BTW, did anyone see Jay Wright’s comments yesterday? Basically said that, with the transfer portal and NIL, the days of taking freshmen-dominated teams far in this tourney are over. Hurley said the same thing in an interview. Words worth keeping in mind when we start our predictions about next year.
I don’t think Jay touched on anything that we didn’t really already know. I think OAD peaked in 2015 when Duke won the National Championship and Kentucky had that great 38-1 FF squad. Kentucky had won it in 2012 and both teams had just the right mix of some experienced returnees and bad ass freshmen. Cal was red hot his first five seasons (2019/10 to 2014/15) as was Duke with 2 NCAA Titles in this span.
Duke has been really good, not great since then. Two tough close hard fought Elite 8 losses in 2018 and 2019. But then back to the Final Four in 2022 for Coach K’s swan song. ACC Championships in 2017, 2019 and 2023. A lot of injury problems for a bunch of these teams post-2015. The only crap year was 2021 and that situation involved many strange variables. The “no fans in the stands” season which had Coach K really in full on sour puss mode all year. And when he chose to cancel a bunch of December games, which would’ve been wins for Duke, he kind of self sabotaged that team. And that Jalen Johnson just decided to hang it up and prep for his pro career. Weird outlier of a season that one was for Duke. (2020/2021)
In that span, we’ve seen so many teams win the title or advance deep with experienced players. I mean unc-chapel hill branch just keeps guys every year and that’s why they had two trips to the title game in 2016 and 2017. Virginia kept that core group with Kyle Guy and won a title in 2019. For Duke and Kentucky it’s brand new rosters every year with both having the occasional bit of luck in having a returnee stay like Wendell Moore and Jeremy Roach for Duke.
The free Covid year and having these older players around has altered the dynamic along with the portal and NIL. Watching the Auburn game last night someone mentioned some player being 24 years old and I just laughed. 🤷🏻♂️ (really, I laughed) because in the old days you would not see players around that old unless they had redshirted/transferred. Think Matt Christensen who did a two year mission overseas.
For programs like Duke and Kentucky the first and second rounds used to be afterthoughts. No more. They’re all tough now for most teams. So I think when you talk about next year‘s prospects, for Duke its less about who’s coming in and more about who will come back. All that we know and can be confident in right now is that Duke should be really good next year. (As they are most years)