Top 10 Recruit Considering Duke
Last week Rodney Purvis de-committed from Louisville and has said that Duke, along with Kentucky, NC State and Louisville are among the schools he is looking into.
The high school junior guard de-committed after the Louisville assistant who recruited him, Tim Fuller, joined Frank Haith’s staff in Missouri.
“I had built a very good relationship with Coach Fuller during the recruiting process,” Purvis said. “With the coaching changes at Louisville, I was going to have to start building new relationships with the staff.”
“My family and I talked it over and decided that if I was starting to build a new relationship that I should consider other schools as well.”
The 6-foot-4 guard from Raleigh’s Upper Room Christian Academy averaged 25.4 points per game last season for a team made up mostly of freshmen and sophomores.
Upper Room coach Avie Lester said Purvis “emphasized to me that he has never said that he would not go to Louisville.”
“My family and I talked it over and decided that if I was starting to build a new relationship that I should consider other schools as well.”
This is good news for Duke as Purvis (#1 SG on ESPN.com) would be a great addition to Rasheed Sulaimon in the 2012-13 Duke incoming class.
The two shooting guards would be needed in the future, with Austin Rivers most likely a one-and-doner, Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins seniors that season, someone will need to pick up the slack going forward.
Is Alex Murphy Joining Duke A Good Thing? No.
Alex Murphy has decided to enroll at Duke a year early.
But is it the right move? I don’t think so.
Instead of becoming a Blue Devil for the 2012-13 season, he joins Austin Rivers, Michael Gbinije, Marshall Plumlee and Quinn Cook as part of the 2011-12 incoming class.
The 6-foot-8 small forward has been called a ‘clone’ of Kyle Singler and will look slide into starting rotation in his place, but will he be able to carve out enough minutes?
Murphy is going to have plenty of competition to get into the starting lineup as next years Duke’s team looks even deeper than this past year. Is his decision to join the team actually good for Duke? How much playing time is going to be available for him?
At the point, Quinn Cook and Tyler Thornton will split all the minutes, as the only two point guards on the roster.
The two and three positions will be filled by Austin Rivers, Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins, who should command about 70-75 minutes at the 2 and 3.
On the inside, Ryan Kelly, Mason & Miles Plumlee will each get 20-25 minutes, as Coach K prefers to play guys who know the system and their roles over younger, untested, undersized players.
That leaves about 20 minutes per game for everyone else on the team. Rising sophomore Josh Hairston should see an increase over his six minutes a game. Then, there are the other freshmen, Michael Gbinije and Marshall Plumlee, both of who should see some time on the floor because of their unique talents. Marshall as a true center and Gbinije as Duke’s only swing player.
I think Murphy would have done himself -and the Blue Devils- better by remaining part of the 2012-13 class, as, by then, the inside would be less crowded. Miles will graduate, Mason will probably leave after his junior season, that would leave Kelly and Marshall Plumlee inside. Murphy would have a better chance of getting bigger minutes next season, as opposed to this season.
With him entering Duke, its just going to clog things up in the rotation. Although the team could be 11 deep, Coach K has never played that many. By the end of the season he is usually down to 8 or 9. That will mean someone, maybe even two someones, will not see as much time as they expect, so don’t be surprised if someone transfers before the end of the season, say around mid-January after the first two weeks of ACC play.
As much as having another talented player on the team is a good thing, sometimes having too much talent can be a bad thing if it forces people onto the bench, or to another school.
The Tale Of Two Toes
The ‘Drive For Five’ has taken on a new meaning. I think its talking about healthy toes for Duke guards.
When the camera panned to Nolan Smith prone on the floor motioning to his foot the entirety of Duke Nation cried out, ‘You’ve got to be f$^@*& kidding me. There is no way we lose another guard to a toe injury.’
The last time a toe changed the Duke rotation, Smith stepped up and filled the void. This time, with Smith on the bench (and not in the locker room, a good sign!!), Seth Curry stepped up and took over the game.
A five point lead, ended up being a 16 point win as the entire team turned it up without their leader and made sure that Friday night was not the final ACC game for Smith.
Five different Blue Devils scored in double digits and none of them were named Nolan Smith, who, was not only injured, but played his worst game of the season. Seven points, five turnovers and two assists on 2-of-11 shooting.
It was mostly a good game for the Blue Devils. The new starting lineup worked. The Plumlees came to play (20 & 20 combined), Ryan Kelly (5-of-5, 11 points) looked comfortable coming off the bench and Curry looks like he can run the team. They did shoot just 3-of-15 from behind the arc, so there is still some work to be done.
Right now its still too early to know if Nolan Smith will be able to play on Saturday.
“We’re going to try to make a long run, with or without him,” Krzyzewski said. “If he can’t play (Saturday) — and I’m not saying he won’t play, because I’ll find out later — but if he can’t, or we’re risking something and we have to keep him out, we’ll probably have until Friday if we go to Charlotte to get him with the right type of shoe and stuff like that.
We all hope that Smith will be able to play on Saturday. If the choice becomes to sit Nolan for the rest of the ACC Tournament to avoid further injury so he will be completely healthy for the NCAAs or chance further injury to Nolan’s toe to win the ACC Tourney, its really a no brainer. He sits. No questions.
