Duke has experienced multiple runs of success so far in conference play. The Blue Devils started ACC action with three straight victories, and are now on a two-game win streak. But in between those five wins came a stretch where Duke lost four times in five contests, which is why there are still major doubts about Mike Krzyzewski’s team heading into the final four weeks of the regular season. Can the Blue Devils play good enough defense to compete with the nation’s (or even the ACC’s) best teams? Are two of the freshmen (Derryck Thornton and Chase Jeter) making enough progress to be solid contributors in big games? Will a lack of depth eventually wear out the Blue Devil core? Many of those questions may be answered, for better or worse, in the coming two weeks, when the Blue Devils’ schedule gets downright brutal. This week features home games with Louisville (tonight) and Virginia (on Saturday). The following week will see the Blue Devils travel to North Carolina and Louisville. That’s four consecutive games against the league’s top three teams.

Derryck Thornton’s return to the starting lineup has given Duke a boost defensively. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Let’s look at those questions one by one:

Can the Blue Devils play good enough defense?

Currently Duke ranks ninth in the ACC in defensive efficiency, allowing 1.09 points per possession in league play. Led by star Grayson Allen, the Blue Devils only trail Notre Dame in ACC offensive efficiency, meaning they have generally been winning by outscoring the opposition. That feat will get harder in the next four games, as Duke will face the top three rated defenses in the conference. To have success against the league’s best, Krzyzewski needs his team’s man-to-man defense to be good enough to use as a viable alternative to the zone that Duke has often employed this season. Duke’s performance in its last two games may give its veteran coach some hope. Using man-to-man exclusively, Duke held Georgia Tech to 0.84 points per possession in the second half of last Tuesday’s road win. In Saturday’s victory over N.C. State, the Blue Devils played man-to-man for the entire first half, holding the Wolfpack to 0.95 points per possession.

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After Duke‘s 11 point loss at Miami, Seth Davis tweeted: “It is time to acknowledge the possibility that Duke will not make the NCAA tournament.” Some context for that tweet: Duke has lost four of its last five, including two games at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Since losing Amile Jefferson to a foot injury, the Blue Devils are 7-5 with exactly one win against the KenPom top 100. That’s not exactly a resume that screams NCAA Tournament. On the other side of the equation: Duke is still 20th in KenPom‘s ratings, its RPI projects to remain in the 20s according to RPI Forecast, and there’s evidence Jefferson’s condition is improving. Perhaps most importantly, losing by 11 to a really good Miami team shouldn’t be a cause for concern, and really it was just a two possession game with less than a minute left.

Duke Didn’t Have The Legs To Hang With Miami. What Does That Mean For The Blue Devils Going Forward? (Photo: Chuck Liddy/News & Observer)

Maybe the most amazing factoid about Duke’s current start (courtesy of Patrick Stevens): If the ACC Tournament started tomorrow, Duke and Virginia would face off as the ninth and eighth seeds on Wednesday. So then, the ultimate question: Will Duke miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the infamous Pete Gaudet season? There are three ways this might play out.

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1. ESPN: This is a cool story from C.L. Brown on Duke’s Brandon Ingram. While the story does a good job contrasting Ingram’s skinny frame with the toughness he’s shown over the last few games, the really amazing tidbit is just how many great players hail from Kinston, a small town in North Carolina. Ingram needs some more weight on his frame, but the NBA has a bona fide skinny superstar in Kevin Durant and a budding one in Kristaps Porzingis, so it may not be as necessary as it once seemed.
2. The State: Don’t look now, but Clemson‘s Brad Brownell may finally have the players he needs to break out of his long cycle of mediocrity (and that’s not a slight; Brownell has never let Clemson slip to the ACC cellar). A key to that development could turn out to be new transfer Elijah Thomas, a former consensus top-50 recruit who only played eight games with Texas A&M but may provide the influx of talent the program needs to make a leap. Two more impact transfers on the horizon are Shelton Mitchell and Marcquise Reed, both of whom will both be eligible next season.
3. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: What’s different about this year’s Pittsburgh team? It’s not that the Panthers have become particularly offensive-minded — the last time a Jamie Dixon team was better on defense than offense was in the 2009-10 season. What’s spectacular this year is how bad Pitt’s defense (151st nationally) is relative to its offense (10th nationally) and how much faster it has been playing. Most of Dixon’s teams played between 60 and 65 possessions per game. This year’s team is averaging over 68 possessions per game. That may not sound like a huge difference, but that’s why the team’s point totals have been higher this year.
4. Syracuse Post-Standard: This article makes a good point, which is to not judge interim head coach Mike Hopkins by his 4-5 record with Jim Boeheim suspended. What it doesn’t say (but hints at) is you should judge Boeheim for it. After all, it was the head coach who assembled this roster. I don’t suspect we will see a huge improvement from the Orange when he takes back over this weekend against North Carolina, but the article does a good job contextualizing the uptick that surfaces.
5. Washington Post: VJ King is a Louisville recruit who has had to fight both expectations and changing scenery. Louisville head coach Rick Pitino was following him when he was in seventh grade (in North Carolina; he later moved to Lebron James’ high school and was dubbed “the next King of Akron.”). Luckily, James took the high school standout under his wing and really set him free. Now he’s in Virginia and appears to have regained his confidence.

