Way-Too-Early Top 25 for 2018-19

[hart2chesson]

Yeah I’m kind of thinking the Heels might be better off without him.

His 3 pt shooting really seemed to tail off end of year. In fact he even helped shoot us nearly back to an improbable comeback in Brooklyn w/his errant 3s. Johnson though might be tempted to test the waters though just to see where he measures up. Roy Knew's short leash will probably prohibit him from leaving. Just glad "push off" Berry is history. Loved that beating A&M put on em!

OFC

 

[GillJET]

His 3 pt shooting really seemed to tail off end of year. In fact he even helped shoot us nearly back to an improbable comeback in Brooklyn w/his errant 3s. Johnson though might be tempted to test the waters though just to see where he measures up. Roy Knew's short leash will probably prohibit him from leaving. Just glad "push off" Berry is history. Loved that beating A&M put on em!

OFC

Man I still want to go back and watch that A&M-Heels game. I refused to watch it live, didn't even check for any updates during the game. But boy was I happy when I checked my phone after the game was over.

 

[dukedevilz]

Villanova's best-case scenario for a starting lineup would be: Jahvon Quinerly, Phil Booth, Donte DiVincenzo, Eric Paschall, Omari Spellman. That's a pretty solid group right there. No way Bridges and Brunson come back; they're both graduating this spring, and they're leaving with 2 national titles (although I like the idea of having them as grad transfers). Spellman and DiVinceno could also leave, but I expect at least one of them will be back.

I think Villanova-Kansas should be 1-2 to start the 2019 season (not sure about the order at this point). Quite a few permutations for possible lineups still on the table for Kansas. Decisions to be made by Vick, Newman, Romeo Langford, and Doke. But with the transfers and incoming class, they are bound to have a super-talented starting 5. I would project the starters to be: Devon Dotson, LaGerald Vick, KJ Lawson, Dedric Lawson, Udoka Azubuike.

I think Gonzaga is a legitimate title contender in 2019 if everyone comes back. Hachimura, Tillie, and Norvell could all be potential 1st-Rounders. Josh Perkins will be the senior leader, and Brandon Clarke posted some impressive stats at San Jose State: 17.5 ppg, 8.9 reb, 2.6 blk, 58.9% fg. That's a heckuva of a starting 5.

 

[dukiejay]

I love Grayson. He wasn't close to our best defender this season. Best communicator and hardest working? That I can maybe get behind.

And while Gary shot bad from three in the Elite Eight game, he and Trevon kept us in it by scoring in the paint. They combined to go 12-for-18 inside the arc (Trevon 7-of-10 and Gary 5-of-8) against Kansas. Gary's one fault that game was that he spent too much time settling for outside jumpers.

 

[christophero]

If Gary returns, and I remain doubtful, he will start for us. There's no way a guy who scored 30 points as a freshman in an ACC road game and will be our most experienced player doesn't start imo.

 

[jwill133]

I love Grayson. He wasn't close to our best defender this season. Best communicator and hardest working? That I can maybe get behind.

And while Gary shot bad from three in the Elite Eight game, he and Trevon kept us in it by scoring in the paint. They combined to go 12-for-18 inside the arc (Trevon 7-of-10 and Gary 5-of-8) against Kansas. Gary's one fault that game was that he spent too much time settling for outside jumpers.

This I agree with.
Grayson was a disaster in man-to-man, frankly because he lacked lateral quickness. He was solid in zone, because of his communication skills. Whereas Gary flipped, Gary was much better in man-to-man than Grayson was, but Gary wasn't near as effective in the zone (Gary also had the toughest task though, being asked to play down low on occasion.)

That Kansas game, though, I may never get over. I don't know what I'm most angry about. The terrible block call on Wendell? Marvin not getting the ball at the end of regulation? Grayson and Gary settling for the 3 all day when it wasn't falling? Trevon going for a steal that gave Kansas the tying 3 in regulation? K playing Javin over Marques when Wendell fouled out? Not playing O'Connell a bit more? Jesus.

 

[dukiejay]

This I agree with.
Grayson was a disaster in man-to-man, frankly because he lacked lateral quickness. He was solid in zone, because of his communication skills. Whereas Gary flipped, Gary was much better in man-to-man than Grayson was, but Gary wasn't near as effective in the zone (Gary also had the toughest task though, being asked to play down low on occasion.)

That Kansas game, though, I may never get over. I don't know what I'm most angry about. The terrible block call on Wendell? Marvin not getting the ball at the end of regulation? Grayson and Gary settling for the 3 all day when it wasn't falling? Trevon going for a steal that gave Kansas the tying 3 in regulation? K playing Javin over Marques when Wendell fouled out? Not playing O'Connell a bit more? Jesus.

Everything that needed to go wrong, went wrong. That's why I maintain, that while veteran leadership is crucial, how can anyone be convinced that we lost that game because of youth? Sometimes teams just make plays at the right time.

If Grayson makes the shot at the end of regulation the conversations we're having today are a lot different.

 

[BlueDaveil]

Guys, we have much bigger things to worry about than our too-early preseason rankings. We will have Michigan State in our too-early bracket region!

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

 

[dukedevilz]

Guys, we have much bigger things to worry about than our too-early preseason rankings. We will have Michigan State in our too-early bracket region!

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

11 ACC Teams in the field. Wow. Color me impressed.

1- Duke
2- Virginia, UNC
4- Virginia Tech
5- Syracuse
7- Clemson, FSU
8- Louisville
9- Boston College
11- Miami, NC State

 

[QC Dukie]

Guys, we have much bigger things to worry about than our too-early preseason rankings. We will have Michigan State in our too-early bracket region!

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

Damn....unx got the cakewalk again

 

[HeLooks2MuchLikeDave]

Malik Newman I think would go pro. The only reason someone like him (and Trent for that matter) would stay, is because the draft class is going to be a good deal weaker next year. But that is even more true for big men. Someone like Wendell could probably be a Top 3 pick if he stuck around--which he wont.

