Duke's worst back-to-back seasons...

B

Bob in Houston

2,500+ Posts
...combining seed and tournament performance, since 96-97.

96: 8 seed, lost to Eastern Michigan
97: 2 seed, beat Murray State, lost to Providence

07: 6 seed, lost to VCU
08: 2 seed, beat Belmont, lost to WVU

What would concern me, were I a Duke fan, is one trip to the FF in the last seven years, and nothing else past the Sweet 16.
 
What would concern me as a Duke fan is the fact that they don't appear to be any more talented than teams like West Virginia. Coach K apparently refuses to recruit an athletic wing or a legit post player of any kind. If he only wants kids that are going to stick around for 3-4 years, then they will continue to be just another solid program in a power conference. That's just fine with me.
 
<sniff>
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Remind me to feel sorry for them some other time, OK?
 
So at what point do we start to view Duke as perennially overrated? I say starting now, if it hasn't happened already. Texas, in the last 7 years, has had a better Tournament record than Duke and the legendary Coach K.
 
While I like seeing Duke stumble a bit, I still respect Coach K, the program and their achievements over the last 10-15 years. But it seems to me that they just aren't getting the talent they used to. While Duke players have had a spotty record of success in the NBA, at least previous teams were full of guys that were drafted. Maybe they were "tweeners" that weren't cut out for the NBA, but they always had athletic guys. This talent on this years team just doesn't stand out to me. Roy Williams moving in down the street affects the recruiting scene and also makes it much more difficult for Coach K to dominate the ACC like he did for a while there. It will be interesting to see how Coach K adjusts to having to play these UNC teams that are loaded with athletes and 1st round picks.
 
I know all of their guys are highly recruited guys. That doesn't really matter to me. Look at Paulus, Scheyer, King, Zoubek, Thomas, etc. There's not an elite athlete or early entry candidate in the bunch, although they were all highly ranked kids. I like Singler and Henderson, but even those guys are nothing spectacular. Skilled players for sure, but not the type that's going to carry a team into late March/early April on a consistent basis.

Also, Coach K has just fallen in love with the 3 point shot and ball pressure defensively. Both strategies have their benefits, but they both get Duke exposed often. This is nothing new. It's just becoming more obvious to people after a couple of early tournament flameouts.
 
After their bad run from 95-97, Coach K got the bright idea that he should stop recruiting guys like Wojo and Taymon Domzalski (who? exactly). Then he recruited Elton Brand, Shane Battier, Corey Maggette, Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Mike Dunvleavy over the next 3 years.

I imagine he is going to take a look at Paulus, Scheyer, David McClure, Lance Thomas, and Brian Zoubek, and then he is going to have another epiphany pretty soon, i.e. that he can recruit the most talented players in the nation and he doesn't need to settle for "coachable" stiffs from Jersey.
 
I thought they were overrated this year...lost 3 of their last 6 regular season including UNC, then lost in 2nd round of ACC Tournament. It seemed like a 2-seed was a low as they were going to be allowed to drop.

Agree with the sentiments on this thread - they seemed to have lost the elite players and have slipped into mediocrity.

Hook'em!!!
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I actually have a spreadsheet on this, a pretty good measure. Texas has won as many tournament games as Duke over the seven years, but Duke's gotten better seeds.
 
sorry, but, here it comes, what has Texas done head to head vs Duke in that timeframe?
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