Over the last decade, Mike Krzyzewski’s teams at Duke have shifted toward the new era of college basketball. Duke brings in NBA-bound one-and-done players at a much higher rate than it once did, possibly even surpassing John Calipari — the recent king of transcendent freshman — at his own game. Including this season, the Blue Devils have spent the last three years among the 100 youngest teams in America in terms of college basketball experience.

This year’s team includes three freshman receiving a heavy dosage of minutes yet appears to rely on more veterans than last year’s group. That would imply that these Blue Devils returned a reasonable amount of production from last year’s National Championship squad, but a little digging reveals that’s not really the case. The four Blue Devils who played the highest percentage of the team’s available minutes last year departed after the season. This year’s team may be slightly older, but the experience they bring is somewhat misleading. Of the seven players to log time in Duke’s most recent game versus Utah, only one player, Matt Jones, received more than 25 percent of Duke’s available minutes last season.

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After a relatively successful aggregate performance during the Feast Week tournaments, the ACC turned in another disappointing result in last week’s ACC/Big Ten Challenge, failing to win the inter-conference event for the seventh consecutive year. It wasn’t all bad last week, though, as North Carolina secured an elite home win against #2 Maryland, and Miami showed some resiliency in responding to its disappointing loss to Northeastern with an overtime win at Nebraska. This week’s Stock Watch zeroes in on a pair of players critical to the fates of two of the league favorites, a school navigating the rest of the non-conference season without its leader and a unit in Raleigh that is struggling to replicate its postseason success of a year ago.

Trending Up

Brandon Ingram Wonders Why Anyone Doubted Him (USAT Images)

• Brandon Ingram, Duke: After a painfully slow start to his freshman campaign, some wondered if the hype surrounding Duke’s freshman McDonald’s All-American was more bluster than substance. Those folks can stop wasting their time. Ingram had arguably the best week of any player in the nation, scoring a career-high 24 points against Indiana on Wednesday followed by a 23-point performance against Buffalo on Saturday. Most notably against the Hoosiers, Ingram came out with an assertiveness we had yet to see from the lanky wing, scoring eight of his team’s first 10 points, including a pair of three-point field goals. Some may give pause to the opposition — Indiana’s defensive issues are well-documented — but sometimes a player as talented as Ingram just needs to have a few shots go in to gain confidence that this level of basketball isn’t too big for him. Last week was certainly a step in the right direction for the Blue Devils’s star freshman.

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What last season’s iteration of Duke basketball made us forget, this season’s version reminded us quite vividly during the Blue Devils’ loss to Kentucky at the Champions Classic — which is that the adjustment from high school to high-level college basketball isn’t all that easy. After a pair of tune-up tilts in Durham last week, Duke took the floor in Chicago boasting the most discussed player in the country in Grayson Allen along with the nation’s top-rated crop of incoming rookies. After a sound humbling at the hands of the hungry Wildcats, what they left with were a bunch of question marks and a better appreciation of the special nature of last year’s special freshman class.

