Duke continues to sizzle, eager to avoid fizzle
Jan 17, 2009
Frank McGuire used the approach to great effect while building South Carolina into a national power in the late 1960s. “We’re fighting for respect,” declared the former UNC coach. “I was on the other side of the fence at North Carolina and know what these people think of South Carolina.”
Gary Williams has taken a similar tack throughout his 20 seasons at Maryland, from lamenting the severity of NCAA penalties he inherited at College Park to protesting the unfairness of playing the ACC Tournament so often in the state of North Carolina.
Now, after two straight seasons that started with a sizzle and ended in a fizzle, Duke has adopted a variation on the same motivational theme. The outer-directed thrust was voiced earlier this month by Mike Krzyzewski, who complained his team's success was not adequately recognized by the local media.
Meanwhile Duke players are intent on proving something to themselves and others. “For us, I think the last couple of years the one thing we’ve developed is a chip on our shoulder,” guard Jon Scheyer said after a 76-67 victory over Georgetown at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Blue Devils' 68th-straight home win against a nonconference opponent, best in the nation. “Going into a game like this, or going into any game, we just feel like we have something to prove, and I think that’s the way we played today.”
This is not an altogether new approach for teams coached by Krzyzewski, who follows standard professional protocol in downplaying his program’s multiple advantages in talent and tradition.
The 29-year Duke coach insists each of his teams should be judged and appreciated on its own merits. Fair enough. But that doesn’t mean the coach is scrupulous about heeding his own admonition -- he and his staff are not above urging the Devils to redeem past disappointments. “Our strength coach is always getting in our ear: ‘Don’t forget. Don’t forget about last year,’” Scheyer said. “We use that as fuel, I think.”
In 2007, Scheyer’s freshman season, Duke started 18-3 and finished 21-11. Last year the Blue Devils got off to a 22-1 start, only to drop five of their last 11 games. This season the early scenario is much the same; the hard-fought win over 13-ranked Georgetown improved Duke’s record to 16-1. Once again, as in 2007 and 2008, casual observers wonder how the Devils do it, dismissing them as a team flawed by heavy reliance on perimeter strength.
“Other teams might come in (thinking) we’re not very big,” said forward Kyle Singler, who had 15 points and gained half of Duke’s 32 rebounds against the Hoyas. “A lot of teams do crash on us, they think they can out-physical us. So we know that that’s what teams are going to do, and we have a lot of guys that are competitors on the team and when it gets down to it that’s just what matters.”
Duke adjusted to the playmaking skills of Georgetown center Greg Monroe, whom Krzyzewski recruited, by employing a smaller, more mobile lineup that left only 15 minutes of action for the Devils’ post trio of Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek, and Miles Plumlee. That was in sharp contrast with Duke’s previous outing, a win at Georgia Tech in which Zoubek and Thomas combined for twice as many minutes as they had against the Big East squad.
That versatility impressed at least one ACC head coach, who said, “Krzyzewski’s doing one of the best coaching jobs I’ve seen in a long time.”
Lately Krzyzewski has been multi-tasking too. Even as he directed the nation’s third-ranked team toward its meeting with Georgetown, he renewed his periodic crusade to tout the prowess of the ACC against all enemies, foreign and domestic. “I went on the Obama campaign for the ACC,” he said. “At least now people are talking about the ACC. That’s all I want.”
The celebration of ACC basketball was in part a response to the drumbeat of praise for the prowess of the Big East, which had eight teams in last week’s AP top 25. There is talk that at least that many Big East teams will get NCAA bids, a discussion that overshadows the ACC, which had four of the top 10 teams in the same poll.
If all this seems familiar, there’s good reason. Back in 2006, Big East coaches aggressively touted their league, and wound up with eight NCAA bids compared to four for the ACC. The ACC’s coaches pushed back in 2007, mounting a concerted campaign to talk up their conference in preseason. What followed was a regular season in which Virginia and North Carolina tied for first place with 11-5 records, most losses for the top teams since 1985. With no dominant team to eclipse others, seven ACC squads got NCAA bids.
Last season it was back to eight Big East entrants, four from the ACC, with Krzyzewski protesting publicly the ACC was under-rated. The Duke coach also complained that his was the lone voice raised in defense of the conference.
So, here we go again.
Unfortunately for the ACC, even if this comparison of leagues is worth the breath expended on it, no amount of lobbying can alter the fact the center of the American media universe is located in New York, deep in Big East territory. ESPN, the nation’s dominant sports network, is also located in Bristol, Connecticut, another Big East bastion. Talk carries farther there than in outposts such as Tallahassee, Winston-Salem, Clemson, and Charlottesville.
So, if the ACC is serious about publicizing the strength of its men’s basketball teams, it should not leave the advocacy to its coaches or the region's media outlets. Hire a public relations firm. Run ads on ESPN and in the hometowns of members of the NCAA tournament selection committee. Celebrate the combination of athletics and academics at schools such as Duke, North Carolina, and Wake Forest that sit atop the ACC standings.
Either that, or just let the play of ACC teams do the talking.