 

[PatrickYates]

Malik Newman I think would go pro. The only reason someone like him (and Trent for that matter) would stay, is because the draft class is going to be a good deal weaker next year. But that is even more true for big men. Someone like Wendell could probably be a Top 3 pick if he stuck around--which he wont.

If you are a 1st round projection, go. Grayson and Paige are shining examples of what can happen if you pass up guaranteed money.

 

[PatrickYates]

Everything that needed to go wrong, went wrong. That's why I maintain, that while veteran leadership is crucial, how can anyone be convinced that we lost that game because of youth? Sometimes teams just make plays at the right time.

If Grayson makes the shot at the end of regulation the conversations we're having today are a lot different.

We lost, primarily, because of poor perimeter shooting. In a broader sense, we lost because of poor coaching decisions that ran the gamut from game strategy to in game decision making.
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Frankly, not having any experienced leaders next year might be a good thing. I think K routinely falls into the trap of thinking that EVERY senior will step up a la Christian, Bobby, Grant, Jon, and Cook. Far too many seniors will fail to be clutch a la Paulus, Allen, Thornton, or Amile. Not that all those guys were bad. But K seems to go all in on the belief, nay, EXPECTATION, that a senior will step up big when we need him too do so. Too often that has led the team to ruination.
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It wasn't just Allen's shooting that was bad vs KU. He had a bad overall game. A smart coaching move would have been to sit him for a big chunk of the second half. AOC, or even Jack White (who would have been fantastic in our zone vs KU) would have made more sense. K just seemed to think Allen was getting ready to turn the corner, despite having seen no evidence of that for nearly 2.25 seasons.

 

[carolinablue34]

cam will be back at unc. OFC

More than likely. My feeling is that Nassir should still start

 

[HeLooks2MuchLikeDave]

Yep, Malik Newman is entering draft and hiring an agent

 

[jwill133]

Yep, Malik Newman is entering draft and hiring an agent

Means we should now be #1 preseason ranked. Not sure how I feel about that.

 

[dachampishere2]

We lost, primarily, because of poor perimeter shooting. In a broader sense, we lost because of poor coaching decisions that ran the gamut from game strategy to in game decision making.
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Frankly, not having any experienced leaders next year might be a good thing. I think K routinely falls into the trap of thinking that EVERY senior will step up a la Christian, Bobby, Grant, Jon, and Cook. Far too many seniors will fail to be clutch a la Paulus, Allen, Thornton, or Amile. Not that all those guys were bad. But K seems to go all in on the belief, nay, EXPECTATION, that a senior will step up big when we need him too do so. Too often that has led the team to ruination.
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It wasn't just Allen's shooting that was bad vs KU. He had a bad overall game. A smart coaching move would have been to sit him for a big chunk of the second half. AOC, or even Jack White (who would have been fantastic in our zone vs KU) would have made more sense. K just seemed to think Allen was getting ready to turn the corner, despite having seen no evidence of that for nearly 2.25 seasons.

Coach K definitely gets majority of the blame for the lost. His in game coaching was terrible. He switched the zone up for absolutely no reason. We were doing good with the 2-3 zone and then he wants to play a 1-3-1 with Grayson running all over the place. It was awful. Then he puts Javin in when Carter goes out instead of putting Bolden in. Bolden can man the middle much better than Bagley. The adjustments were piss poor. Trevon should’ve had the ball in a pick-and-roll situation or one-on-one in those last seconds. We know for a fact that he can break his man down and get to the goal. Grayson looked like he had cement in his pockets. He just can’t get to the goal like he used to back in the day.

I’ve been saying the whole year Grayson was about our 4th best player. People wanted him to succeed so much that they couldn’t wait for someone like Duval or Bagley to play bad. I still can’t believe they thought we were better without Bagley. May have been the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time with Duke basketball. I would’ve traded Grayson for Luke Kenner’s every day of the week. He just slowly became old news. Coach K wanted him to be the superstar as well. The difference between Grayson and Quinn was Quinn didn’t force things and he let the game come to him which is why he played so efficient that entire year. Grayson had multiple games where he shout 10+ threes and only made about 2 of them. I will never understand that. I’m glad he’s finally gone so now coach K can actually focus on making the TEAM and not trying to make one player the face and leader when that’s not his personality

 

[Mac9192]

Coach K definitely gets majority of the blame for the lost. His in game coaching was terrible. He switched the zone up for absolutely no reason. We were doing good with the 2-3 zone and then he wants to play a 1-3-1 with Grayson running all over the place. It was awful. Then he puts Javin in when Carter goes out instead of putting Bolden in. Bolden can man the middle much better than Bagley. The adjustments were piss poor. Trevon should’ve had the ball in a pick-and-roll situation or one-on-one in those last seconds. We know for a fact that he can break his man down and get to the goal. Grayson looked like he had cement in his pockets. He just can’t get to the goal like he used to back in the day.

I’ve been saying the whole year Grayson was about our 4th best player. People wanted him to succeed so much that they couldn’t wait for someone like Duval or Bagley to play bad. I still can’t believe they thought we were better without Bagley. May have been the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time with Duke basketball. I would’ve traded Grayson for Luke Kenner’s every day of the week. He just slowly became old news. Coach K wanted him to be the superstar as well. The difference between Grayson and Quinn was Quinn didn’t force things and he let the game come to him which is why he played so efficient that entire year. Grayson had multiple games where he shout 10+ threes and only made about 2 of them. I will never understand that. I’m glad he’s finally gone so now coach K can actually focus on making the TEAM and not trying to make one player the face and leader when that’s not his personality

I'll give you credit for one thing, and that's you're like this team was, and that's consistently inconsistent. One minute you're getting on to others saying how hard it is to win it all and then you turn around and blame the last 2 seasons on Coach K. Wow. You have been consistent in one area though, and that's blaming Grayson. Our defense was bad most of the year, and trading out Grayson for Luke would have forced our offense to score over 100 points a game just to win.
I like Bagley, an immense talent, but there is a part of me that says having 2 bigs messed up Duval. I think his numbers would have been better in a spread offense. Also look at Grayson in the 5 games we won without Bagley. Then look at Carter once Bagley came back. I know everyone will say "he was a 20/11 guy. Yes he was, but would others numbers have been better without him? I think so. Our defense would have been a little better. It may not have put as much pressure on our offense to score at least 80.
I think you can have too much talent on a team, and also this particular style of team was one that Coach K had never coached: 2 great bigs. We all know his style is a spread you out, share the ball, and drive to basket. This was nothing like that. 5-0 without Bagley. No matter what you say, that's a fact.

