Congratulations to Duke, this year's
national champions. Ugh. How did this happen? I finally came out of
my Tyler Hansbrough induced UNC national champions hangover on Monday
night. It been a long time since I've feared a Coach K led Duke
team, consistently full of three point chuckers, bad on the ball
defenders, and big men that can play routinely small in big
situations. Those teams of the early 90's - those teams were feared.
The 2001 team was kind of a monster. Strong players. Mentally
tough. Then came the JJ Redick years – I loved these Duke teams.
Redick hits crazy shots and then some athletic team bounces them out
of the tournament early. Since 2001, I've haven't considered Duke to
be a legitimate contender. They just don't have the horses to get
the job done.
This includes this year's team – the
national champions. Sigh. I could talk about the easy path the
championship game. Where was the tough match-up in their bracket?
But, truth be told, they beat the teams in front of them and that's
all you have to do. But, my point is, this team does not inspire
fear. There is no Christian Laettner to stomp opposing players in
the chest and hit big shots. There's no Shane Battier to draw
charges by merely looking at a player. On this year's team, there's
Napoleon Dynamite, Kyle Singler, and and Jon Scheyer, who makes nice
facial expressions. Where's the fear this team inspires? Don't tell
me it's from the bearded wonder, Brian Zoubek? How does this team
win it all?
I get them being successful. I'm not
stupid. At the beginning of the season, I fully expected them to go
something like 28-5 and be a number 2 or 3 seed in the tournament.
Good record, and out in the second round. It's the Duke way. Let's
look at last year's winner – the University of North Carolina. Not
that it means anything at all, but how many points better than this
year's Duke team was last year's Carolina one? If you don't start
out in double digits, you've got a short memory.
Granted, this year's Duke team could
rebound. I can't think of another Duke team that could rebound the
ball. But this is only part of Duke winning. Being a Carolina fan,
and seeing Carolina suck this year, I focused less of my attention on
my team, and more on top 25 teams. I saw a lot of Kentucky, Kansas,
Georgetown, West Virginia, and Duke. After talking to my friend
Steve today, I think I've discovered something in Coach K's
philosophy that is straight up gold and should be copied by other
teams.
I'm not a professional basketball
analyst, but in my watching a large amount of top level teams this
year – I got to do this when I wasn't watching my Heels, I found
something that Duke did that I do not see other teams do. Before you
say, “Chuck a thousand threes,” let me assure you that you are
partly right. To me, Duke throws up 175 three pointers a game and
makes 65% of them. How infuriating. This year, they hit about 38%
of their threes. That's pretty darn good, but they seem to do that
all the time. The great thing is one bad shooting game in the
tournament always does them in. Always.
But here's where they are different
this year. They rebound well, and without fail, every time a three
pointer is taken by Duke and Zoubek or Lance Thomas grabs the
offensive rebound, they kick it back out to the three point line for
another shot by the big three shooters. It sounds simple, but it's
brilliant. Shoot 38% from the arc and you're pretty good, but what
happens if you get more than one three point shot on a possession?
I'm not that good at math, but if you get two chances to make a three
pointer on the same possession, there's a pretty reasonable
assumption that you'll average higher than 38% per possession.
Think about it. It's tournament time,
so Kyle Singler chucks a three, which badly clangs off the rim. The
Beard grabs the missed shot, and kicks it out to Scheyer or Nolan
Smith, who takes another three. One possession, two threes. No
wonder they seem to hit everything. I don't think other teams do
this. They take shots, but how many times to they take threes off
offensive rebounds? Not as much as Duke.
Good for Coach K. It pains me to say
this, but if other teams catch on, I think this could revolutionize
the way coaches execute their offense. I think in a year or two,
somebody will start talking about three point percentage per
possession, and people will start to look into when you take your
threes. Well done, rich, private schoolers. Your rich, smart team
just out-thought everyone else to a championship.