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Tre Cam K and player development

I really wish we set more picks off the ball for cam to open shots up for him. Seemed like we only did it once or twice.
 
With all that being said everyone that’s talking about Cam would cheer their hearts out if he decide to come back next year. Coach K is the fall guy for this season. Period. The best player in college basketball in about 20 years was second in shot attempts and didn’t get a play called for him in the last 2 minutes of a close game. Even though he had just hit clutch buckets in the last 3 close games. Pathetic
 
With all that being said everyone that’s talking about Cam would cheer their hearts out if he decide to come back next year. Coach K is the fall guy for this season. Period. The best player in college basketball in about 20 years was second in shot attempts and didn’t get a play called for him in the last 2 minutes of a close game. Even though he had just hit clutch buckets in the last 3 close games. Pathetic

Lol
 
Cam never found a consistent shooting stroke this year and he struggled mightily with his drives. He doesn’t have great body control and so he struggles to avoid contact. There is an art to drawing contact and avoiding charges. RJ was very good at this, Cam, the opposite. I do think Cam will put it all together one day, it just wasn’t going to happen in one year, this year.
 
I anticipated shooting would be an Achilles heel before the season started. I never expected it to be as bad as what it turned out to be, though. When we made shots, we were almost unbeatable. When we didn't, we became much easier to guard.
 
Vrankovic is 7 feet tall with good hands. He played ten brilliant minutes against UNC. He should have played in every game
 
Vrankovic is 7 feet tall with good hands. He played ten brilliant minutes against UNC. He should have played in every game
88 total minutes on the season. Headscratching.



Minutes and Points (Final season)
Barrett: 35.3 MPG & 22.6 PPG
Carrawell: 16.9 PPG
Deng: 31.1 & 15.1
Singler: 34.8 & 16.9
Parker: 30.7 & 19.1
Hood: 32.9 & 16.1
Tatum: 33.3 & 16.8
 
Development is a tricky discussion for a single season IMO.

Tre didn’t get worse...people learned how to defend him. Cam struggled with confidence transitioning to a higher level of play. It isn’t that they weren’t coached well or they didn’t work at areas they struggled.

Freshman who stay would work on improving in areas teams beat them at...that’s hard to do in-season because it isn’t just Xs and Os...emotions play a huge role in success.
 
re Cam, I think someone on DI posted that he had said that he was more of a driving player in HS not a spot up shooter which surprised me, since his driving was not his strength in games...and apparantly his shooting wasnt either. So not sure what his strength really is....but it didnt materialize as expected this year. Team scheme or on him...we wont ever know.
 
Development is a tricky discussion for a single season IMO.

Tre didn’t get worse...people learned how to defend him. Cam struggled with confidence transitioning to a higher level of play. It isn’t that they weren’t coached well or they didn’t work at areas they struggled.

Freshman who stay would work on improving in areas teams beat them at...that’s hard to do in-season because it isn’t just Xs and Os...emotions play a huge role in success.
Development is not only individual but also team. Individually, AOC was still lost on Defense and couldn't dribble, goldwire was a massive liability on offense all season and why he only came in to press and change pace, bolden still can't make a shot if it's not a dunk or an easy layup, and bolden won't leave his area for a rebound when he's almost every game the longest/tallest player on the court. That's why he's a terrible rebounder. Jack white lost all confidence and was clueless and scared on the offensive end the last 3 months of the season. Delaurier is still clueless on the court a lot of times and can't shoot, although he did play his best game from an effort and finishing standpoint against MSU. What improvements did you see from our returning players? The none group for me is Bolden, AOC, Jack, Goldwire. I saw Javin learn to foul a little bit less as the season went on and be ready on offense for passes for easy layups/dunks. Seriously, i saw almost no improvement from returning players. THAT IS ALARMING!

Team standpoint, duke did not improve much at all throughout the season. Teams packed it in vs duke and our game plan was to shoot 3's despite shooting 30% from 3. Dukes strength was running, yet we stopped doing that all together. Maybe because the lack of development from our depth, i'm not sure? There was no development of a half court offense. Our offense in the half court was Zion being Zion and RJ scoring through contact. We high screened one of our bigs on RJ all season, yet our bigs are terrible shooters and don't have a good feel for rolling. WHy not do that with Zion? Only reason we won more than 10 games in ACC play is Zion. I think without Zion we win 7 to 9 games in ACC play. Ugly truth IMO.

Tre Jones absolutely got worse, it's not even debatable. He shot 49% from the field the first half of the season and shot 36% from the field the second half. Teams learned how to defend him? Letting him shoot wide open 3's isn't learning how to defend someone, it's not defending them. UCF didn't defend Tre. Winston didn't defend tre and let him sit in the corner while he stalked everyone looking for steals/deflections. The first half of the season he only had 1 game with over two 3 point attempts, second half of the season he had 12 games with over two 3 point attempts. It's bad on so many levels.
 
Cam tried to drive much more early in the season and really struggled. His scoring around the rim this year was a real weakness.

He isn’t super athletic attacking the basket and struggled with contact. That’s a prime example of playing against high school kids vs college kids.
 
Cam tried to drive much more early in the season and really struggled. His scoring around the rim this year was a real weakness.

He isn’t super athletic attacking the basket and struggled with contact. That’s a prime example of playing against high school kids vs college kids.
Agree. Cam is extremely athletic, you watch warm ups in person and it is impressive. He is more athletic than RJ, but in a game, it's like he forgets to jump and that he is 6'8 or 6'9 with a long wingspan. He just puts his head down, gets out of control, loses balance, and nothing good happens. If he had his head up, be patient on drives, stay balance, and learn a little 5-10 foot floater he could be lethal. But again, all season, no improvements. He was head down crashing into players even in the MSU game.
 
I don’t disagree about the lack of development from longer term players.

I had mentioned in another thread that their roles are so marginalized each season before it starts based on the one and done turnover. Many of the Duke greats in the earlier years weren’t big producers as freshman but developed based on need over time and from that their confidence grew. I know from my point of view...the drive over the off-season would be higher if I felt a big role was available. Right now they go into the offseason with uncertainty...just how it is.

Duke has always tried to win every game under K. It has given Duke some amazing numbers and title chances...just the drive to always win. But no question it has also lead to limited play time even early season. Game time is still the best way to grow and learn what you can/need to do as a player.

I loved K going to Goldwire and AOC late in the season for those small stretches. Honestly I felt the change in their play was so dramatic...but it was only a few games for each and then they were gone.
 
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