 

[PatrickYates]

Coach K definitely gets majority of the blame for the lost. His in game coaching was terrible. He switched the zone up for absolutely no reason. We were doing good with the 2-3 zone and then he wants to play a 1-3-1 with Grayson running all over the place. It was awful. Then he puts Javin in when Carter goes out instead of putting Bolden in. Bolden can man the middle much better than Bagley. The adjustments were piss poor. Trevon should’ve had the ball in a pick-and-roll situation or one-on-one in those last seconds. We know for a fact that he can break his man down and get to the goal. Grayson looked like he had cement in his pockets. He just can’t get to the goal like he used to back in the day.

I’ve been saying the whole year Grayson was about our 4th best player. People wanted him to succeed so much that they couldn’t wait for someone like Duval or Bagley to play bad. I still can’t believe they thought we were better without Bagley. May have been the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time with Duke basketball. I would’ve traded Grayson for Luke Kenner’s every day of the week. He just slowly became old news. Coach K wanted him to be the superstar as well. The difference between Grayson and Quinn was Quinn didn’t force things and he let the game come to him which is why he played so efficient that entire year. Grayson had multiple games where he shout 10+ threes and only made about 2 of them. I will never understand that. I’m glad he’s finally gone so now coach K can actually focus on making the TEAM and not trying to make one player the face and leader when that’s not his personality

I actually understand and agree with K changing the D vs KU. Toward the end of the first half, KU started to pick apart the zone. So K threw some new looks at them. It didn't work, mostly because KU hit a few of the hardest shots in hoops, the baseline 3. The new Defenses failed, but K had to try something. The 2-3 was getting sliced up. At worst, the new defensive looks forced KU to take 2-3 seconds in the half court to ascertain what D we were in.
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The real takeaway was that a zone d won't work late in the NCAAT. The zone only works if the other team has some combo of poor shooting or poor decision making. KU's PG makes good decisions, and they made their perimeter jumpers. The zone cannot beat that. Even so, our D did enough to win the game, our shoots just couldn't hit.
.
And you are right about Allen. People wanted him to succeed to the point that they unfairly lambasted Duval. Heck, Duval should be PO'd at Allen and Trent. TD got each one at least 1.5-2 WIDE OPEN threes a game. The inconsistent shooting cost TD 1-2 assists per game. If they make more shots, we win a few more games, get that 1 seed over Xavier (with them as our 2 most likely), and don't face Nova until Monday. With an added bonus that TD's assist numbers are higher by 1-2 assists per game. With those extra assists, he'd be a late lottery pick at worst.
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In each of our losses this year, Allen (and GT, to a lesser extent), was no worse than one of the top 2 reasons we lost. We needed him to be an elite shooter this year. Not elite overall as a player. Not elite on D. Not even an elite leader. We just needed him to make 3pt shots at 40%ish on a decent number of shots. Instead he was barely above 20% in many of our losses. And how he got to that 20% was back breaking. When you shoot 20% on 6-7 shots, it is bad. When you shoot 20% on 14+shots it is horrific. I'm not sure any team in CBB can over come that.
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But people refuse to put the blame where it belongs. Allen was the primary reason this season was a huge disappointment. Sure, TD and GT could have made a few more 3s. Bags could have played better D. Carter could have been a little better/faster with his post moves. TD could have cut down on the TOs. But all of that was within acceptable limits. GA's shooting was a killer. If he'd have shot 35% in the games we lost, which is mediocre for a shooter, we'd barely have lost any games this year.
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Allen had a great 10 minute stretch in the national title game. He went full ball hog as a soph, during which he had 2ish good months from mid Dec to late Feb/very early March. He fell off after that and has been pretty mediocre on O ever since, while continuing to be really bad at D. K's insistence on featuring Allen wrecked 3 straight seasons. Ingram should have been the go to player 2 years ago, and Tatum should have been the go to last year, with Luke playing the role of sidekick. This year, it should have been Bagley and Carter playing pick and roll with Duval. GA and GT should have been hunting sniper's nests on the perimeter for kick outs. If K had done the previous, we'd have had an elite 8 two years ago, a FF LAST year, and we'd have been playing Nova for the title on Monday. Best case, we'd have played for 3 straight titles, probably winning 1-2. Instead, we had 3 face plants.

 

[jwill133]