Coach K will have to exercise some more patience with this class of rookies than was required a year ago. (AP)

Tyus Jones, Justise Winslow, Jahlil Okafor and Allen made up the Duke’s incoming class of 2014, and while the the holdover sophomore initially struggled to adjust, the others seamlessly transitioned to the college game. In last year’s Champions Classic win against eventual Final Four participant Michigan State, the trio had their handprints all over a 10-point victory. Jones played with the poise of a point guard well beyond his years, scoring 17 points and committing no turnovers in his 31 minutes of action. Okafor showed the dominant form that would define his only season at Duke, making eight of his 10 attempts from the field. And Winslow proved to be a whirling dervish of controlled aggression, scoring 15 points of his own and grabbing six boards in a team-high 36 minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s always premature to form ironclad opinions based on a team’s first two games of the regular season, especially when the team in question is as young as Duke‘s 2015-16 squad. Throw in the fact that the competition the Blue Devils faced over the weekend was far from stellar, and we still have most of the same questions about Mike Krzyzewski’s current edition that we had before the season began. Nevertheless, here are some observations from Duke’s two home wins over the weekend, a 92-74 victory over Siena on Friday and a 113-75 demolition of Bryant on Saturday night.

Grayson Allen has picked up right where he left off in the 2015 Final Four, averaging 27 points in Duke’s opening two games. (Streeter Lecka, Getty Images)

There were two major questions for Duke coming into this season. First, could this year’s highly-touted freshmen class approach the spectacular success achieved by last year’s rookies? And secondly, were Duke’s four returnees capable of elevating their games after mostly exclusive use in the past as role players? To the first question, the newcomers played much better collectively against Bryant than they did in Friday’s opener. Krzyzewski spoke about the differences in their performances between the two games:

“I didn’t think they talked well last night. Part of that, I think it’s your first game at Duke, your first real game. For Brandon [Ingram], it’s his first start. I reminded them that it’s Grayson [Allen]’s first start last night too. It was Marshall [Plumlee]’s first start in two years. We have a lot of young guys. Grayson and Marshall [Plumlee] weren’t into themselves last night, they were trying to help everybody. When you’re young, sometimes your thoughts are just with you instead of talking. Tonight, they talked well. They were consumed with Duke. We saw that they played better. That’s just a learning process that they have to go through.”

Individually, Brandon Ingram scored 15 and 21 points, respectively, in the two games, and exhibited much better shot selection in his second college start on the way to making 4-of-6 threes (he was just 1-of-9 from deep in the opener). He also used his length well to act as a disruptive defensive force, with a combined four steals and three blocks over the two outings. Ingram was also often employed by Krzyzewski as a ball-handler from the top of the arc, a set that will make him even more of a match-up problem for most collegiate forwards. Read the rest of this entry »

This team preview is part of the RTC ACC microsite’s preseason coverage.

Can Mike Krzyzewski lead another freshmen-heavy team to the Final Four?

Talk about a tough act to follow. After a season that saw Mike Krzyzewski win his 1,000th career game and capture his fifth NCAA title at Duke, it’s hard to imagine a coach ever having a better year. More than that, after spending years and years as the most hated program in the sport, it seems that Duke has achieved a measure of “coolness” lately, especially in the recruiting world. Perhaps it’s a result of Coach K’s decade-long tenure as coach of the USA senior national team and the success of coaching NBA stars to gold medals. Maybe it’s the perception (and reality) that Krzyzewski has embraced the one-and-done era of college basketball. Either way, it’s interesting to see the Duke coach get praise for adapting to the new way of winning in college hoops, yet the inventor of the model, Kentucky’s John Calipari, has been regarded in a much more negative light (as a system manipulator) over the last six years. Each coach has now won a national championship with a starting lineup of mostly freshmen. There were productive veterans around to guide the young stars in both programs’ title runs, and the three main freshmen on both squads were unusually mature — mentally and physically. That’s why it would be unfair to expect Duke’s latest highly acclaimed group of newcomers to match the success of their predecessors. It’s just not ‘normal’ to do what Jahlil Okafor, Tyus Jones and Justise Winslow accomplished in their first year, just as it wasn’t for the 2012 Wildcats’ super-frosh — Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague.

