Coach K and the Nets

#1
kidbourbon

kidbourbon

Disgusting!
Joined
Nov 12, 2005
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#1
They want him. Duke isn't winning it all any time soon. So why not make the leap?

Duke's regression to mediocrity has made them difficult for me to hate, so I don't really care whether he stays or goes. It would be funny, though, to see the reaction of Duke fans.
 
#6
#6
I wouldn't call winning the ACC 8 out of the last 11 years or consistanly staying in top 15 mediocre.
 
#7
#7
kidbourbon said:
What would you call it?
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They haven't done much in the tournament in the last 4-5 years, but they've had really good regular seasons. Mediocrity would be winning 18-20 games a year and maybe getting an 8-9 seed in the tournament. That's not happening in Durham. They've won a combined 112 games over the last 4 seasons and have won the ACC tournament twice in that span. That's not mediocrity bud.
 
#9
#9
Volfan8282 said:
They haven't done much in the tournament in the last 4-5 years, but they've had really good regular seasons. Mediocrity would be winning 18-20 games a year and maybe getting an 8-9 seed in the tournament. That's not happening in Durham. They've won a combined 112 games over the last 4 seasons and have won the ACC tournament twice in that span. That's not mediocrity bud.
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Assume your team is playing them in the tournament. Are you frightened?

Define mediocrity as you see fit. Perhaps it's an overstatement. But even so, nobody is arguing that they're elite.
 
#10
#10
I think Ive heard him say within the last 6 months that he loves coaching at Duke and does not want to leave the place that has stuck with him.

Inshort, Coach K sounds like a happy guy right where he is.

I think he's pretty classy too, so he's one of the few that I'll take his word for it.
 
#11
#11
kidbourbon said:
Assume your team is playing them in the tournament. Are you frightened?

Define mediocrity as you see fit. Perhaps it's an overstatement. But even so, nobody is arguing that they're elite.
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Well there aren't any elite teams in college basketball really anymore. The college game has slid so far in the last 7-8 years that it's not even close to what it was in the 90's and early 2000's. There's much more parity in college basketball, so no, I don't think teams are afraid of playing them. But, I don't think teams are afraid of playing Kansas, Kentucky, UNC, UCLA, UConn, Michigan State, etc... Duke is still a top 5 program though... maybe top 2 or 3. UNC is the only one that I might put ahead of them for sure in terms of a basketball program over the last 6-7 years... really since 2003.
 
#12
#12
Volfan8282 said:
Well there aren't any elite teams in college basketball really anymore. The college game has slid so far in the last 7-8 years that it's not even close to what it was in the 90's and early 2000's. There's much more parity in college basketball, so no, I don't think teams are afraid of playing them. But, I don't think teams are afraid of playing Kansas, Kentucky, UNC, UCLA, UConn, Michigan State, etc... Duke is still a top 5 program though... maybe top 2 or 3. UNC is the only one that I might put ahead of them for sure in terms of a basketball program over the last 6-7 years... really since 2003.
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I disagree.
 
#13
#13
kidbourbon said:
I disagree.
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The facts disagree with you. No other program has been as consistent as Duke throughout the last decade except for UNC and maybe Kansas. What other programs would you put ahead of them? Florida had a couple solid seasons but have recently fallen off. UConn is not what they were in the early part of the decade. Kentucky has just recently turned it back around. UCLA has fallen off since their run of Final 4 appearances a few years back. Michigan State has been off and on. Arizona has fallen off since Olson left. You say that they're not a top 2 or 3 program, but who would you put ahead of them????

Duke is always there. They are RARELY out of the top 10 or 15. Like I said, UNC and Kansas are the only two other programs that can say that in this decade. Now, I agree that Duke hasn't been as strong as they were in the 90's and early 2000's, but college basketball in general has been terrible since that time frame.
 