I actually understand and agree with K changing the D vs KU. Toward the end of the first half, KU started to pick apart the zone. So K threw some new looks at them. It didn't work, mostly because KU hit a few of the hardest shots in hoops, the baseline 3. The new Defenses failed, but K had to try something. The 2-3 was getting sliced up. At worst, the new defensive looks forced KU to take 2-3 seconds in the half court to ascertain what D we were in.
.
The real takeaway was that a zone d won't work late in the NCAAT. The zone only works if the other team has some combo of poor shooting or poor decision making. KU's PG makes good decisions, and they made their perimeter jumpers. The zone cannot beat that. Even so, our D did enough to win the game, our shoots just couldn't hit.
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And you are right about Allen. People wanted him to succeed to the point that they unfairly lambasted Duval. Heck, Duval should be PO'd at Allen and Trent. TD got each one at least 1.5-2 WIDE OPEN threes a game. The inconsistent shooting cost TD 1-2 assists per game. If they make more shots, we win a few more games, get that 1 seed over Xavier (with them as our 2 most likely), and don't face Nova until Monday. With an added bonus that TD's assist numbers are higher by 1-2 assists per game. With those extra assists, he'd be a late lottery pick at worst.
.
In each of our losses this year, Allen (and GT, to a lesser extent), was no worse than one of the top 2 reasons we lost. We needed him to be an elite shooter this year. Not elite overall as a player. Not elite on D. Not even an elite leader. We just needed him to make 3pt shots at 40%ish on a decent number of shots. Instead he was barely above 20% in many of our losses. And how he got to that 20% was back breaking. When you shoot 20% on 6-7 shots, it is bad. When you shoot 20% on 14+shots it is horrific. I'm not sure any team in CBB can over come that.
.
But people refuse to put the blame where it belongs. Allen was the primary reason this season was a huge disappointment. Sure, TD and GT could have made a few more 3s. Bags could have played better D. Carter could have been a little better/faster with his post moves. TD could have cut down on the TOs. But all of that was within acceptable limits. GA's shooting was a killer. If he'd have shot 35% in the games we lost, which is mediocre for a shooter, we'd barely have lost any games this year.
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Allen had a great 10 minute stretch in the national title game. He went full ball hog as a soph, during which he had 2ish good months from mid Dec to late Feb/very early March. He fell off after that and has been pretty mediocre on O ever since, while continuing to be really bad at D. K's insistence on featuring Allen wrecked 3 straight seasons. Ingram should have been the go to player 2 years ago, and Tatum should have been the go to last year, with Luke playing the role of sidekick. This year, it should have been Bagley and Carter playing pick and roll with Duval. GA and GT should have been hunting sniper's nests on the perimeter for kick outs. If K had done the previous, we'd have had an elite 8 two years ago, a FF LAST year, and we'd have been playing Nova for the title on Monday. Best case, we'd have played for 3 straight titles, probably winning 1-2. Instead, we had 3 face plants.

Spot on. Grayson was definitely our emotional/vocal leader. But we didn't need him to lead by example, we had plenty of talented players to do that. We needed Grayson to make 3's at an efficient clip, and he just didn't do that.

That's also all that he will be asked to do at the next level, is to make 40% of his threes. If he can, he will be in the NBA a long time. If he shoots like this year, he will be in Europe.

 

[dukiejay]

I actually understand and agree with K changing the D vs KU. Toward the end of the first half, KU started to pick apart the zone. So K threw some new looks at them. It didn't work, mostly because KU hit a few of the hardest shots in hoops, the baseline 3. The new Defenses failed, but K had to try something. The 2-3 was getting sliced up. At worst, the new defensive looks forced KU to take 2-3 seconds in the half court to ascertain what D we were in.
.
The real takeaway was that a zone d won't work late in the NCAAT. The zone only works if the other team has some combo of poor shooting or poor decision making. KU's PG makes good decisions, and they made their perimeter jumpers. The zone cannot beat that. Even so, our D did enough to win the game, our shoots just couldn't hit.
.
And you are right about Allen. People wanted him to succeed to the point that they unfairly lambasted Duval. Heck, Duval should be PO'd at Allen and Trent. TD got each one at least 1.5-2 WIDE OPEN threes a game. The inconsistent shooting cost TD 1-2 assists per game. If they make more shots, we win a few more games, get that 1 seed over Xavier (with them as our 2 most likely), and don't face Nova until Monday. With an added bonus that TD's assist numbers are higher by 1-2 assists per game. With those extra assists, he'd be a late lottery pick at worst.
.
In each of our losses this year, Allen (and GT, to a lesser extent), was no worse than one of the top 2 reasons we lost. We needed him to be an elite shooter this year. Not elite overall as a player. Not elite on D. Not even an elite leader. We just needed him to make 3pt shots at 40%ish on a decent number of shots. Instead he was barely above 20% in many of our losses. And how he got to that 20% was back breaking. When you shoot 20% on 6-7 shots, it is bad. When you shoot 20% on 14+shots it is horrific. I'm not sure any team in CBB can over come that.
.
But people refuse to put the blame where it belongs. Allen was the primary reason this season was a huge disappointment. Sure, TD and GT could have made a few more 3s. Bags could have played better D. Carter could have been a little better/faster with his post moves. TD could have cut down on the TOs. But all of that was within acceptable limits. GA's shooting was a killer. If he'd have shot 35% in the games we lost, which is mediocre for a shooter, we'd barely have lost any games this year.
.
Allen had a great 10 minute stretch in the national title game. He went full ball hog as a soph, during which he had 2ish good months from mid Dec to late Feb/very early March. He fell off after that and has been pretty mediocre on O ever since, while continuing to be really bad at D. K's insistence on featuring Allen wrecked 3 straight seasons. Ingram should have been the go to player 2 years ago, and Tatum should have been the go to last year, with Luke playing the role of sidekick. This year, it should have been Bagley and Carter playing pick and roll with Duval. GA and GT should have been hunting sniper's nests on the perimeter for kick outs. If K had done the previous, we'd have had an elite 8 two years ago, a FF LAST year, and we'd have been playing Nova for the title on Monday. Best case, we'd have played for 3 straight titles, probably winning 1-2. Instead, we had 3 face plants.

Wow. A lot of assumptions being passed off as facts here. Who would have ever thought playing in the national championship game for four straight seasons was doable with just one simple, easy-to-see adjustment each year?

