were paired with Notre Dame forget it, I never expected them to get to the FF. Yeah, yeah, plenty of AAs, but no Diggins, and no Gray even. So the AA Jones should count as much as an AA Diggins? Not on your life. Many on the Boneyard thought Notre Dame was going to beat Duke worse than UConn was going to beat Kentucky ... I claimed just the opposite, but I find it ironic that people now fault Duke for a listless game against Notre Dame when beforehand people thought they would get pounded. Gee, I guess Notre Dame must have been super listless at the end of the year to underperform almost down to Duke's level. No wonder we then beat Notre Dame by 18.

I do agree, however, that next year Duke should be in the FF barring injury. Given the superb quality of coaches and rosters involved (not quantity), it's possible that Stanford, Tennessee or Notre Dame could be better, but I doubt all three. If they fail to make it next year I'll post an anti-JPM rant just in honor of you.

 

[CamrnCrz1974]

I understand your points. Obviously, Coach P wants to be positive about the future. Nothing wrong with that, especially because the future looks promising.

There seems to be a pattern of repeated coaching mistakes in big games against Top 5 opponents and a continuing failure to make adjustments in the second halves of these games.

As an example, Duke lost by 36 points to UConn in the 2010-2011 regular season (in a game at UConn). In the Elite Eight, Duke fought hard for a bit, before losing by 35 points, 75-40. This is after the team could only muster 48 points in the 2009 Elite Eight loss to Baylor

Also concerning me is the post-halftime trend. Last year against Notre Dame, Duke led 36-20 at the half, only to lose 56-54 (IIRC). We got outscored by 18 points in the second half. This year against UConn, we trailed by two at the half, then got outscored by 28 points in the second half. Against Notre Dame, we led by 6 at the half, only to be outscored by 17 in the second half.

This is Duke's fourth Elite Eight in a row, which is a tremendous accomplishment. It is even more impressive this year when you factor in Chelsea Grey's injury. Unfortunately, for Duke fans, it is an expected accomplishment at this point. From 1998 until 2007, Duke made the Elite Eight in 7 of those 10 seasons and the Final Four in 4 of those seasons. And of the current streak, in the first two games, Duke scored in the 40s, while in the last two games, Duke gave up 80+ points. We seem to either have defense or offense but not both in Elite Eight games, and we seem to be playing one great half but not two in Elite Eight games.

What I question is reaching the potential and reaching the ceiling of potential. Discussing lessons learned and focusing for the future is fine, but at this point, there is a feeling that these are words without a plan for implementation (or that we have heard the words before without seeing the requisite action to make the words meaningful). Yes, Duke dealt with injuries. So did a lot of programs. It happens every year.

What concerns me is the overall direction. We seem to be mired in the "good enough" category, but not making adjustments to get into the "truly elite" category. Other teams lose players and reload/rebuild; we seem to be stockpiling talent, only to suffer repeated double-digit losses to the truly elite teams.

Coach P is entering her seventh year. I hate doing this, but Gail Goestenkors took the program from the basement of the ACC to the national championship game in her seventh season. Coach P started off with a much stronger base (eight high school All-Americans her first year), and she has continued the recruiting pipeline. In fact, I wold argue she has exceeded what Goestenkors had at Duke with the 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 recruiting classes. But she has yet to achieve the same results. Yes, there is luck involved, but sometimes, you have to create your own luck.

What I would like to see is improvement in adjustments, consistency in second halves of games, and the ability to have second, third, and fourth options for the offensive and defensive schemes that elite opponents throw at us. The question I have is whether this is the year we will see that...

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Unlike some, I don't have any bias against Duke. In fact, I was usually able to muster a mild "hope they win" in the GG era, although I'm not her biggest fan. That said, I would take her at Rutgers at the drop of a hat.

As to JPM, meh. Just doesn't do anything for me. Didn't care for something she said when we played in the NCAA's at Michigan State and don't see any reason to change my opinion. "hope they win" has been replaced with "don't care" unless they happen to be playing Maryland.

 

[diggerfoot]

I understand your points. Obviously, Coach P wants to be positive about the future. Nothing wrong with that, especially because the future looks promising.

There seems to be a pattern of repeated coaching mistakes in big games against Top 5 opponents and a continuing failure to make adjustments in the second halves of these games.

Also concerning me is the post-halftime trend. Last year against Notre Dame, Duke led 36-20 at the half, only to lose 56-54 (IIRC). We got outscored by 18 points in the second half. This year against UConn, we trailed by two at the half, then got outscored by 28 points in the second half. Against Notre Dame, we led by 6 at the half, only to be outscored by 17 in the second half.

This is a good point, Cam, similar to our close out woes due to our measurable miscue problems. In either case there's a high baseline of competency that yet gets wasted, in our case by miscues, in your case by ... what? adjustments alone? conditioning? heart? Out of all the points you bring up I think this one is the most salient. FWIW, I also thought GG was better than many gave credit for, at least at Duke and her years prior.

 

[CBus13]

Looks like the Athletic Department at Duke is excited about the future and JPM. They've extended her contract until 2019.

I hope for all the talent they have that they can finally make it into the Final Four...Chelsea Gray and Elizabeth Williams as too big of talents to not be viewed on the big stage ever.

 

[alexrgct]

Good is the Enemy of Great

-Jim Collins