Mike Krzyzewski hopes this year’s vaunted freshmen class at Duke can approach the exploits of last season’s group of Blue Devil newcomers. (Jim Dedmon/USA TODAY Sports)

It wasn’t always smooth sailing for last year’s Blue Devils, especially on the defensive end. The low point of the year came when Duke suffered back-to-back double digit losses to unranked teams, N.C. State and Miami. They were so bad defensively at that point that Krzyzewski, in a desperate and out-of-character decision, implemented a zone defense that Duke would go on to use more often than ever before in the Coach K era. Eventually, the freshmen learned to execute the man-to-man principles that the great Blue Devils of the past were known for, and the result was one of the best defensive performances we’ve seen in recent NCAA tournaments — Duke’s six opponents only managed to score .93 points per possession, and four of those teams boasted top-21 offenses according to Ken Pomeroy. The experience of last year’s team reminds us of a couple of things when considering the future defensive prowess of this year’s squad. For one, don’t expect the Blue Devils’ freshmen to immediately grasp Duke’s man-to-man principles, which may result in another year of a decent diet of zone mixed in;. Secondly, the possible early struggles of the freshmen on the defensive end don’t mean that dramatic improvement over the course of the year can’t happen again.

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Tonight the 38th Annual McDonald’s All-American Game will take place at the United Center in Chicago. Twenty-four of the top high school players in the country will showcase their skills in front of a national audience in what is one of the few opportunities for fans to catch a glimpse of next year’s class of recruits. Over the past few days, the players have been competing in practices against one another ahead of tonight’s showdown. With a number of players either committed to or still considering Big 12 schools, we felt that it would be a good idea to quickly profile those players to keep an eye on tonight as you tune into the game. All rankings from Scout.com.

Committed Players

Carlton Bragg has committed to Kansas. (Brian Spurlock, USA Today Sports)

This year’s class of All-Americans includes two players who have already committed to Big 12 schools.

• No. 16 Carlton Bragg (Kansas). Bragg, a 6’9″ power forward from Cleveland, committed to Kansas in the fall. Despite his size, he was the only player to compete in the skills competition, the three-point contest and the dunk contest at Monday night’s Powerade Jam Fest. Bragg’s a versatile frontcourt player who can handle the ball and can reasonably step out beyond the three-point line. His skill set should make him a great fit in Bill Self’s high-low offense, but he’ll need to improve on the defensive end where he sometimes lacks the consistent effort that Self will require.
• No. 26 Jawun Evans (Oklahoma State). Jawun Evans has had a busy week dealing with rumors that his chosen school was considering a buyout of head coach Travis Ford, but the Oklahoma State athletic director appeared to put that speculation to rest on Tuesday. Evans, a 6’0″ point guard, committed to the Cowboys back in October, and with the departure of senior Anthony Hickey, he figures to immediately compete for a starting spot in Stillwater. He possesses an outstanding ability to penetrate the lane against opposing defenses, which should open up space for shooters like Phil Forte next season.

Uncommitted Players

Jaylen Brown Has Kansas on His Short List (FreeP.com)

The 2015 McDonald’s All-American Game also features a number of uncommitted prospects who plan to sign with schools in the coming weeks. Many of these players are considering Big 12 institutions, with Kansas on the lists of just about all of them. Here is a quick rundown of each McDonald’s All-American prospect who is still considering a Big 12 school next season.

