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Message: [QUOTE="CamrnCrz1974, post: 2920026, member: 1052"] With all due, this post about Duke would have been accurate between 2008 and 2015. Coach P inherited a roster with eight MCDAA players. Recruiting was truly elite in the 2010-2014 classes. But if you look at the recent (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019) classes, Duke is not getting the truly elite players - and certainly not on a regular basis. The 2018 class did not have a single player ranked in the top 60 in any of the four recruiting services. Duke's success in the past two years was primarily the result of Lexie Brown, a transfer. And the team lost to UConn in the Sweet 16 last year. [USER=9292]@IrishTiger[/USER] , your statement that Duke "should be getting to the elite 8 and final 4 on a regular basis with the talent they have" is not longer applicable - and has not been so for the past few seasons (this is also not accounting for the multiple season-ending injuries that Duke has had in recent years). As an aside, you are not completely accurate in your statement that Coach P "ignore the offensive side of the ball." The truth is that Coach P has a particular set of plays on offense and defense. Where Coach P has not improved is in her ability to make in-game adjustments when the opponent figures out Duke's offensive and defensive schemes and makes their own adjustments. Coach P has not demonstrated an ability to make countermoves. Rather, she runs the same offensive and defensive schemes, irrespective of personnel or opposition, with only a few varying schemes here and there. A quick history lesson... Before Gail Goestenkors got to Duke, the Blue Devils had made a total of one NCAA Tournament and had only one season in which it won more than 19 games. In the five years before Coach G's arrival, Duke went 21-51 in the ACC (and was at the bottom of the ACC the year before she arrived). Goestenkors built the program from the ground up. She used Duke's academic reputation as a recruiting tool, selling the university's elite academics with a chance to build what could be a special program. During Goestenkors' last 10 years at Duke (1997-1998 season through the 2006-2007 season), she made 7 Elite Eights, 4 Final Fours (including two National Runner-Up finishes), won 30 games in seven straight seasons, and won at least the ACC regular season title or tournament title nine times. The argument that "Duke recruits itself" overlooks all of the tremendous work by Coach G to get the Duke program to a place where it could recruit itself, based on the combination of elite academics and an elite WBB program. Unfortunately, the days of Duke being an elite WBB program are long gone, much to my (and [USER=378]@triaddukefan[/USER] 's dismay). [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach