Adjustment(s) for Next Year You Want to See

[DukiesDohK]

As I've scoured the internet today I've seen one things continue to come up, worded differently each time but summed up as, "Coach K did a terrible job this year". Each time I scoff to myself thinking these people are idiots, how dare they doubt the GOAT, etc.

Yet, I also admit to myself that I would have liked K to do this or that differently and possibly with those adjustments Duke could have been cutting down the nets.

So that has me wondering, going into next year, what you would want K to adjust the most in his approach, if anything?

I'll start with really my only adjustment, while fully admitting K has more knowledge in his left pinkie toe than I'll ever have:

- Use the Bench Heavy Early On
Normally you start the year healthy, with injuries happening as the season goes on (see this year). I want K to place less of an emphasis on early season wins, and more of an emphasis on building the teams role players. Get everyone some minutes early on, even if it is a possible detriment to the teams W/L record. I see it paying off in the long run as the bench shortens to players whose roles are more defined by early season playing time.

It will then allow K to have more of an ability to adjust when teams adjust to Duke throughout the year as they did this year. Our attempt this year to adjust was to burn Joey's redshirt, but it was apparent he wasn't ready. From there we were who we were and other teams continued to adjust to how they played us and it hurt this team.

What I feel has happened most often in the last few years with Duke is they get off to hot starts as K has a short bench from the get go. The game tape gets passed around, the game plan to stop Duke comes out and due to never allowing the bench to gain K's trust he doesn't trust them to try to adjust to the new game plan against Duke and Duke appears to plateau mid-conference schedule. While Duke has still been good late season, they haven't appeared to take the next step or add dimensions to their game throughout the year.

I trust K to learn from this year, I think next year K will make adjustments to his approach. Looking forward to hearing some other ideas from you all.

 

[sheyduke]

K hasn’t changed his seven to eight man max rotation in the last five years and don’t see it changing any next season.

With that said I do believe he should play the bench early on especially in blow outs at the beginning of the season.

 

[LetsGoDuke83]

Run actually plays instead of ISO

 

[germantondevil]

Coach is an old dog we have seen the same coaching style year in and year out. Coach has always believed In heaving a ton of threes even when they don’t have a great shooting team, this year for example, so I do not look for many differences as far as change goes. He will whittle his team to 6 or 7 players by Jan. And then ride the hell out of them until the wheels come off the wagon. Usually in early March. I do wish he would invest in more bearings but he won’t he is the old GOAT.

 

[HeLooks2MuchLikeDave]

Swap out K for Roy to appease half the posters here

 

[K-oach Q]

Run an actual offense with ball movement and a team concept. Stop with the ISO ball...

Develop more than 5 guys...and stop saying we are to young and inexperienced..

 

[youngman42]

Coach is an old dog we have seen the same coaching style year in and year out. Coach has always believed In heaving a ton of threes even when they don’t have a great shooting team, this year for example, so I do not look for many differences as far as change goes. He will whittle his team to 6 or 7 players by Jan. And then ride the hell out of them until the wheels come off the wagon. Usually in early March. I do wish he would invest in more bearings but he won’t he is the old GOAT.

That's the deal. He is not going to change. I think he gets nervous he's going to lose and if he could get away with it he'd play only 4 on the court. Believe it or not K used his bench a good bit more in the late 80's and 90's. Not any more.

I believe K is the GOAT (esp. of the 64 team era). But, he's not close to what he was as a coach in his prime 20 years, from, say, 1985-2004 or so.

Dean Smith was already an all-time great before his last years in the 90s. But Smith's coaching in the mid-90's was just not close to the quality it was in the 70's.

Bobby Knight was arguably the greatest coach ever as far as offense and defense Xs and Os and preparing his team for an opponent. His motion offense was a thing of beauty and he often beat teams with better talent (like '81 and '87). But, even aside from the personal issues he had, he was not the same coach at Texas Tech that he was in the 70's-80's at IU.

Casual, shallow processing fans will just say, "Well, he's the GOAT so he can't be wrong or we should never question him."

That's nonsense. It's ridiculous to say you can't question what K has done with the use of his bench or the lack of development of non-OAD players. I think had he been engaged more, developed his bench more, instilled more confidence into Jack White and O'Connell as far as shooting 3s, getting PT, and told the big 3 freshmen that by having confidence in their teammates it would get them a title sooner, that Duke would be in the FF.

He also needed to instill a stronger work ethic with the young guys on practicing 3s and FTs with good fundamentals and disciplined shot selection. They had serious lapses of bad shot selections from the first game to the last game. That could have been stopped. Namely, unless it's a shot clock issue (under 3 seconds), avoid the dribble and shoot threes. Those are far lower % than catch and shoot. And, look to pass vs forcing a shot against 3 defenders.

 

[youngman42]

Swap out K for Roy to appease half the posters here

Or, better yet, get posters who actually engage discussions rather than ripping other posters b/c they don't have a come back to an observation.

Simply b/c K is a better choice than Roy does not mean he's above criticism.

 

[pisgah101]

Man Roy at least develops what he has. I don’t want him over K but to act like he’s not a top 10 coach all time is silly.

I’d like-
Develop a bench
Go to the once in a generation talent
RUN
If someone doesn’t give 100% sit em

 

[germantondevil]

That's the deal. He is not going to change. I think he gets nervous he's going to lose and if he could get away with it he'd play only 4 on the court. Believe it or not K used his bench a good bit more in the late 80's and 90's. Not any more.

I believe K is the GOAT (esp. of the 64 team era). But, he's not close to what he was as a coach in his prime 20 years, from, say, 1985-2004 or so.

Dean Smith was already an all-time great before his last years in the 90s. But Smith's coaching in the mid-90's was just not close to the quality it was in the 70's.

Bobby Knight was arguably the greatest coach ever as far as offense and defense Xs and Os and preparing his team for an opponent. His motion offense was a thing of beauty and he often beat teams with better talent (like '81 and '87). But, even aside from the personal issues he had, he was not the same coach at Texas Tech that he was in the 70's-80's at IU.

Casual, shallow processing fans will just say, "Well, he's the GOAT so he can't be wrong or we should never question him."

That's nonsense. It's ridiculous to say you can't question what K has done with the use of his bench or the lack of development of non-OAD players. I think had he been engaged more, developed his bench more, instilled more confidence into Jack White and O'Connell as far as shooting 3s, getting PT, and told the big 3 freshmen that by having confidence in their teammates it would get them a title sooner, that Duke would be in the FF.

He also needed to instill a stronger work ethic with the young guys on practicing 3s and FTs with good fundamentals and disciplined shot selection. They had serious lapses of bad shot selections from the first game to the last game. That could have been stopped. Namely, unless it's a shot clock issue (under 3 seconds), avoid the dribble and shoot threes. Those are far lower % than catch and shoot. And, look to pass vs forcing a shot against 3 defenders.

We Duke fans that are old enough to remember Coach Dean definitely seen the regression in his coaching which we as Duke fans were so happy because he was the greatest for the longest time. I believe most can say that Coach does not coach like he used to. Man I remember a day when all those dang charges was called against Duke in the UNC game that Coach would have hit the ceiling, draws a Tech and came dang close to getting ousted from the game. But he is in his 70s now you do slow down as you get older. I know from experience. But he is still one of the best coaches in the game today, and that’s why he is still on the sidelines

 

[DukefanKY]

Just get a couple guys who can shoot. Every one of our title teams had guys who could shoot. You can’t be so one dimensional. It makes you to easy to defend. One good big, a decent point guard, and some guys that can shoot

 

[dukiejay]

Man Roy at least develops what he has. I don’t want him over K but to act like he’s not a top 10 coach all time is silly.

Roy is a top five or six coach of all-time. Most rational people have been trying to telling many posters here that for a long, long time.

What would I like from K? Pretty loaded question. For one, the game has changed a lot in his 39 years at Duke. One of the things K has always been best at is adapting. His longevity only proves that.

Yes, I guess playing a deeper would be nice. I'm not sure it's going to help if we still lose, though. People by nature like to complain and role play with revisionist history. Deep bench, short bench, no bench....it won't matter for those kind of folks.

Like I said, I thought yesterday we could have been more aggressive defensively with under five minutes to play. I'll admit, the lack of fouls was discerning for me....especially in the event we got in the predicament we found ourselves in.

I'd love to know what happened to Jack White. He was so damn good early on....it just fell apart for him. Hard to believe that less than 75 days ago he played 40 full minutes in our home victory over UVA. His fall off was as drastic as I've ever seen. Is that on K? I guess I don't understand how.

The other disappointment was clearly Alex. He had numerous opportunities in big situations all season, but really, besides the two Syracuse games, he was never a consistent threat. He was 0-for-everything in three games against the Heels and his defensive fundamentals are just a little off. I actually thought he could be an eight to 10 points per game scorer. I'm not sure that's something he can even do next year right now.

I just don't think there's one thing you point to in a season. I mean, one or two missed shots yesterday, a stop or a big play and Duke is making travel plans to Minneapolis. I think losses sometimes make us all very short-sighted. And I get it....I truly do.

 

[DukiesDohK]

While K is an old dog, to say he can't adapt and change is just not true. He completely revamped his approach in his late 60's for goodness sake. He can still change.

I wonder how much of a learning experience this season was for the assistants without long time lead assistant Capel? Did K fully respect their advice the same way he did Capel the year prior? Will Scheyer and others find more of a voice next year with a year experience under their belt and possibly we see more changes from that?

 

[lyonhawk]

I think K is still great from a very high level strategic viewpoint. He's also still great at making halftime adjustments and drawing up specific plays. I think his teams have struggled adjusting in the middle of halves though and have a bad tendency to forget who their best player is.

While I would also love to see him use the bench a bit more, he ever has as long as I can remember, so I don't expect he'll start now.

 

[Buzzooka Joe]

The main thing is develop the bench early on.. you can still run a 7-8 man rotation at the end of the year, but we HAVE to have bench guys get minutes/confidence..

There is no reason Tre & RJ should have each played more minutes this season than Bolden, Javin, Jack, & AOC have in their entire Duke careers.

 

[denverexpat]

Re Alex....when given 20+ mins his stats are actually quite good.....but he wasnt given them consistently..
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/player/_/id/4277846
Between the UNC games he played consistently and well...albeit less opposition ...then his minutes declined and so did his performance. His defensive frailties were no worse than others out there...without him in the line up there was a lay up drill at times for MSU/UCF and VT. He will probably sit behind an incoming freshman next year and be told he has to earn his PT vs being granted it because his competition is a "5" star

Re Coach K....and aging. I was a huge Bobby Bowden fan for a long time, loved what he did, how his team played and how he was always changing and adapting plays etc....then he got into his 70's, hung on and the team started to decline. It has the feel of the start of something similar for K. We dont adapt in game unless absolutely forced to ( Louisville game), we dont change our defense in games to throw off the other team, our end game and out of bounds are a mixture of disorganized and tragic. We used to own these, first 5 of each half and set plays, mentally it killed our opponents...not so much anymore

Be that as it may, nothing will change next year, including rehashing these arguments and opinions.

 

[hart2chesson]

Swap out K for Roy to appease half the posters here

Love this....If we win the close game yesterday less than 5% of the Debbie Downers would be on their soapboxes today! Its amazing how an ACC Championship and 1pt loss in an Elite Eight game brings out doomsayers...

OFC

 

[germantondevil]

Our supporting cast has to be better. Outside of Javin Duke had no supporting cast. Cam was terrible offensively. He had 8 points and this is supposed to be a lottery pick. Outside of RJ and Zion we were easy to defend. Double team RJ and triple team Zion. No one else is going to step up. Man I don't know. You cant really build any depth because you are so committed to playing your OADs so your upperclassmen are no better by the end of their career as they were when they got to Duke. They are recruited over every year they are there and the only way to improve is play and I think that Luke Maye is the perfect example of that. At Duke he would have been another Vrank. In a system where he plays and learns by his mistakes, he will play basketball somewhere for a living.

 

[Mpm277]

I think K is highly adaptable. In some weird way, I wonder if that's hurt his approach to coaching at all. With our approach to team building centering around a few OAD's and with K having coached NBA players in Team USA for so long now, the style has significantly turned to one-on-one iso ball. K trusts his players. And it's like.. that's a good thing. But can you over-trust your players? I'm honestly asking. K seems to be relying on their talent more than he would less talented players - which, I get it, duh. But I think they need to be guided a bit more than what he's doing. At least from my point of view and I'll definitely admit I don't know the X's and O's as well as some here and definitely not as well as anyone on the staff. But it seems too often we trust these kids to make plays when I'd prefer to see K draw up something clever and helpful to get them in a position to score rather than just trusting their talent to take their man off the dribble.

Remember when Zoubek would set around 37 screens per offensive possession for our guards? Remember all the screens JJ would run through?

Our players are talented for sure. But K isn't coaching Team USA when he's sitting in Cameron Indoor.

 

[chov1125]

I actually think K did a much better job this year than years past of getting more guys more opportunities. And I think our bench guys all had mini glimpses of being valuable. But when push comes to shove K is always going to put guys on the court he trusts and put the ball in those player’s hands. Love him or criticize him, I don’t think that is going to change. I just find it amusing that people speak so emphatically about complete unknowns. Everyone wants the player on the bench over the player on the court. Everyone wants the opposing coach over our own. Why? Because we lost a nail biter that would have sent us to the final four. UNC plays the crap out of their bench, where did that get them?

I think a lot of it is that we buy into the crap notion that because we have 3 lottery picks on our team that we are supposed to cruise to a championship. Having the best talent helps, don’t get me wrong. But the best long term nba talent doesn’t equate to having the best college team. It’s at least no sure thing. I do think we were the best team in the country this year, I really do. But I also know that it wasn’t by a wide margin and the tournament is a beast to navigate through. We didn’t get blown out, we weren’t embarrassed. We lost an elite 8 game in seriously close fashion to a team that made a couple extra plays against us late. That is the tournament in a nut shell. Virginia was a miracle away from being in the same position as us, which is headed home. Does that make Bennett a lousy lazy coach?

Going back to the top I think plenty of our bench got opportunities throughout the year. And I don’t think in any way shape or form it’s a guarantee that if we played Alex, Joey, JGold or anyone more that it would have put us in the final four. Jack played a ton this year, so did Javin so did Ques. Did they magically develop into elite players throughout the year? The unknown is not always the answer even though it’s easy to say/think it is.

 

[dukiejay]

Re Coach K....and aging. I was a huge Bobby Bowden fan for a long time, loved what he did, how his team played and how he was always changing and adapting plays etc....then he got into his 70's, hung on and the team started to decline. It has the feel of the start of something similar for K. We dont adapt in game unless absolutely forced to ( Louisville game), we dont change our defense in games to throw off the other team, our end game and out of bounds are a mixture of disorganized and tragic. We used to own these, first 5 of each half and set plays, mentally it killed our opponents...not so much anymore.

This has always been my favorite analogy....I mean, at least try. There's better comparisons.

Bobby Bowden was 38-27 his last five years at FSU and 3-2 in bowl games. That's a .584 winning percentage. He never sniffed a New Year's Day bowl game.

In K's last five years, he's 149-38 for an almost 80% winning percentage (.797 to be exact). He's made one Final Four, won a national championship, two ACC championships, lost in two Elite Eight games and a Sweet 16.

K is showing zero --- and I mean an emphatic ZERO --- signs of going down this make-believe Bobby Bowden path some are suggesting. Even suggesting something so stupid and ludicrous is, well...stupid and ludicrous. Try....that's all I'm asking. It's literally the worst comparison one could attempt to make.

