Post from: EveryJoe

Cameron Indoor Wallop

Brian Zoubek still must have his fist stuck in his ear or something, or else he would have beaten out raw freshman Miles Plumlee for that starting center spot by now.

Seth Davis from SI Hoop Thoughts

For someone who is as young and tall as he is, Plumlee has plenty of meat on his bones, and he is very agile to boot. (Krzyzewski told me he jumped 6 feet, 9 inches for his high school track team.) He seemed a little lost at times basketball-wise, but that’s nothing unusual considering it was only his fourth practice. Plumlee is Duke’s best shot-blocker, and he fits the Blue Devils’ wide-open style much better than 7-1 sophomore center Brian Zoubek. If the season started today, Plumlee would be Duke’s starting center.

About this leapfrogging of sophomore Nolan Smith over senior Greg Paulus:

I don’t necessarily like this move. It will probably mean better second unit proficiency considering Paulus will likely play a bit more with talented freshman Elliott Williams. This takes some pressure off of Williams. And it means Paulus will be the first or second scoring option for certain stretches of the first half.

Coach K, you might have just made a “genius” move.

Zach from Northwestern Wins

Surely a bold move by Coach K and we’ll see how long it lasts. I wouldn’t doubt the motives of Coach K, though; for all of Paulus’ talent, he knows his players more than anyone. And having Paulus’ shots off the bench could be genius. Expect a small crunch time team of Smith-Paulus-Scheyer-Henderson-Singler.

Ok. No more cheap shots about Duke for at least another week…

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Post from: EveryJoe

Gregory Paulus relegated to the bench

Key Player- Wayne Ellington. Sure, he can stroke it from just about any area code, but he is lacking elsewhere. You know that when Tyler Hansbrough is a more accomplished ball handler, something has got to change.

Finish- Gotta go out on a limb and say the Final Four. Anything less will be considered an utter failure.

Duke- Recently this team reminds a lot of people of a really good book, a phenomenal book, one they can’t put down for hours and hours. Yet when they do put it down, they feel physically and mentally ill because the ending was so anti-climatic, so wretched, that it reminds them of the Dukie players migration to the pros over the past several years (I am not one of those ‘a lot of people’). The colossal failures of J.J. Redick, Josh McRoberts and Shelden Williams at the NBA level, despite the notion these top of the line studs were supposed to ‘tear it up’, is fantastically ironic.

Am I on the Duke blacklist yet?

Key Player- Brian Zoubek. If the kid can twist free his fist out of his ear and show some intensity, we’ll at least know he’s alive. That would be a decent start.

Finish- Probably a bitch slap from Siena or VCU early on. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Newscom

Post from: EveryJoe

A word on UNC and Duke

In last year’s NCAA tourney, Belmont nearly took out the mighty Blue Devils in round one. In all my infinite wisdom, I had picked Belmont to win the game, believing that West Virginia would squash the Blue Devils in round two anyway. So I was half right, but man has Duke been vulnerable lately.

Coach K might be a sophisticated, tough, get everything you can out of the players kind of coach, but when it comes to recruiting, he has failed miserably in recent years. Duke has turned into a jump shooting, finesse type of team. One in which is pretty simple to prepare for. How about going out and getting some athletic bigs who know how to score and play defense down low. Final Four teams are always built around a diversely molded group of players who can collectively defend, shoot and rebound and score inside.

What did the 2001 Champion Duke team have? Well, yes, a lot of 3 point shooters, but they did have that one post player who could really affect the game. Carlos Boozer.

Some other good post players from NCAA champion teams in recent years include…

Al Horford, Joakim Noah, Sean May, Emeka Okafor, Darrell Arthur, Chris Wilcox, Hakim Warrick

Does Brian Zoubek or Lance Thomas strike fear in anybody?

Maybe a SWAC team.

I digress.

If you’re down in a game, just start dishing out cheap shots like Mr. Henderson

If you can’t play defense, just flop your way through the game like Paulus

Almost as bad as this Horry flop

I just get tired of always hearing about how good Duke is.

Stop it. They should be good. They get great players every year. Back it up more than once in awhile.

Post from: EveryJoe

I’ll never understand