They're back
posted by LW, Monday, March 29, 2010
I have some doubts that Mike Krzyzewski is on Tigerillustrated this morning, repeatedly refreshing the West End Zone message board to see if I'm eating some crow in the wake of his team's trip to the Final Four.
Krzyzewski probably doesn't know who I am (actually, he definitely doesn't know who I am).
But the criticisms I've leveled against him and his program the past two years or so are pretty closely representative of the criticisms a lot of folks have leveled against him and his program during the same stretch.
So you can bet the man is feeling some fairly rich satisfaction at debunking the skeptics whose numbers had grown the farther Duke was removed from greatness.
For a while now, there has always been a "yeah, but" argument whenever the Blue Devils accomplished something. Impressive feats in the regular season or ACC Tournament were followed with a recitation of their relative NCAA Tournament futility.
They hadn't advanced past the Round of 16 since 2004. Relative to most programs, that's certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Relative to Duke, it's pretty close to an abomination.
They won the ACC Tournament last year but ended up getting pasted by Villanova in the third round of the NCAAs. So when they quickly established themselves as the best team in the ACC during the regular season this year, it was easy for us to point out that they still probably wouldn't make a run in the NCAA Tournament.
They were still too reliant on the 3-pointer. And they still had Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek, two post players whose frailties would get exposed in the NCAA grind against teams with more frontcourt athleticism.
That's why the details behind the Devils' play over the last month have to be so satisfying to Krzyzewski. Duke's frontcourt has actually become an asset, and that's why this team is back at the Final Four.
Yesterday's win over Baylor was the perfect illustration of what separates this team from its predecessors. Duke went nuts from the perimeter, with Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith combining to make nine of 16 from beyond the 3-point arc. But the Blue Devils also dominated the boards, amassing 23 offensive rebounds -- several of them setting up some major second-chance daggers late.
Duke wasn't getting those offensive rebounds in recent years, so the Devils generally lost when they were cold from 3. It's been different this year, when Zoubek has developed into a competent finisher off of offensive rebounds. And it hasn't hurt to have more athleticism from the Plumlee brothers.
Speaking of that athleticism thing, the biggest knock on Krzyzewski in recent years has been his inability to bring enough of it to Durham, while Roy Williams stockpiled it in Chapel Hill.
Well, all that's about to change.
Krzyzewski will lose Scheyer, and that's huge. Thomas and Zoubek are also gone, and that's a lot of experience.
But he'll welcome freshman Kyrie Irving, who's been hailed as the next Jason Williams.
He'll also get Seth Curry, younger brother of Stephen. Clemson fans might recall Seth putting on a show at Littlejohn when Liberty visited in 2008.
Then there's 6-foot-6 wing Carrick Felix, Krzyzewski's first JUCO recruit ever.
Two more signees, guard Tyler Thornton and forward Josh Hairston, will also be in the mix.
Kyle Singler could very well turn pro, and that would be a huge hit. But regardless, it looks like Krzyzewski is quickly disposing of all the criticisms that have dogged his program in recent years.
Looks like Duke is back.
Time for some breakfast...
Caulton Tudor writes about the Devils' ACC Tournament run fueling their NCAA run.
He also says the Final Four trip represents a resounding response to the critics.
Although Mike Krzyzewski long ago abandoned the practice of comparing teams, his mannerisms and body language leave little double that he sees this Final Four trip as rewarding and important as any.
No one is more competitive than the Duke coach and although he’s been quick to salute the achievements of North Carolina under Roy Williams the past few years, he detested the perception that his program had fallen visibly behind the Tar Heels or any other team.
Then, the Duke camp took a hard indirect hit in the recruiting period when top prospect Harrison Barnes opted for Carolina after having given the Blue Devils reason to hope he might pack up for Durham to start the 2010-11 season.
Here's a look at Lance Thomas' late-game heroics.
Excellent, excellent story on Oliver Purnell by Ron Morris of The State.
Morris' newspaper has basically decided to scrap its in-house coverage of the Tigers, but Ron does a heck of a job by writing the definitive piece on all the obstacles OP has overcome.
The most poignant passages of the piece:
The white kids aged 8-12 formed the Berlin Bombers Little League baseball team. Blacks were not allowed to play, even though Junie believed he could be a star on the white team. Junie instead honed his skills with adults on the semi-pro team with his father.
"You talk about watershed marks," Purnell said of being denied a roster spot on a Little League team. "That was something that really bothered me and really hit home with me. I loved baseball, and I never really got to play organized baseball."