There is really only one tournament that matters for Duke, and it ends in April, not on Selection Sunday.
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Will Duke Be Able To ‘Flip The Switch?’
Entering the ACC Tournament Duke has dropped 2 of its last 3 games, both on the road. One to a team playing for its NCAA life, the other to the hottest team in the ACC. Dropping two of the last three is not the way anyone wants to head into their conference tournament.
The recent losses have worried some Duke fans. Like me.
Some people think that Duke has yet to play its best ball. I beg to differ. I think they are past playing their best ball. They haven’t really made any progress on the offensive end in the past few games. They’ve been static and don’t seem to have the same toughness they did last year.
Right now, teams need to be playing better than they did the game before, or at least show some signs or growth. Last year, that was true of the Duke Blue Devils. Not this year. Yes, they have senior leadership, but so did the 2005-06 team and look what happened to them.
There are similarities with this years team and that team, which was led by seniors JJ Redick & Shelden Williams. That team hit their peak too early, lost a couple of games late in the season. They were able to rebound and win the ACC Tournament, but then they were bounced by LSU in the Sweet Sixteen because they did not have enough scoring options.
Every game (save the Georgia Tech game) since the first UNC game has been pretty much the same. Let Nolan Smith drive the ball into the lane, maybe he’ll shoot, maybe he’ll look for someone on the perimeter. That’s about it. Sometimes Kyle SIngler will get the ball, run around a screen and take a shot.
There doesn’t seem to be an effort to get the big men involved in the offense. Unlike last year, Duke does not have three guys to take care of the scoring game-in and game-out. During last years’ run, Duke could afford to have Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas do nothing but rebound and play defense because Jon Scheyer was out on the perimeter with Smith & Singler.
This years team does not have that luxury. Smith and Singler will get their 40 points a game, but there is no consistent third scorer to help them out. Seth Curry has been the ‘third option’ most often, but he’s disappeared almost as frequently (Virginia Tech anyone?). Andre Dawkins has been more cold than hot recently. Ryan Kelly has all but vanished and the Plumlee’s can each play good games, but never at the same time.
All of these factors give me a sick feeling that, one, this team will not be able to win the ACC Tournament; and two, that getting knocked out in the Sweet 16 is more likely than a trip to Houston.
It would be nice if they come out and flip a switch in the ACC Tourney. They have a great opportunity to get off to a good start in their first game against either NC State or Maryland, they’ve beat both teams twice this season. After that they will most likely play either Florida State or Virginia Tech, two teams who have shown the ability to beat the Blue Devils this season.
I know that Coach K is a Hall-of-Fame coach and Duke has won 9 of the past 12 ACC Tournaments, but its not as easy as ‘flipping a switch’ once the post season starts. There needs to be growth, signs that something is happening and people are growing into their roles.
I am not seeing that right now and it has me worried. I hope I am wrong and that Duke will be able to turn in on, win the ACC Tournament. If that happens, I will gladly eat crow.
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Duke Gets Blown Out In Chapel Hill
“They just look better.”
That’s what one of my friends said last night as we watched the Duke/UNC game.
It may have been simplistic, but it was also the most accurate way to describe the difference between the two teams last night.
They (UNC) just looked better. With the loss, Duke will be the two seed in the ACC Tournament
They owned the boards, they controlled tempo, they ran the floor better, they played better defense, they shot the ball better… you get the idea. There wasn’t a phase of the game that the Tar Heels didn’t out perform the Blue Devils.
It was sickening. I almost didn’t watch the final 50 seconds or so, but decided I needed to see the nightmare all the way through.
Just like the three times before, this Duke loss stemmed from the threes that weren’t falling. Only Seth Curry made a three, yes he did go 6-of-11 (20 points), but the rest of the team made as many threes as I did. Zero.
Nolan Smith was his remarkable self again, scoring 30, but no one else showed up. Kyle Singler had a worse game against UNC this time than the game at Duke, where he at least held Harrison Barnes in check. Not so much this time.
Barnes led Carolina with 18 points and was responsible for the first dagger last night. With 8 minutes left in the second half, the freshman rebounded his own miss and went up enthusiastically with a dunk while surrounded by four (count ‘em four) flat-footed Blue Devils.
It was at this point of the game that I announced to the room that ‘It’s over’. That bucket extended the lead back to 12 and the place went crazy. There was no chance of Duke getting off the mat after that bucket.
The second dagger was self-inflected; when Andre Dawkins missed three free throws. You would expect that from a Plumlee, but not an 82% shooter. It was unexpected, and yet, perfectly inline with how the game was going.
The way the game played out last night is exactly how it must feel from the other side.
Put yourself in the shoes of most of Duke’s opponents and see if this sounds familiar. You get taken out of your game early, you shoot poorly and you find yourselves down by double digits at the half. Then, in the second half, you struggle to mount any kind of comeback, you get as close as 7 or 8, and, maybe, play even with them in the second half and still lose by at least 10 points.
Sounds familiar? We got Duke’d last night by UNC.
The Tar Heels had the talent and the match ups to take Duke out of their game and force them to become one-dimensional.
So, yes, UNC looked better last night. They have looked better over the past 10 games or so, and they look like the better bet to make a deeper run in the NCAAs than Duke.