 

[Mac9192]

I actually understand and agree with K changing the D vs KU. Toward the end of the first half, KU started to pick apart the zone. So K threw some new looks at them. It didn't work, mostly because KU hit a few of the hardest shots in hoops, the baseline 3. The new Defenses failed, but K had to try something. The 2-3 was getting sliced up. At worst, the new defensive looks forced KU to take 2-3 seconds in the half court to ascertain what D we were in.
.
The real takeaway was that a zone d won't work late in the NCAAT. The zone only works if the other team has some combo of poor shooting or poor decision making. KU's PG makes good decisions, and they made their perimeter jumpers. The zone cannot beat that. Even so, our D did enough to win the game, our shoots just couldn't hit.
.
And you are right about Allen. People wanted him to succeed to the point that they unfairly lambasted Duval. Heck, Duval should be PO'd at Allen and Trent. TD got each one at least 1.5-2 WIDE OPEN threes a game. The inconsistent shooting cost TD 1-2 assists per game. If they make more shots, we win a few more games, get that 1 seed over Xavier (with them as our 2 most likely), and don't face Nova until Monday. With an added bonus that TD's assist numbers are higher by 1-2 assists per game. With those extra assists, he'd be a late lottery pick at worst.
.
In each of our losses this year, Allen (and GT, to a lesser extent), was no worse than one of the top 2 reasons we lost. We needed him to be an elite shooter this year. Not elite overall as a player. Not elite on D. Not even an elite leader. We just needed him to make 3pt shots at 40%ish on a decent number of shots. Instead he was barely above 20% in many of our losses. And how he got to that 20% was back breaking. When you shoot 20% on 6-7 shots, it is bad. When you shoot 20% on 14+shots it is horrific. I'm not sure any team in CBB can over come that.
.
But people refuse to put the blame where it belongs. Allen was the primary reason this season was a huge disappointment. Sure, TD and GT could have made a few more 3s. Bags could have played better D. Carter could have been a little better/faster with his post moves. TD could have cut down on the TOs. But all of that was within acceptable limits. GA's shooting was a killer. If he'd have shot 35% in the games we lost, which is mediocre for a shooter, we'd barely have lost any games this year.
.
Allen had a great 10 minute stretch in the national title game. He went full ball hog as a soph, during which he had 2ish good months from mid Dec to late Feb/very early March. He fell off after that and has been pretty mediocre on O ever since, while continuing to be really bad at D. K's insistence on featuring Allen wrecked 3 straight seasons. Ingram should have been the go to player 2 years ago, and Tatum should have been the go to last year, with Luke playing the role of sidekick. This year, it should have been Bagley and Carter playing pick and roll with Duval. GA and GT should have been hunting sniper's nests on the perimeter for kick outs. If K had done the previous, we'd have had an elite 8 two years ago, a FF LAST year, and we'd have been playing Nova for the title on Monday. Best case, we'd have played for 3 straight titles, probably winning 1-2. Instead, we had 3 face plants.

Wow, blaming Allen for our season. You said a mouthful with this post, most bad. Blame our one senior for our failing to win it all. Wow. Never mind Duval was erratic for a while, or Bagley couldn't play defense, no it's all on Grayson.
You won't find anyone here probably that wished he had shot the ball better, but his leadership was huge. Some of you guys can't see the forest for the trees in front of you.

 

[hart2chesson]

I cant get over the slamming of Allen. Kid barely misses a shot on the law of physics to get us to the Final Four and he's blamed for our SEASON????!!! Funny he was the toast of the town when that same shot went in vs UVA at home in '16. Think about that...Lay off of him...do you really think we go 5-0 without Bagley this year, + beat MSU w/o Grayson??!!

I wont argue his outside shooting most of the year, but I saw enough hustle, Duke pride and leadership from that kid to know he deserves better.

OFC

 

[PatrickYates]

Wow. A lot of assumptions being passed off as facts here. Who would have ever thought playing in the national championship game for four straight seasons was doable with just one simple, easy-to-see adjustment each year?

Any reasonably competent coach. Ingram is turning into a superstar in the NBA this year. That would have been accelerated if K had fostered an alpha dog mentality in him by forcing the team to work through him on O. Tatum is having a historically good Rookie year, and would be the ROY in a runaway vote if not for the presence of a 2nd year rookie that was healthy enough to play all of last year but who was held out for tanking purposes. Letting Luke be the lead option last year was questionable when a guy like Tatum is on the roster. Questionable, but defensible. Letting Allen be the second option was indefensible. That is "the sun rises in the north and sets in the east" level stupid. And this year. My god. Letting Duval run a pick and roll with one of our bigs, allowing him to penetrate, lob over the D to the second bid, while the pick setting big crashes the boards is just obvious. But Allen wouldn't have been better than the 4th option. Sure, the team would have won, but that wouldn't have been good for Allen, so we never tried it.
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Folks, Allen was never a great player. He had a good few months as a soph. Outside of that he's been at best mediocre, and at worst a weak link. Yes, he saved our tails in the NCAAT game. But that is all he's done for this team. He's hurt us ever since then.

 

[PatrickYates]

I cant get over the slamming of Allen. Kid barely misses a shot on the law of physics to get us to the Final Four and he's blamed for our SEASON????!!! Funny he was the toast of the town when that same shot went in vs UVA at home in '16. Think about that...Lay off of him...do you really think we go 5-0 without Bagley this year, + beat MSU w/o Grayson??!!

I wont argue his outside shooting most of the year, but I saw enough hustle, Duke pride and leadership from that kid to know he deserves better.

OFC

In our bad/devastating losses this year:

Vs
Overall 3pt
BC 5-20 and 1-9
NCSU 3-9 and 1-4
UVA 2-8 and 0-2
SJU 1-7 and 1-4
UNC 3-9 and 2-8
VT 6-18 and 4-15
UNC 4-11 and 4-10
KU 3-13 and 2-9

Yeah, that was devastating from a guy who we needed to be a leader. His best game was the loss vs UNC in the ACCT. That was a pretty decent overall performance. But the rest were killers. Those BC and SJU games were likely the difference between a 1 and 2 seed. BC, SJU, and VT were the difference. All winnable game where he could barely drop it in the ocean. Like I said, he's gotten a pass for 3 years. But he was bad on O this year, and a horrific failure point on Defense for the previous 2 years.
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He was so bad on d this year, along with Bags, that we were forced to switch to a zone. And we were forced. Prior to Bag's injury, teams were rolling our man d by getting Allen and Bagley on one side, with the other three on the opposite side, and then attacking and scoring at well. We went to a zone to hide Allen and Bags. Further, our zone was best when Duval was at the top with Allen and Trent flanking him. We had to go away from that on occasion because Allen was still a problem.
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So, he was mediocre on O, and horrific on D. We love the kid for helping us win a title, and rightly so. But these last few years he was one of the main problems on the team.