And later:
Then came that fateful day a year later when the news of Len Bias' death from a cocaine overdose shook the sports world. Purnell was home with the flu when Driesell called his 32-year-old assistant and told him to clean room 1103 at the Washington Hall dormitory. It was where Bias had partied with his friends.
Purnell never made it to Washington Hall. Knowing it could cost him his job, Purnell refused Driesell's orders to alter what became a crime scene. Within a year, Purnell was the only basketball staff member still employed at Maryland. The news of his courageous decision swept through the college basketball coaching fraternity.
"I think I was fortunate I used pretty good judgment," Purnell said, "which I thought at the time - and I still think today - wasn't anything brilliant. It was just my upbringing, what I was taught. It was just a reaction.
"I tell my players today, when the pressure is really on, that's what's really going to come out. You're going to react. You're not going to have time to think. Your habits, whether good or bad, are going to come out."
Bart Wright of the Greenville News dismisses some of the fiercest criticism against Purnell in the wake of his latest NCAA flameout.
They had barely gotten off the plane from Buffalo by the time an e-mail arrived concerning the relative state of Clemson University basketball and its coach, Oliver Purnell.
It was another first-round NCAA Tournamentloss for the Tigers, the third in as many seasons and somebody was fuming. The e-mailer referred to Purnell as a failure and a loser as a coach, citing examples.
Among the examples was the nonconference home loss to Illinois, a team that didn’t make the tournament; a weak schedule that allows the team to fatten its record without getting better; those three tournament losses in three years, and more.
It went on like that for quite a while, and at the end, you had to realize people finally cared about Clemson basketball, never mind the absurd nature of the complaints.
J.P. Giglio of the Raleigh paper says the ACC is due for a down year in the NFL Draft.
Georgia Tech opens spring drills today, and all of Paul Johnson's practices are open to the public.
Maybe some Clemson defensive coaches should make the trip down and take some notes.
LW
Click here for the "Eye On The Tigers" blog archive.
Link to this entry - Discuss this entry - Return to Blog Home
I have some doubts that Mike Krzyzewski is on Tigerillustrated this morning, repeatedly refreshing the West End Zone message board to see if I'm eating some crow in the wake of his team's trip to the Final Four.
Krzyzewski probably doesn't know who I am (actually, he definitely doesn't know who I am).
But the criticisms I've leveled against him and his program the past two years or so are pretty closely representative of the criticisms a lot of folks have leveled against him and his program during the same stretch.
So you can bet the man is feeling some fairly rich satisfaction at debunking the skeptics whose numbers had grown the farther Duke was removed from greatness.
For a while now, there has always been a "yeah, but" argument whenever the Blue Devils accomplished something. Impressive feats in the regular season or ACC Tournament were followed with a recitation of their relative NCAA Tournament futility.
They hadn't advanced past the Round of 16 since 2004. Relative to most programs, that's certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Relative to Duke, it's pretty close to an abomination.
They won the ACC Tournament last year but ended up getting pasted by Villanova in the third round of the NCAAs. So when they quickly established themselves as the best team in the ACC during the regular season this year, it was easy for us to point out that they still probably wouldn't make a run in the NCAA Tournament.
They were still too reliant on the 3-pointer. And they still had Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek, two post players whose frailties would get exposed in the NCAA grind against teams with more frontcourt athleticism.
That's why the details behind the Devils' play over the last month have to be so satisfying to Krzyzewski. Duke's frontcourt has actually become an asset, and that's why this team is back at the Final Four.
Yesterday's win over Baylor was the perfect illustration of what separates this team from its predecessors. Duke went nuts from the perimeter, with Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith combining to make nine of 16 from beyond the 3-point arc. But the Blue Devils also dominated the boards, amassing 23 offensive rebounds -- several of them setting up some major second-chance daggers late.
Duke wasn't getting those offensive rebounds in recent years, so the Devils generally lost when they were cold from 3. It's been different this year, when Zoubek has developed into a competent finisher off of offensive rebounds. And it hasn't hurt to have more athleticism from the Plumlee brothers.
Speaking of that athleticism thing, the biggest knock on Krzyzewski in recent years has been his inability to bring enough of it to Durham, while Roy Williams stockpiled it in Chapel Hill.
Well, all that's about to change.
Krzyzewski will lose Scheyer, and that's huge. Thomas and Zoubek are also gone, and that's a lot of experience.
But he'll welcome freshman Kyrie Irving, who's been hailed as the next Jason Williams.