#14
#14
Volfan8282 said:
The facts disagree with you. No other program has been as consistent as Duke throughout the last decade except for UNC and maybe Kansas. What other programs would you put ahead of them? Florida had a couple solid seasons but have recently fallen off. UConn is not what they were in the early part of the decade. Kentucky has just recently turned it back around. UCLA has fallen off since their run of Final 4 appearances a few years back. Michigan State has been off and on. Arizona has fallen off since Olson left. You say that they're not a top 2 or 3 program, but who would you put ahead of them????

Duke is always there. They are RARELY out of the top 10 or 15. Like I said, UNC and Kansas are the only two other programs that can say that in this decade. Now, I agree that Duke hasn't been as strong as they were in the 90's and early 2000's, but college basketball in general has been terrible since that time frame.
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I'm confused when you say that college basketball has been terrible. What does that mean relative to the current quality of Duke's program? While I agree that NBA defections have made the quality of play at the college level worse than it was in the 80's, that doesn't excuse Duke's inability to make a tournament run. Lots of other programs make tournament runs. Duke doesn't.

You pretty much lost all credibility with the UConn statement. I can't believe no one else called you on this. I won't even stoop to the level of making that comparison.

Duke's a better program than UCLA? By what measure? Because UCLA is struggling this year? What about the last four?

Same goes for Georgetown, Louisville, Syracuse, Michigan State, Ohio State, Memphis, Villanova...who am I forgetting? What facts place Duke over these programs? Average preseason rankings over the last five years? Number of times the programs have been mentioned by Dick Vitale?

Where would Duke have finished in the Big East the last five years? Would they have been 8th last year? Maybe 6th this year? Is that elite? Why is that they can't seem to beat a decent team on the road? Wouldn't a top 2-3 program be able to do that? Show me these alleged facts that support Duke as a top 2-3 program. Explain it to me like a two year old, because I'm having difficulty understanding.
 
#15
#15
kidbourbon said:
They want him. Duke isn't winning it all any time soon. So why not make the leap?

Duke's regression to mediocrity has made them difficult for me to hate, so I don't really care whether he stays or goes. It would be funny, though, to see the reaction of Duke fans.
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Duke will be a National Championship level team next season.
 
#16
#16
kidbourbon said:
I'm confused when you say that college basketball has been terrible. What does that mean relative to the current quality of Duke's program? While I agree that NBA defections have made the quality of play at the college level worse than it was in the 80's, that doesn't excuse Duke's inability to make a tournament run. Lots of other programs make tournament runs. Duke doesn't.

You pretty much lost all credibility with the UConn statement. I can't believe no one else called you on this. I won't even stoop to the level of making that comparison.

Duke's a better program than UCLA? By what measure? Because UCLA is struggling this year? What about the last four?

Same goes for Georgetown, Louisville, Syracuse, Michigan State, Ohio State, Memphis, Villanova...who am I forgetting? What facts place Duke over these programs? Average preseason rankings over the last five years? Number of times the programs have been mentioned by Dick Vitale?

Where would Duke have finished in the Big East the last five years? Would they have been 8th last year? Maybe 6th this year? Is that elite? Why is that they can't seem to beat a decent team on the road? Wouldn't a top 2-3 program be able to do that? Show me these alleged facts that support Duke as a top 2-3 program. Explain it to me like a two year old, because I'm having difficulty understanding.
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Go look up the facts bud. I'm not saying that those teams haven't had seasons that were better than Duke. Most of those that you mentioned have had a few seasons that were better than Duke. But, ON THE WHOLE, Duke has had an incredibly consistent decade, probably the most consistent in the country. I'm pretty certain that they've had the most wins of any team in the last decade. I'm not saying that Duke is a top 2-3 team this year... of course they're not. But, I'm not looking at just this year. Like I said, you're going to have trouble finding a program that has been as consistent as Duke over the last 30 years, but especially the last decade. For example, go look and see what UCLA did between 1996-2005. They didn't make a deep run in an entire decade. You can't say that with Duke.

