"The last 3 years"

[lyonhawk]

I like to read other teams boards to see how often they talk about Duke. One of the popular criticisms is that K has underachieved the last 3 years with elite freshman talent. This really bugs me because it's just not true.

15-16 Brandon Ingram was the only OAD and that team had nowhere near the talent of 15, 17, 18, or 19.
16-17 was the next super class, but the huge talent gap on that team was largely based on Harry Giles being Chris Webber. Without Harry (and we essentially were all season), that's just another good class.
17-18 obviously had a ton of top end OAD talent and we were 1 OT loss away from the FF.

I just think people forget that the 16 team was just okay by Duke standards and the 17 team was missing the top ranked player in its class when they talk about K not winning with freshman.

 

[duke198025]

15-16 played to their seed and talent level IMO. If Amile is healthy who knows.
16-17 - I agree with the Giles comment. He was nowhere near the top player in the class so the talent level wasn't what it seemed on paper. 2nd round exit still a disappointment though. That was an elite 8 team to me on paper.
17-18 - that should have been a final 4 team. So one round short.

 

[DiehardDukeFan4Life]

Opposing fans love to say that we’ve underachieverd the last 3 years but they always ignore the fact that we had several injuries the last 2 years that had an impact on team chemistry and player’s progress. Bolden is a good example of a player’s progress being slowed due to injuries. He’s finally healthy this season and he’s having a pretty good season.

 

[timo0402]

It’s such a lazy argument. It can be picked apart easily but they don’t want to hear it, so what’s even the point. If we win it all. Of course any coach could win with Zion, Cam and RJ being 3 top 5 picks. If we don’t, it was a huge failure and he sucks as a coach. It’s the world we live in. That’s why i always try and say, set your own expectations and own them. Don’t be swayed by the outside noise bc it will just make you disappointed.

 

[DukefanKY]

It’s such a lazy argument. It can be picked apart easily but they don’t want to hear it, so what’s even the point. If we win it all. Of course any coach could win with Zion, Cam and RJ being 3 top 5 picks. If we don’t, it was a huge failure and he sucks as a coach. It’s the world we live in. That’s why i always try and say, set your own expectations and own them. Don’t be swayed by the outside noise bc it will just make you disappointed.

Especially since we obviously are given the easiest bracket every single year.

 

[mo.st.dukie]

Even if it were true it doesn't mean a damn thing. I mean, if you go one more year we have a National Championship with stud freshman. I think we all remember what the common trope was in 2015: "K has never won a championship with three freshmen in the starting lineup. In 2010 the common thing we heard was "K has never won a championship without a scoring big man". Leading into the 2015 title, the previous three years we lost in the first round twice. Any rival fan who tries to use this argument is doing one thing and one thing only, trying to make themselves feel better by pretending Duke will not and cannot get to the Final Four and win the National Championship.

And also, if you followed that logic for every team (i.e. the past three years dictates how well you do this year) it eliminates every team except those who have made the Final Four the last three years. So we could just as easily say that Calipari hasn't done anything with his freshmen lineups the last three years so they are going nowhere this year. But of course that would be the dumbest thing to ever say and Duke fans aren't dumb.

 

[DiehardDukeFan4Life]

Even if it were true it doesn't mean a damn thing. I mean, if you go one more year we have a National Championship with stud freshman. I think we all remember what the common trope was in 2015: "K has never won a championship with three freshmen in the starting lineup. In 2010 the common thing we heard was "K has never won a championship without a scoring big man". Leading into the 2015 title, the previous three years we lost in the first round twice. Any rival fan who tries to use this argument is doing one thing and one thing only, trying to make themselves feel better by pretending Duke will not and cannot get to the Final Four and win the National Championship.

And also, if you followed that logic for every team (i.e. the past three years dictates how well you do this year) it eliminates every team except those who have made the Final Four the last three years. So we could just as easily say that Calipari hasn't done anything with his freshmen lineups the last three years so they are going nowhere this year. But of course that would be the dumbest thing to ever say and Duke fans aren't dumb.

Opposing fans were really saying Duke hadn’t won a championship with a scoring big man until 2010? They must’ve forgotten about Laettner, Parks and Meek on those 91 and 92 championship teams and also Battier, Boozer and Dunleavy on the 2001 championship team lol

 

[DukefanKY]

Opposing fans were really saying Duke hadn’t won a championship with a scoring big man until 2010? They must’ve forgotten about Laettner, Parks and Meek on those 91 and 92 championship teams and also Battier, Boozer and Dunleavy on the 2001 championship team lol

I think you misread it

 

[Mac9192]

It is hard to win it all. But when you are Duke and K, the top classes make for the expectations being “all or nothing.”

What’s a common thing said about Cal, one title with all that talent he’s had? Or the titles Ol Roy didn’t win when he had the better teams?

We can’t have it both ways.

 

[dbav]

Even if it were true it doesn't mean a damn thing. I mean, if you go one more year we have a National Championship with stud freshman. I think we all remember what the common trope was in 2015: "K has never won a championship with three freshmen in the starting lineup. In 2010 the common thing we heard was "K has never won a championship without a scoring big man". Leading into the 2015 title, the previous three years we lost in the first round twice. Any rival fan who tries to use this argument is doing one thing and one thing only, trying to make themselves feel better by pretending Duke will not and cannot get to the Final Four and win the National Championship.

