Duke

Since I am a Duke fan I suppose I should write something about the team. This is a team I cheer for more than any other team in the NCAA besides Wisconsin and Marquette. Needless to say, I was not very optimistic coming into this season. After losing senior Chris Duhon, freshman Luol Deng, and recruit Shawn Livingston to the NBA; Duke was supposed to be in a rebuilding year instead of its usual "reloading" year. Instead, Coach K has this team playing together, everyone is buying into their roles in his system, and the Dookies are a surprising 16-1 so far this season. Sure, they haven't gotten into the tough part of their ACC schedule yet, but ask anyone, and they will tell you this team was supposed to be about 12-5 at best at this point in the season.

Duke doesn't have a standout player this year. They don't have a national player of the year candidate, and don't even really have a conference player of the year candidate. No one on the team garnishes national attention for what they do on or off the court. Although, Duke doesn't ever have players who demand attention off of the court. Coach K's best teams have always had one or two superstars on the team; Johnny Dawkins (1982-1986), Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley (1988-1992), Shane Battier (1997-2001), and Jason Williams (2000-2003), but this team doesn't have any. The Duke team of 2004-2005 is a team of players who know their individual roles and understand how each of these roles fits into a greater part, the team.

The team does have leaders in senior Daniel Ewing, and juniors Sheldon Williams, and J.J. Redick, but no one stands out as being bigger than the team. Other players on the team fill in holes nicely. Sean Dockery is a different type of player than Ewing is at the point, as he is more of a slasher and doesn't shoot quite as well as Ewing, but he can handle the rock and find open players. DeMarcus Nelson is a nice surprise and brings hope for the point guard position for the future. Lee Melchioni is a dead eye from beyond the arch and takes some of the pressure to score off of Redick and Ewing. Finally, if Shavlik Randolph ever becomes a player, Sheldon Williams won't have to worry so much about getting more than 2 fouls per half.

Duke this year is a lot like the cast of Saved by the Bell. You never heard of these people before they came together and put on a solid program. You didn't expect much and were happily surprised by the results. No stars, just a well cast group with supporting characters holding up the two "leads". After the run was over, people remember them for their roles when they were together and each struggles to find an identity of their own. A few have had mild successes and at least one has killed their career. I think this is a lot like this year's Duke team. Supporting characters are holding up the three leaders on the team. If any of these players go onto success in the NBA (it won't be much success) more will find jobs doing anything other than playing basketball, but they will always be remembered as Duke basketball players in the 2004-2005 season. While I don't see any of the players doing something like getting busted for distributing cocaine or something; the equivalent of Elizabeth Berkley killing her career with Showgirls (by the way, how does Gina Gershon get away from that film unscathed. I mean she is by no means getting killer roles, just check out her imbd.com page, but her career is at least still going), none of these players are going to be stars in the NBA.

Coach K is able to coach this team the way he wants to, without having to design gameplans around one or two players. Even though it never really seemed like egos got in the way at Duke, coach K doesn't even have to worry about that at all this season. This team could surprise people in the tourney this year. It's one of those teams which could either get bounced in the second round because Redick and Melchioni aren't shooting well, Williams gets into foul trouble, and Ewing can't carry the team, or they catch a wave and ride hot shooting, great defense, and solid inside play all the way to St. Louis. Unfortunately for Duke, the waves on the Mississippi river aren't that big. Regardless of how far they go in the tournament, this will go down as one of coach K's greatest coaching achievements.

I say all of this the day before Duke goes to Winston Salem and plays a tough Wake Forest team. I guess we'll find out if the team has really drunk the kool-aid or not. I have no doubt coach K has a game plan which could beat the Demon Deacons, let's just wait and see if the team can execute.

One final note; a person I know who I lived with at school once said that coach Bo Ryan of Wisconsin was just as good of a coach as coach K. He argued that if Ryan would have the same player that coach K had, Ryan would do just as well. While I can believe that sure, given a handful of McDonald's All-Americans, any coach would be able to win more games than they lose, isn't that part of the greatness of coach K, that he can get these guys to come from all over the country to play at Duke? Sure people are going to say that the kids go there because it is Duke, but who has built that program into the powerhouse it has become over the past 24 years? Coach K started it all. I'd like to see Bo Ryan have this Duke team at 16-1 right now. I'm not saying Ryan is a bad coach, I think he does a great job at Wisconsin, but I am not putting him up there with coach K just yet. Of course, Duke had final four appearances before 1980, but they weren't a dream destination for the country's top prospects. They are now, and coach K deserves the credit. I understand why people hate Duke, and that's fine. I hated them too. I hated Laettner and Hurley, it wasn't until a kid named Jeff Capel played there and led Duke to double-overtime against a much better UNC team with a half-courter that I started liking them. Now, like the players who have played there before, I have tasted the coach K kool-aid and I believe.

Don't miss Wake Forest vs. Duke on Wednesday night on ESPN at 8:00pm central time.

-Until next time...