 

[jwill133]

Any reasonably competent coach. Ingram is turning into a superstar in the NBA this year. That would have been accelerated if K had fostered an alpha dog mentality in him by forcing the team to work through him on O. Tatum is having a historically good Rookie year, and would be the ROY in a runaway vote if not for the presence of a 2nd year rookie that was healthy enough to play all of last year but who was held out for tanking purposes. Letting Luke be the lead option last year was questionable when a guy like Tatum is on the roster. Questionable, but defensible. Letting Allen be the second option was indefensible. That is "the sun rises in the north and sets in the east" level stupid. And this year. My god. Letting Duval run a pick and roll with one of our bigs, allowing him to penetrate, lob over the D to the second bid, while the pick setting big crashes the boards is just obvious. But Allen wouldn't have been better than the 4th option. Sure, the team would have won, but that wouldn't have been good for Allen, so we never tried it.
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Folks, Allen was never a great player. He had a good few months as a soph. Outside of that he's been at best mediocre, and at worst a weak link. Yes, he saved our tails in the NCAAT game. But that is all he's done for this team. He's hurt us ever since then.

I think you have gone a bit over the top here. Grayson definitely was a great player. But we didn't need him to be 2016 Grayson this past year, we needed him to be 2015 Matt Jones. Play solid defense and make open three's. We didn't need him to score 25 a game, or to be the go-to-guy down the stretch when we needed a bucket, we had plenty of other options.

I'll take a title 1 in 4 years everyday of the week, and Grayson did just that, he had a great career. I do wish he played better against Kansas though, it's not the final shot I'm most upset about, it's about continuing to take terrible threes when we had 2 monsters inside that I'm most upset about.

 

[DukefanKY]

I bet I could cherry pick and find games that Michael Jordan, Lebron james, and Steph Curry have lost and had bad numbers in, making them look bad. But you have to look at everything. How about the Mich state game? Or the other games we played without Bags. I still believe Bagley and Carter being in the game at the same time limited us. The paint was so clogged up with them both in there that Duval couldn't penetrate, which was his strength, and it also made it more difficult to get the ball in to them.
Maybe if we had played more spread out, and balanced between going to the inside, and kicking out to open shooters, our outside shooting would have been better. Trent and Allen both looked to me like they were able to get more into a Rythym the games that we actually played that way.

 

[GAAP]

I think you have gone a bit over the top here.

Probably more than "a bit."

 

[hart2chesson]

I guess Grayson is solely to blame as well for our poor rebounding showing vs Kansas. Yeah since its pile on day, lets blame him for that as well.

OFC

 

[dachampishere2]

I'll give you credit for one thing, and that's you're like this team was, and that's consistently inconsistent. One minute you're getting on to others saying how hard it is to win it all and then you turn around and blame the last 2 seasons on Coach K. Wow. You have been consistent in one area though, and that's blaming Grayson. Our defense was bad most of the year, and trading out Grayson for Luke would have forced our offense to score over 100 points a game just to win.
I like Bagley, an immense talent, but there is a part of me that says having 2 bigs messed up Duval. I think his numbers would have been better in a spread offense. Also look at Grayson in the 5 games we won without Bagley. Then look at Carter once Bagley came back. I know everyone will say "he was a 20/11 guy. Yes he was, but would others numbers have been better without him? I think so. Our defense would have been a little better. It may not have put as much pressure on our offense to score at least 80.
I think you can have too much talent on a team, and also this particular style of team was one that Coach K had never coached: 2 great bigs. We all know his style is a spread you out, share the ball, and drive to basket. This was nothing like that. 5-0 without Bagley. No matter what you say, that's a fact.

Yes it is hard to win a championship. I didn't say anything about winning a championship. But I be damn if we shouldn't have made 3 Final Fours in the last 4 years. Hell even Calipari did it. We all can agree Coach K is better than Calipari. Calipari has done it with freshmen teams. He went to 4 Final Fours in a five-year stretch. So yes I blame Coach K. We should have been in the Final Four the last two years. Not guaranteed a title but we should be playing for it on the biggest stage.

And stop bringing up those five games. He balled out against Michigan State along with one helluva game from Trevon. The other 4 victories were against GT, VT @ home, Clemson, and Louisville @ home. It's obvious we were gonna win at home because we were significantly better at home. The road games were against Georgia Tech (TRASH) and Clemson (playing without their point guard). Every single offensive number went down with Bagley out. The defense got better because we played zone. So let's not act like Grayson was a driving force. He was just a pretty good player. Outside of sophomore year, he only had some pretty good games. He hasn't looked like an All-American at all for 3 of 4 years in school. They GAVE him All-ACC this year. You bring up those 5 wins but go look at our losses and tell me how Grayson played.

 

[dachampishere2]