He'll also get Seth Curry, younger brother of Stephen. Clemson fans might recall Seth putting on a show at Littlejohn when Liberty visited in 2008.
Then there's 6-foot-6 wing Carrick Felix, Krzyzewski's first JUCO recruit ever.
Two more signees, guard Tyler Thornton and forward Josh Hairston, will also be in the mix.
Kyle Singler could very well turn pro, and that would be a huge hit. But regardless, it looks like Krzyzewski is quickly disposing of all the criticisms that have dogged his program in recent years.
Looks like Duke is back.
Time for some breakfast...
Caulton Tudor writes about the Devils' ACC Tournament run fueling their NCAA run.
He also says the Final Four trip represents a resounding response to the critics.
Although Mike Krzyzewski long ago abandoned the practice of comparing teams, his mannerisms and body language leave little double that he sees this Final Four trip as rewarding and important as any.
No one is more competitive than the Duke coach and although he’s been quick to salute the achievements of North Carolina under Roy Williams the past few years, he detested the perception that his program had fallen visibly behind the Tar Heels or any other team.
Then, the Duke camp took a hard indirect hit in the recruiting period when top prospect Harrison Barnes opted for Carolina after having given the Blue Devils reason to hope he might pack up for Durham to start the 2010-11 season.
Here's a look at Lance Thomas' late-game heroics.
Excellent, excellent story on Oliver Purnell by Ron Morris of The State.
Morris' newspaper has basically decided to scrap its in-house coverage of the Tigers, but Ron does a heck of a job by writing the definitive piece on all the obstacles OP has overcome.
The most poignant passages of the piece:
The white kids aged 8-12 formed the Berlin Bombers Little League baseball team. Blacks were not allowed to play, even though Junie believed he could be a star on the white team. Junie instead honed his skills with adults on the semi-pro team with his father.
"You talk about watershed marks," Purnell said of being denied a roster spot on a Little League team. "That was something that really bothered me and really hit home with me. I loved baseball, and I never really got to play organized baseball."
And later:
Then came that fateful day a year later when the news of Len Bias' death from a cocaine overdose shook the sports world. Purnell was home with the flu when Driesell called his 32-year-old assistant and told him to clean room 1103 at the Washington Hall dormitory. It was where Bias had partied with his friends.
Purnell never made it to Washington Hall. Knowing it could cost him his job, Purnell refused Driesell's orders to alter what became a crime scene. Within a year, Purnell was the only basketball staff member still employed at Maryland. The news of his courageous decision swept through the college basketball coaching fraternity.
"I think I was fortunate I used pretty good judgment," Purnell said, "which I thought at the time - and I still think today - wasn't anything brilliant. It was just my upbringing, what I was taught. It was just a reaction.
"I tell my players today, when the pressure is really on, that's what's really going to come out. You're going to react. You're not going to have time to think. Your habits, whether good or bad, are going to come out."
Bart Wright of the Greenville News dismisses some of the fiercest criticism against Purnell in the wake of his latest NCAA flameout.
They had barely gotten off the plane from Buffalo by the time an e-mail arrived concerning the relative state of Clemson University basketball and its coach, Oliver Purnell.
It was another first-round NCAA Tournamentloss for the Tigers, the third in as many seasons and somebody was fuming. The e-mailer referred to Purnell as a failure and a loser as a coach, citing examples.
Among the examples was the nonconference home loss to Illinois, a team that didn’t make the tournament; a weak schedule that allows the team to fatten its record without getting better; those three tournament losses in three years, and more.
It went on like that for quite a while, and at the end, you had to realize people finally cared about Clemson basketball, never mind the absurd nature of the complaints.
J.P. Giglio of the Raleigh paper says the ACC is due for a down year in the NFL Draft.
Georgia Tech opens spring drills today, and all of Paul Johnson's practices are open to the public.
Maybe some Clemson defensive coaches should make the trip down and take some notes.
LW
Click here for the "Eye On The Tigers" blog archive.
Link to this entry - Discuss this entry - Return to Blog Home
Donnie Patterson. Donnie Patterson is the founder of Patterson Tax Service, located in Easley, S.C. He has been active in tax preparation since 1970, and offers a full range of tax and bookkeeping services.
Larry Williams. Larry has covered the daily beat at Clemson since 2004. Williams, who worked for the Charleston Post & Courier from 2004-08, joined Tigerillustrated.com in November of 2008. He may be reached by email at ldubya08(at)gmail.com. Replace (at) with @.