Myth #3: This Duke team will fade down the stretch
We've seen this before right? Duke comes out and dominates November and December. It gets out to a good start in the ACC, but then the wheels come off. The Duke fade is about 2 academic papers away from being considered a scientifically proven phenomenon. Even Duke's own student paper recently acknowledged its existence (in this excellent article.) Pat Forde summed up the prevailing belief in his Forde Minutes article a few weeks ago:
This is yet another good Duke team, with yet another set of apparent flaws. The big men (the young Plumlee brothers, Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek) are still nothing special. The leading men, Jon Scheyer and Kyle Singler, are still overworked. (Scheyer hasn't played fewer than 36 minutes in a game since December, and Singler has gone the full 40 in each of Duke's last two games.)
The Minutes will believe Duke might have a chance to win it all when it sees the Blue Devils actually advance past the Sweet 16 for the first time since Chris Duhon was in uniform. It makes sense. If there's a pattern, why expect anything different this time. Its not like this team has bigger stars than the 2006 team that fizzled in the end. They don't have a game changing athlete like Gerald Henderson was last year. And they don't have a dominant scoring big man for the 4th year in a row. If there was any doubt that this team is flawed, the not-as-close as the score loss to Georgetown ended it.
That said there is some evidence that this team is finally different. While it has had issues, they appear to be getting better, rather than worse as the year goes on. The idea that Duke's big men are nothing special has been shaken by Brian Zoubek's recent (and completely unexpected) rise to rebounding prominence. In the past 7 games Zoubek has been averaging 6.2 pts and 9 rebounds a game in only 21 minutes per game, including 2 16+ rebounding performances in games against Duke's 2 main ACC challengers (Maryland and Vtech) At the same time Krzyzewski has also loosened his bench a bit, with Ryan Kelly and Andre Dawkins getting some recent burn after a period of time apparently spent in the coaching staff's doghouse. While its still statistically insignificant so far, the Duke paper article does point out that this team's correlation is actually positive. They're getting better as time goes on.
Ken Pomeroy's numbers back up this idea. Duke has been slowly rising in his efficiency rankings throughout the season and now sits at #1, with the top ranked offense and 12th ranked defense. Duke has been high in his rankings before, but each year they've slowly slipped down a notch as the season closes up. The key this year? Duke is the #7 offensive rebounding team in the country. Whereas in years past a cold shooting night would doom Coach K's collection of jump shooters, this year they're getting as many shots as they need to get going. Virginia Tech can give testimony to this, as they repeatedly forced bad Duke shots on Sunday night, only to watch as Duke got a rebound, kicked it out, and nailed a wide open 3 pointer. This is not the best shooting Duke team ever. But between rebounds and the way their veteran backcourt takes care of the ball, they certainly get to take the most shots of any Duke team of recent vintage.
Finally and most importantly, this team is not relying on a pair of stars like the flawed 2006 powerhouse, or a group of unproven younger players as they have the last 3 years. This is a team with 3 legitimate veteran stars. Singler, Smith, and Scheyer are all veterans with legitimate cases for first team All-ACC. Since losing to Wisconsin at the beginning of December, Scheyer has gone for 15+ pts in all but 3 games. In those 3 games, Smith compensated each time by scoring 20+. After a slow start to the season Singler has scored 18+ in 8 of his last 11 games, including a 30 point explosion in a critical revenge game against Georgia Tech and double doubles in both of his past 2 games. While its true that Duke relies nearly completely on them for its offense, these 3 players provide a diverse and consistent enough threat that this year the writers at the Chronicle may get to extend their scatterplot all the way through April.
We've seen this before right? Duke comes out and dominates November and December. It gets out to a good start in the ACC, but then the wheels come off. The Duke fade is about 2 academic papers away from being considered a scientifically proven phenomenon. Even Duke's own student paper recently acknowledged its existence (in this excellent article.) Pat Forde summed up the prevailing belief in his Forde Minutes article a few weeks ago:
This is yet another good Duke team, with yet another set of apparent flaws. The big men (the young Plumlee brothers, Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek) are still nothing special. The leading men, Jon Scheyer and Kyle Singler, are still overworked. (Scheyer hasn't played fewer than 36 minutes in a game since December, and Singler has gone the full 40 in each of Duke's last two games.)
The Minutes will believe Duke might have a chance to win it all when it sees the Blue Devils actually advance past the Sweet 16 for the first time since Chris Duhon was in uniform. It makes sense. If there's a pattern, why expect anything different this time. Its not like this team has bigger stars than the 2006 team that fizzled in the end. They don't have a game changing athlete like Gerald Henderson was last year. And they don't have a dominant scoring big man for the 4th year in a row. If there was any doubt that this team is flawed, the not-as-close as the score loss to Georgetown ended it.
That said there is some evidence that this team is finally different. While it has had issues, they appear to be getting better, rather than worse as the year goes on. The idea that Duke's big men are nothing special has been shaken by Brian Zoubek's recent (and completely unexpected) rise to rebounding prominence. In the past 7 games Zoubek has been averaging 6.2 pts and 9 rebounds a game in only 21 minutes per game, including 2 16+ rebounding performances in games against Duke's 2 main ACC challengers (Maryland and Vtech) At the same time Krzyzewski has also loosened his bench a bit, with Ryan Kelly and Andre Dawkins getting some recent burn after a period of time apparently spent in the coaching staff's doghouse. While its still statistically insignificant so far, the Duke paper article does point out that this team's correlation is actually positive. They're getting better as time goes on.
Ken Pomeroy's numbers back up this idea. Duke has been slowly rising in his efficiency rankings throughout the season and now sits at #1, with the top ranked offense and 12th ranked defense. Duke has been high in his rankings before, but each year they've slowly slipped down a notch as the season closes up. The key this year? Duke is the #7 offensive rebounding team in the country. Whereas in years past a cold shooting night would doom Coach K's collection of jump shooters, this year they're getting as many shots as they need to get going. Virginia Tech can give testimony to this, as they repeatedly forced bad Duke shots on Sunday night, only to watch as Duke got a rebound, kicked it out, and nailed a wide open 3 pointer. This is not the best shooting Duke team ever. But between rebounds and the way their veteran backcourt takes care of the ball, they certainly get to take the most shots of any Duke team of recent vintage.
Finally and most importantly, this team is not relying on a pair of stars like the flawed 2006 powerhouse, or a group of unproven younger players as they have the last 3 years. This is a team with 3 legitimate veteran stars. Singler, Smith, and Scheyer are all veterans with legitimate cases for first team All-ACC. Since losing to Wisconsin at the beginning of December, Scheyer has gone for 15+ pts in all but 3 games. In those 3 games, Smith compensated each time by scoring 20+. After a slow start to the season Singler has scored 18+ in 8 of his last 11 games, including a 30 point explosion in a critical revenge game against Georgia Tech and double doubles in both of his past 2 games. While its true that Duke relies nearly completely on them for its offense, these 3 players provide a diverse and consistent enough threat that this year the writers at the Chronicle may get to extend their scatterplot all the way through April.