I actually understand and agree with K changing the D vs KU. Toward the end of the first half, KU started to pick apart the zone. So K threw some new looks at them. It didn't work, mostly because KU hit a few of the hardest shots in hoops, the baseline 3. The new Defenses failed, but K had to try something. The 2-3 was getting sliced up. At worst, the new defensive looks forced KU to take 2-3 seconds in the half court to ascertain what D we were in.
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The real takeaway was that a zone d won't work late in the NCAAT. The zone only works if the other team has some combo of poor shooting or poor decision making. KU's PG makes good decisions, and they made their perimeter jumpers. The zone cannot beat that. Even so, our D did enough to win the game, our shoots just couldn't hit.
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And you are right about Allen. People wanted him to succeed to the point that they unfairly lambasted Duval. Heck, Duval should be PO'd at Allen and Trent. TD got each one at least 1.5-2 WIDE OPEN threes a game. The inconsistent shooting cost TD 1-2 assists per game. If they make more shots, we win a few more games, get that 1 seed over Xavier (with them as our 2 most likely), and don't face Nova until Monday. With an added bonus that TD's assist numbers are higher by 1-2 assists per game. With those extra assists, he'd be a late lottery pick at worst.
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In each of our losses this year, Allen (and GT, to a lesser extent), was no worse than one of the top 2 reasons we lost. We needed him to be an elite shooter this year. Not elite overall as a player. Not elite on D. Not even an elite leader. We just needed him to make 3pt shots at 40%ish on a decent number of shots. Instead he was barely above 20% in many of our losses. And how he got to that 20% was back breaking. When you shoot 20% on 6-7 shots, it is bad. When you shoot 20% on 14+shots it is horrific. I'm not sure any team in CBB can over come that.
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But people refuse to put the blame where it belongs. Allen was the primary reason this season was a huge disappointment. Sure, TD and GT could have made a few more 3s. Bags could have played better D. Carter could have been a little better/faster with his post moves. TD could have cut down on the TOs. But all of that was within acceptable limits. GA's shooting was a killer. If he'd have shot 35% in the games we lost, which is mediocre for a shooter, we'd barely have lost any games this year.
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Allen had a great 10 minute stretch in the national title game. He went full ball hog as a soph, during which he had 2ish good months from mid Dec to late Feb/very early March. He fell off after that and has been pretty mediocre on O ever since, while continuing to be really bad at D. K's insistence on featuring Allen wrecked 3 straight seasons. Ingram should have been the go to player 2 years ago, and Tatum should have been the go to last year, with Luke playing the role of sidekick. This year, it should have been Bagley and Carter playing pick and roll with Duval. GA and GT should have been hunting sniper's nests on the perimeter for kick outs. If K had done the previous, we'd have had an elite 8 two years ago, a FF LAST year, and we'd have been playing Nova for the title on Monday. Best case, we'd have played for 3 straight titles, probably winning 1-2. Instead, we had 3 face plants.

No we didn't have to change the defense from the 2-3. If we wanted to slow them down then all we had to do was press them. Not necessarily to cause a turnover but by the time they get in the halfcourt they have about 15 seconds left to do something. Meaning things would get rushed. I've never been a fan of zone defenses. It worked for this team but I believe if we played the style of defense that we played in 2010 we would've been more successful. Kind of pack it in and if they want to shoot deep threes then we're fine with that.

 

[dachampishere2]

I think you have gone a bit over the top here. Grayson definitely was a great player. But we didn't need him to be 2016 Grayson this past year, we needed him to be 2015 Matt Jones. Play solid defense and make open three's. We didn't need him to score 25 a game, or to be the go-to-guy down the stretch when we needed a bucket, we had plenty of other options.

I'll take a title 1 in 4 years everyday of the week, and Grayson did just that, he had a great career. I do wish he played better against Kansas though, it's not the final shot I'm most upset about, it's about continuing to take terrible threes when we had 2 monsters inside that I'm most upset about.

No we needed him to be Andre Dawkins. He couldn't be Matt Jones because he's not a defender and never will be a solid defender. We needed him to be a sniper like Dre or like Seth back in 2011 when Kyrie was out. Just hit open shots at a good clip. Coach K gave him too much responsibility and he tried to do too much. This season our game should've been to feed the post and run high pick and roll for Duval so he can create for shooters. Get out and transition and find the shooters whenever we get an opportunity to. Grayson ball handling and playmaking should've been at a minimum. Only time we need you to make plays for other people is when you penetrate off a closeout

 

[Mac9192]

Yes it is hard to win a championship. I didn't say anything about winning a championship. But I be damn if we shouldn't have made 3 Final Fours in the last 4 years. Hell even Calipari did it. We all can agree Coach K is better than Calipari. Calipari has done it with freshmen teams. He went to 4 Final Fours in a five-year stretch. So yes I blame Coach K. We should have been in the Final Four the last two years. Not guaranteed a title but we should be playing for it on the biggest stage.

And stop bringing up those five games. He balled out against Michigan State along with one helluva game from Trevon. The other 4 victories were against GT, VT @ home, Clemson, and Louisville @ home. It's obvious we were gonna win at home because we were significantly better at home. The road games were against Georgia Tech (TRASH) and Clemson (playing without their point guard). Every single offensive number went down with Bagley out. The defense got better because we played zone. So let's not act like Grayson was a driving force. He was just a pretty good player. Outside of sophomore year, he only had some pretty good games. He hasn't looked like an All-American at all for 3 of 4 years in school. They GAVE him All-ACC this year. You bring up those 5 wins but go look at our losses and tell me how Grayson played.

No, some of you guys want to blame him, and him alone for our losses. I wished he had shot the ball better, and had he hit at least one more shot against Kansas (like the last one in regulation), we would have played Villanova.
But, now here's an area where you and a few others just don't want to discuss, and that's how we got out rebounded so bad against a team that wasn't known for rebounding. See, I have admitted I was disappointed in his shooting percentage, but you fail to recognize how terrible we were in an area where we should have been dominant. Maybe, just maybe, if we grabbed some of those missed shots, do we possibly win? Just a thought. But please, for once try looking at it fairly. Take off your anti Allen goggles, and look at the entire picture.
I know it's tough, but if you're truly a Duke fan, and not one that hopped on the wagon when it slowed down years ago, you will stop blaming one kid and see that others had their issues as well.

 

[dachampishere2]

No, some of you guys want to blame him, and him alone for our losses. I wished he had shot the ball better, and had he hit at least one more shot against Kansas (like the last one in regulation), we would have played Villanova.
But, now here's an area where you and a few others just don't want to discuss, and that's how we got out rebounded so bad against a team that wasn't known for rebounding. See, I have admitted I was disappointed in his shooting percentage, but you fail to recognize how terrible we were in an area where we should have been dominant. Maybe, just maybe, if we grabbed some of those missed shots, do we possibly win? Just a thought. But please, for once try looking at it fairly. Take off your anti Allen goggles, and look at the entire picture.
I know it's tough, but if you're truly a Duke fan, and not one that hopped on the wagon when it slowed down years ago, you will stop blaming one kid and see that others had their issues as well.