I don't understand your UConn point. UConn won the title in 1999 and 2004. They completely missed even being in the tournament in 2001 and 2007. You don't see how that's inconsistent?

Please DO NOT compare the Big East to the ACC. The Big East is definitely better this year and maybe a few years previous ... but the ACC has been the most dominant basketball conference for a while before that. It's easy to jump up to being a dominant conference like the Big East is now when you accept every team under the sun to be in your league. You're bound to have some good teams in there. It's impossible to know where a team would finish in a different conference. All I know is that Duke has pretty much dominated the ACC for a while except when UNC has jumped up recently under Roy Williams, and the ACC was the dominant conference for a long while during that time.
 
#18
#18
Volfan8282 said:
Like I said, you're going to have trouble finding a program that has been as consistent as Duke over the last 30 years, but especially the last decade. For example, go look and see what UCLA did between 1996-2005. They didn't make a deep run in an entire decade. You can't say that with Duke.
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This whole conversation started when you took umbrage to my statement that Duke had regressed to mediocrity. Why, then, are you talking Duke history? Yeah, they used to be good. This is why "regress" was the appropriate verb. Let's try to stay on topic.
 
#20
#20
kidbourbon said:
Duke hasn't advanced past the sweet sixteen since 2004. Fact. The current year is 2010. Fact.
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Haha ... yeah missing the Elite 8 for 5 years is the very definition of mediocrity. Give me a break.

Duke hasn't missed an NCAA tournament since 1995. Fact.

Duke has been to the Sweet 16 10 out of the last 12 seasons. Fact.

Duke has more wins than any other team in college basketball over the last decade. Fact. (This is absolutely amazing considering there are teams like Memphis out there who play Rice, Southern Miss, and SMU multiple times a year).

That's not mediocrity man. You might hate Duke, and that's fine. All the power to ya. But, you're making comments that just don't make sense. Just b/c Duke hasn't made the final four or won a national championship recently (ahh 8 years!!!) doesn't mean that they're not a top 2-3 program. I'm looking at an entire body of work... Not a year here or there where another team did better. The only two teams that I've found that have been as consistent or close in consistency are UNC and Kansas with UConn and Michigan State being in the discussion.
 
#21
#21
kidbourbon said:
This whole conversation started when you took umbrage to my statement that Duke had regressed to mediocrity. Why, then, are you talking Duke history? Yeah, they used to be good. This is why "regress" was the appropriate verb. Let's try to stay on topic.
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I took umbrage b/c "mediocrity" is an asinine adjective to describe the state of Duke basketball.
 
#22
#22
Like them or not Duke is far from mediocrity and they have only regressed because of a lack of recruiting. They will be back.
 
#24
#24
Volfan8282 said:
I took umbrage b/c "mediocrity" is an asinine adjective to describe the state of Duke basketball.
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Argue away that my definition of mediocrity is overinclusive. But know that applying the 'top 2-3 program' label to the present tense of Duke basketball wins the gold medal in the category of asinine statements. Wins it going away.

And, no, I don't hate Duke. I have several friends who are Duke grads and hard-core fans. My best friend falls into this group. I talk hoops with him on a nearly daily basis, and he actually has a much more realistic perspective on the current state of Duke basketball than you do. And even if I just made all of that up (I didn't), I would still find it difficult to muster up those kind of emotions for a team whose best case scenario is losing in the third round of the tournament....again.
 
#25
#25
Yeah, Duke is "great" in that they are better than most of the other 300+ schools playing Division I basketball.

Coach K has had less success than others at the D-I level in consistently pushing his teams to the next level in competing for Final Fours and national titles. Coaching the NBA is a different ballpark, who knows. Maybe he's good enough to handle it. His work with Team USA is a good sign.

If the Nets bring on Coach K and spend the next year wheeling and dealing, putting a good team together, that should be enough to at least get the Nets in the playoffs in 2011 (let's face it, that's not exactly a difficult task in the Eastern Conference) and contending the year after that.
 
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