 

[Mac9192]

A lot of the problem is, until we lose, we have a hard time accepting someone is predicting we lose, or someone gets chastised by some when they don’t think we are as good as some think Duke is. I personally thought we would win, but the one thing I’ve been pounding was our lack of another consistent scorer to take pressure off our 2 horses. That was our defeat. Have to have other options that we can go to. We didn’t. Between Cam and Tre, they were a combined 4-13. Our ball movement was bad, and we took the ball out of Tre’s hands to run iso ball with RJ and Zion. He had 4 points and 5 assists, only taking 5 shots.

The last several seasons K has built up this hope among many with his comments about developing the bench. I know Alex has been picked on, and I’ve done some of that picking. But you can’t get a flow by playing 2 minutes, making a mistake, then not playing for the next game and a half. Alex wasn’t much different in March as he was in November. Sorry, but it’s not all on him. We won with him playing 35 minutes against VT, and it was a physical game, yet some said the UCF game was too physical for him to have played. What??
He goes with who he trusts, the problem though, in this one and done era, is K has put himself in a tough position. He only has them one season, and the best way to recruit the next batch is to tell them you will get the minutes of the guy they’re replacing. If you think that’s crazy, imagine a kid watching Little play for the holes, and then wonder what a kid thinks watching him sit as much as he plays. RJ and Tre hardly ever sat, Zion only did just because K knows he plays so hard, he needs to get a breather.
We didn’t play 8 guys. We played 6. And the sad reality is, other than the improvement made by Javin, which he is way too limited in my opinion, we ended the season as we started it in Canada, and that’s riding Zion and RJ.

 

[Laettner]

FSU was a dumpster fire in Bowden's final years. Hiring his son as OC was the end. If K hires his teenage grandson to coach that's when we put him out to pasture.

Only adjustment I'd like to see is a true motion offense & real inbounds plays(lob inbounds was atrocious). 2-2-1 press this year worked well.

 

[BeerPoisoning]

That's the deal. He is not going to change. I think he gets nervous he's going to lose and if he could get away with it he'd play only 4 on the court. Believe it or not K used his bench a good bit more in the late 80's and 90's. Not any more.

Is there another Coach K or do one of us need our eyes examined? We only played 7 guys in ‘91. Sometimes we’d toss Palmer or Lang in briefly but they weren’t rotational. I’d compare their usage to Goldwire’s. On the ‘92 team who on our bench played besides Lang? Cherokee Parks got to play some junk minutes in blowout games. We barely ran 7 guys. I’m just using our champ years as examples, but it’s the same narrative in both 80s and 90s. Most seasons during those decades we ran a lot with 7 players, 8 in a few seasons.

This year we have 8 players averaging 16+mpg. I could be wrong but I can’t even recall a year in the 80s or 90s when an 8th man averaged 16mpg.

Bobby Knight was arguably the greatest coach ever as far as offense and defense Xs and Os and preparing his team for an opponent. His motion offense was a thing of beauty and he often beat teams with better talent (like '81 and '87). But, even aside from the personal issues he had, he was not the same coach at Texas Tech that he was in the 70's-80's at IU.

‘87 IU was really good. Steve Alford was a prolific 3PT shooter and that team rarely turned the ball over. ‘81 IU was star-studded and Isiah Thomas was one of a kind. I think it’s hilarious you mention ‘81 as a year that IU beat more more talented teams because the regular season narrative is that they couldn’t beat a ranked opponent.

Bob Knight was ripped and shredded in half by a school he gave his heart to for nearly 30 years. TxTech had lost twice as many games as they won the year before he took over. He flipped the script and gave them their first 20-win season and NCAA appearance in like 5 or 6 years. No, he didn’t win a national championship but imagine starting over after 30 years in a whole new program after being publicly slammed.

You’re babbling things off and have no idea what you’re even saying. Praising Bob Knight’s motion offense and knowledge is about the only statement containing truth.