I can admit Kansas did a number on us on the backboards. A lot of that was hustle and a lot was being in the right place. Being that we play a zone it's harder to rebound especially deep threes. Even with us losing the rebound battle we still had a chance to win it. I blamed Coach K for the Kansas lost mostly because his in-game coaching was highly questionable. There's no way we should've been in the zone with less than 30 seconds on the clock and we're up by 3. Usually you make the other team drive. Also we could've used a foul and make it a free throw shooting game. Then he doesn't call timeout to set up a play. We could've done much better than Grayson going one on one. Why not run a pick and roll with Bagley and force the guard to switch on him? That's a better shot than what Grayson shot. Then we get to overtime and he put in Javin instead of Marques. I'll never understand that. Marques is better in the middle of the zone and an actual threat to score. So I blame Coach K for the Kansas lost.

I don't blame Grayson until everyone starts picking on Tre or Marvin. There's one constant in every lost...Grayson didn't play good at all in none of the losses and shot us out of most of them. His late game shot selection and decision making was awful all year. That's a fact. Trevon had bad games. Wendell had bad games. Trent had bad games. Grayson had bad games. Marvin had no bad games that I can recall. He produced every night when he was given the opportunity

 

[PatrickYates]

No we didn't have to change the defense from the 2-3. If we wanted to slow them down then all we had to do was press them. Not necessarily to cause a turnover but by the time they get in the halfcourt they have about 15 seconds left to do something. Meaning things would get rushed. I've never been a fan of zone defenses. It worked for this team but I believe if we played the style of defense that we played in 2010 we would've been more successful. Kind of pack it in and if they want to shoot deep threes then we're fine with that.

Trying to press that Kansas team, with Graham at PG and a plethora of quality ball handlers that make good decisions would have been a recipe to lose by 20. Presses disrupt teams that only have 1 good ball handler, or teams that make bad decisions. KU is neither of those things. Further, KU has played games vs a WVU, team whose press makes that half court press Duke ran look like puppy dog kisses.
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As I said, IMO we had to do something vs KU, as they'd started to pick apart our D. Admittedly, the shift failed, and K should have abandoned it earlier to go back to our usual zone. But the real takeaway is that a Zone D won't work vs quality teams. It can get you to the sweet 16, or maybe the elite 8. But a zone D will fail vs the first good offense it runs into.
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Even so, our defense in the KU game is just another scape goat for Allen fans. The D did enough for Duke to win the game. Allen and Trent going 4 for 19 from 3pt land cost us the game. Not TD, not the charging call vs Carter, not the refs, not the failure to get the ball to Bags enough, and not the D. Our shooters missed shots. That is all it came down too in the end. They had open looks, and they missed a bunch of them. Season over.

 

[jwill133]

We can look at the Kansas game from 100 different angles. But DaChamp is right. K's coaching in the last minute of regulation and all of overtime was very John Calipari-ish.
We have the ball with 50 seconds to go up 3, our chances to win were around 95% at that point. We run an okay play, Wendell airballs a lefty hook shot, wasn't the best shot, but definitely was a play Wendell made throughout the year. At that moment, our guys should have KNOWN to get back on defense and not gamble for any steals. We should not have gone for that offensive rebound on Wendell's airball, Marvin did, and he was late getting back, Wendell too. We should have fouled the second it was obvious Kansas had an advantage on the other end.

No time-out at the end of regulation was bad. We have obvious advantages down-low, call a time-out and lets run our BEST PLAY. I would have liked to have ran Duval high screen and role with Bagley, Kansas had no answer for the Duval high screen play. And yep, I will never understand Javin over Marques, didn't make sense on BOTH the offensive and defensive end.

 

[dachampishere2]

Trying to press that Kansas team, with Graham at PG and a plethora of quality ball handlers that make good decisions would have been a recipe to lose by 20. Presses disrupt teams that only have 1 good ball handler, or teams that make bad decisions. KU is neither of those things. Further, KU has played games vs a WVU, team whose press makes that half court press Duke ran look like puppy dog kisses.
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As I said, IMO we had to do something vs KU, as they'd started to pick apart our D. Admittedly, the shift failed, and K should have abandoned it earlier to go back to our usual zone. But the real takeaway is that a Zone D won't work vs quality teams. It can get you to the sweet 16, or maybe the elite 8. But a zone D will fail vs the first good offense it runs into.
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Even so, our defense in the KU game is just another scape goat for Allen fans. The D did enough for Duke to win the game. Allen and Trent going 4 for 19 from 3pt land cost us the game. Not TD, not the charging call vs Carter, not the refs, not the failure to get the ball to Bags enough, and not the D. Our shooters missed shots. That is all it came down too in the end. They had open looks, and they missed a bunch of them. Season over.

I’m not saying press to cause turnovers. Just press to slow things down. That 1-2-2 press worked a lot because we made ppl make long passes across court that took time. It wasn’t to cause turnovers like a West Virginia press.

The defense was a reason we lost because we went from up 6 to down 8 as soon as he made the switch. We were winning so there was no reason to switch anything. Once we went back to our original defense we came back. Our zone was to eliminate 3s but when we switched we gave them corner 3s. He over thought that move

 

[skysdad]

I'm gonna go ahead and say it but I wish we weren't picked as the pre season #1. I hate when I see that. How do all of you feel about that. OFC

 

[jwill133]

I'm gonna go ahead and say it but I wish we weren't picked as the pre season #1. I hate when I see that. How do all of you feel about that. OFC

I usually like it, mainly because it drives UNC and UK fans crazy for the whole offseason. But after the last 2 seasons, I'd prefer to come in as #2, change things up a bit.

 

[Mac9192]

I'm gonna go ahead and say it but I wish we weren't picked as the pre season #1. I hate when I see that. How do all of you feel about that. OFC

I don't mind it when I think it's deserving. This team has nothing to base an expectation off of other than high school. Honestly, I think we should be somewhere between 8-12.