Category Archives: Miscellaneous

If goofiness equaled basketball skills then the Plumlees would be the best players since Rodman.

Through this entire preseason I’ve read numerous articles that claim that this is the year Duke will become a more balanced team because its big guys are better and stronger.  We get quotes like these from Coach K from this article:

“Our strength right now is our big guys.” Junior forward Ryan Kelly was the leading scorer on the China trip, but Mason and Miles have made huge gains in the workouts and practices since then. Krzyzewski seems to think Miles, who had somewhat of a mediocre junior year, can be an impact player in the post. “The last couple of years, we’ve been a perimeter team, but this year, our big guys need to touch the ball,” he said. “They’re good enough to play with anyone in the country.”

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In what is essentially a glorified practice, it’s hard to draw too many concrete conclusions about what lies ahead for the season. So I’ll try to ignore the big-picture things (e.g., Carolina’s sluggish start, 14-0 run fueled by freshmen + Bullock, etc.) and just post a few observations:

Roy Williams: In observing Roy’s substitution pattern, I was surprised by how closely it resembled his pattern for a typical regular-season game. I thought there might be more experimental line-ups and even more scorer’s-table chaos than usual. Really, though, it was a tight 9-man rotation for most of the game’s first 30 minutes. Bullock replaced Strickland at the 2 around the under-16 timeout, then Strickland replaced Marshall at the 1 near the under-12 timeout. I’d expect that rotation pattern to be rather consistent. The starting 5 played 12.9 minutes as a unit (in which they led 34-23)– a total that’s in line with how they’re used in the regular season. As McAdoo gains seasoning, he’ll be the first frontcourt reserve (it was Watts-for-Henson vs. Pembroke). And the starters will play more total minutes in close games, of course. But already, Roy seems to have a very good handle on how he wants to utilize his personnel this season.

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