• No. 1 Jaylen Brown, Wheeler High School (GA). Brown is a 6’7″ small forward who has spent the week speaking highly of Kentucky’s program while also saying that academics will help guide his decision. Despite having the skill set to make the jump, Brown may not be a typical one-and-done prospect. He’s got NBA size and athleticism but needs to spend time working on his jump shot to truly become an effective player at the next level. Kansas is the lone Big 12 school that remains on this prospect’s list.
• No. 5 Ivan Rabb, Bishop O’Dowd High School (CA). It would be a big surprise to see Ivan Rabb in the Big 12 next season. Kansas is currently the only Big 12 school that remains on his list, but Rabb appears headed to California. He’s another versatile big man who showed off his shooting touch recently by hitting the game-winning free throws in overtime of California’s state championship game.
• No. 8 Malik Newman, Callaway High School (MS). Newman has made his plan clear that he intends to spend as little time in college as possible. He’s considering six schools, including Kansas. Newman is a combo guard who has spent quite a bit of time running the point during practices this week, so keep an eye on how much he plays the position during tonight’s game.
• No. 9 Stephen Zimmerman, Bishop Gorman High School (NV). Zimmerman is an almost seven-footer from Las Vegas who has also been open about his desire to get to the NBA as soon as possible. Hometown school UNLV appears to be the favorite over Kansas and some other bluebloods like Kentucky and UCLA. Zimmerman obviously has the size to develop into an impressive post presence over time. He’ll get a chance to show off some of that development this evening.
• No. 10 Cheick Diallo, Our Savior New American School (NY). Diallo is perhaps one of the more interesting players on the uncommitted list. He’s being recruited by both Kansas and Iowa State but the Cyclones’ lead recruiter on Diallo is headed to St. John’s next season. He is a high energy big man who impressed observers during Tuesday’s practice, according to Rivals’ Eric Bossi, by showcasing his ability to block shots and collect rebounds on the defensive end while hustling to finish dunks on the other.
• No. 13 Brandon Ingram, Kinston High School (NC). Ingram is another Kansas prospect. The 6’8″ forward spent most of Tuesday’s practice engaged in trash talk with Jaylen Brown. He backed it up with an impressive scoring ability that has Rivals‘ Eric Bossi calling him the “biggest revelation” of this week.
• No. 33 Thomas Bryant, Huntington Prep (WV). Bryant is also considering Kansas but he hasn’t yet visited the school. He is a physical 6’10” center who has impressed with his play on the block during practices this week.

While obviously not all of these players will end up in the Big 12 next season, it is likely that one or more will choose a school in the conference. Tonight’s McDonald’s All-American Game should give fans a chance to see what each of them has to offer.

Who’s Got Next? is a weekly column by Sean Moran, the RTC recruiting guru. Once a week he will bring you an overview of what’s going on in the complex world of recruiting, from who is signing where among the seniors to discussing the recruitment of the top uncommitted players in the country. We also encourage you to check out his contributions at The Intentional Foul dedicated to recruiting coverage and analysis. You can also follow Sean at his Twitter account @Seanmohoops for up-to-date news from the high school and college hoops scene. If you have any suggestions as to areas we are missing or different things you would like to see, please let us know at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Note: Scout.com used for all player rankings.

The 38th annual McDonald’s All-American game tips off at the United Center in Chicago tonight at 8:00 PM ET. With the Final Four just around the corner, this star-studded game provides an inside look at the players that will impact the college game as freshmen next season. For example, there are four freshmen on each of the Duke and Kentucky rosters that participated in this game last year. While the diehard recruitnik already knows all about the players who populate the East and West teams, here is a high-level overview of what to watch for tonight for those who are more focused on the college game.

No. 1 Recruiting Class

Arizona currently has the No. 1 recruiting class but only one of its four signees is playing in the game. Kentucky is ranked No. 2 and it only has one player playing as well. What gives? For starters, Arizona has signed three five-star prospects but only shooting guard Allonzo Trier is playing in the game. Trier is an electric scorer who is certain to get his fair share of points tonight. The other future desert Wildcats are small forward Ray Smith, who is the No. 15 prospect in the country, 6’5” point guard Justin Simon (No. 20) and 6’11” forward Chance Comanche (No. 44). Power forward Ivan Rabb (No. 5) has also narrowed his choice down to California and Arizona. As for Kentucky, combo guard Isaiah Briscoe (No. 18) is the lone representative in this year’s game and the physical New Jersey product will do his best tonight by attacking the basket and creating for his teammates. The crown jewel of the Kentucky recruiting class is currently the No. 3 recruit in 6’11” forward Skal Labissiere. The Haitan native has immense long-term potential but he also has the NCAA interested in his background. Guard Charles Matthews, who is not currently ranked in the top 50, rounds out the class. Once the Final Four is over and several current Wildcats announce their NBA decisions, expect this class to grow by several more names and for Kentucky to once again lay claim to the top recruiting class in the nation.

Unsigned Players

A common refrain from both parents and NBA scouts attending the McDonald’s All-American practices was that it is in the best interests of the players to wait as long as they could before making a commitment. That way the families would have an opportunity to see what was going on with the coaching carousel in addition to learning which players are declaring for the NBA. As a result in this shift of thinking, there are a record number of unsigned seniors in this year’s class. Keep an eye on the below names.

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