And also, if you followed that logic for every team (i.e. the past three years dictates how well you do this year) it eliminates every team except those who have made the Final Four the last three years. So we could just as easily say that Calipari hasn't done anything with his freshmen lineups the last three years so they are going nowhere this year. But of course that would be the dumbest thing to ever say and Duke fans aren't dumb.

Are you trying to tell me that Zoubek wasn't a scoring big man? Try telling him that to his face!?! Blasphemy!

 

[df64]

^Fear The Beard!
16 lost Amile. He was killing it when he went down. 17 was way more than just Giles. Tatum missed a ton early and never caught up to what he would have been. Also Bolden, Javin, Jeter, Amile again, Allen and Jackson. Carolina wouldn't have even made it to the tourney with half of those injuries. One more win before the tourney and we are a 1 seed and N Carolina is the 2 seed. S Carolina was a great team that year with their full team available. When they finally lost to the Zags, their star had the flu and missed almost every shot short. Last year, we just missed.

 

[lyonhawk]

It is hard to win it all. But when you are Duke and K, the top classes make for the expectations being “all or nothing.”

What’s a common thing said about Cal, one title with all that talent he’s had? Or the titles Ol Roy didn’t win when he had the better teams?

We can’t have it both ways.

I’ll be the first to say if this year’s team doesn’t win it all, it will be viewed as a disappointment. 18 underachieved not winning the ACC regular season or tourney and not making the Final Four either. However, talent wise 16 was easily our worst team of the last 5 years and the hype around 17 was based on a team that never got to play.

 

[FearTheBeard]

Cosch K and Duke have become the face of college basketball. That’s why everyone else thinks it’s an underachievement if Duke doesn’t win it all every year. The fact is, in a 6 game single elimination tournament that doesn’t have a Sam Gilbert, it’s gonna be hard to win it all no matter what.

 

[dbav]

I didn't view any of those years as a failure. I loved each of those teams. When people tell me about how my team has underachieved, I tell them they wish they could have underachieved like us.

 

[jnastasi]

I think it’s fair to say we underachieve some seasons. But so does every other team. The 16-17 team definitely underachieved with Tatum, Grayson and Kennard. Even without Giles we should’ve been better. Id say anything shy of a FF or NC is underachieving for this team. The expectations are just higher here and that’s what makes us great. I love that people wanna hate us. People don’t hate on losers.

 

[dachampishere2]

15-16 played to their seed and talent level IMO. If Amile is healthy who knows.
16-17 - I agree with the Giles comment. He was nowhere near the top player in the class so the talent level wasn't what it seemed on paper. 2nd round exit still a disappointment though. That was an elite 8 team to me on paper.
17-18 - that should have been a final 4 team. So one round short.

Well yea obviously at that point Harry wasn’t the top player in the class after being hurt. He was hurt and Bolden was never the same after getting hurt. 16-17 with a fully healthy Giles would’ve walked through that field and won

 

[PatrickYates]

15-16 played to their seed and talent level IMO. If Amile is healthy who knows.
16-17 - I agree with the Giles comment. He was nowhere near the top player in the class so the talent level wasn't what it seemed on paper. 2nd round exit still a disappointment though. That was an elite 8 team to me on paper.
17-18 - that should have been a final 4 team. So one round short.

Plus, in 17-18, two of those OAD were underwhelming, in Trent and Duval. Solid players, sure, but not elite talents. Trent was, at best, inconsistent. Duval simply could not shoot. Duval was a top 2-3 player at the end of his junior year, a top 5 player at the end of his pre-senior summer, a top 10 player at the end of his senior season, and a top 15 player by the end of the All star circuit. The thinking on Duval was that he had everything but a shot, and that once he added that, he'd be MVP level good. But he never added a shot. Trent was trending in that same downward direction once evaluators realized that his high percentage was based on very inconsistent results, that he as an extremely streaky shooter (and that vs poor HS defenses). So that class, on paper, looked great. But the reality was that the two perimeter players were over ranked for much of their HS careers, and saw their rankings decline as their SR years wore on. And, as you say, we lost a game at the buzzer because of a ball rolling off.

 

[2004Audi]

The 16-17 team got screwed over royally. A 2 seed that ended up playing SC in SC. That SC team made it all the way to the final 4. Did not help that NC governor was against a certain social issue which prevented NC from hosting an NCAA tournament that year but I digress. SC should not have been playing in Columbia. A 2 seed should never be put in a situation like that the first week of the tournament.

 

[christophero]

We've had a nice 3 year run but a little underwhelming considering the talent. Yes I'm spoiled but with number one recruiting classes come greater expectations, fair or not. Injuries are part of the game but we did seem snakebitten 2 years ago. A FF/title this year would make it an amazing 4 year run.

 

[jrtplaya]

Funny saying we've underachieved while said university has won ONE title with the greatest recruiter of all time since we entered the 2000s. Meanwhile Duke is working on attaining number 4. There's levels to this.