brian zoubek – Rush The Court

Amile Jefferson Channels His Inner Zoubek

Chris Kehoe — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 19:21:00 +0000

He knew he had it within him all along. The skinny 6’9” “power” forward from Philadelphia had always played with an infectious sense of energy — the quintessential ‘hype man’ for Duke. But in Amile Jefferson’s freshman season, he primarily logged spot duty minutes at a clip of about 13 minutes per game. Stuck behind senior frontcourt leaders Ryan Kelly and Mason Plumlee, Jefferson struggled to get into a groove and find a defined role in Duke’s system. Coming into this year, the 2012 McDonald’s All-American made it his business to add weight to his frame so he could take [...]

From Punching Bag to Prize Fighter: Mason Plumlee’s Journey to the NBA

mpatton — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:21:05 +0000

When he arrived at Duke, Mason Plumlee — despite his obvious upside — was actually ranked below teammate Ryan Kelly, according to the Recruiting Services Consensus Index. Kelly was ranked #14 in the class, while Plumlee was #18. Even more fascinating to look back at are Plumlee’s Draft Express archives. Coming out of his first season at Duke, the scouting service looked for Plumlee to continue to develop as a stretch four! To be fair, he did hit 21 threes in 38 games in his prep senior season (unfortunately his shooting percentage is unavailable), but Plumlee’s transformation from a flat-shooting, athletic, potential-stretch four to [...]

Night Line: Duke Resembling Its 2010 Championship Team?

EJacoby — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 10:55:29 +0000

Evan Jacoby is an RTC columnist. You can find him @evanJacoby on Twitter. Night Line will run on weeknights during the season, highlighting a major storyline development from that day’s slate of games.

The Maui Invitational finals played to an instant classic last night, with Duke leaving the island as champions yet again. Coach K and the Blue Devils are now a perfect 15-0 in their five trips to Maui. Duke has won the first seven games of this season, and a team that nearly lost its season-opener at home to Belmont is starting to establish an identity. Upon further review, the 2011-’12 [...]

Duke’s Post Players: Has Reality Caught Up with Perception?

mpatton — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:45:03 +0000

For the last ten years, fairly or unfairly, Duke has had the perception of being all backcourt all the time. Long gone are the days where Christian Laettner, Elton Brand or Carlos Boozer graced the court in Durham. In describing his recruitment decision to attend Michigan last week, Mitch McGary let it all out: “all [Duke’s] big men do is set screens and rebound and that they don’t get a lot of touches.”

Josh McRoberts' Relative Lack of Success at Duke Still Haunts the Blue Devils

Duke Hoop Blog looked at this perception, which moves closer to reality as the [...]

ACC Team Preview: Duke

mpatton — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:30:26 +0000

And then there were two.

Duke is a very tough team to project this season. The Blue Devils lost their top three players (Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler and Kyrie Irving) from last season, but there’s still plenty of talent and a Hall of Fame coach on the sideline in Durham. Thoughtful preseason rankings slot Duke anywhere from fourth to ninth nationally, which seem very reasonable for where Duke could finish the season — not necessarily where it should start.

The team’s two major questions are, “who will run the offense?” and “will any of the frontcourt players finally live up to his [...]

The Perfect Storm Leads to St. John’s Rout of Duke and Raises Questions About the Blue Devils

nvr1983 — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 08:23:42 +0000

It was a game with a result that was shocking not so much for the fact that St. John’s beat Duke, but the manner in which they did so. Coming into the game on Sunday afternoon, the Red Storm had lost five of six after raising expectations with a win over Georgetown at the beginning of an unprecedented stretch of eight consecutive games against top 25 teams. That skid had threatened to put a damper on all the hype that had accompanied Steve Lavin‘s arrival in New York City and his much-ballyhooed incoming freshman class, but for one [...]

That’s Debatable: Impact of Kyrie Irving’s Injury on Duke

rtmsf — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:11:10 +0000

That’s Debatable is back for another year of expert opinions, ridiculous assertions and general know-it-all-itude. Remember, kids, there are no stupid answers, just stupid people. We’ll try to do one of these each week during the season. We’re fairly discerning around here, but if you want to be included, send us an email with your take telling us why at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

This Week’s Topic: News was released yesterday that Duke superstar point guard Kyrie Irving could be out from a month to the rest of the season with a toe injury. How will this impact the nation’s [...]

The Cases For & Against a Duke Unbeaten Season

rtmsf — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 14:22:47 +0000

If you haven’t heard, this year’s Duke team is pretty darn good. The defending national champions are loaded with talent on every area of the court and they’ve looked mighty impressive in the pre-conference slate against an impressive cast of characters — #5 Kansas State, #6 Michigan State, Marquette and defending runner-up, Butler. As great teams are expected to do, they’ve handled the contenders and destroyed the pretenders on their way to an 8-0 record. According to Ken Pomeroy’s latest figures, the Blue Devils have the most efficient offense in the nation and the fifth-most efficient defense — their efficiency margin of 36.8 points [...]

RTC Instant Analysis: Noon Games (12.04.10)

nvr1983 — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 21:11:57 +0000

As part of our on-going attempt to bring you the best college basketball coverage on-line, we are introducing a new feature where we give your our thoughts after each set of games over the weekend. You can expect posts around the following times:

3 PM for the Noon and 1 PM games 5 PM for the 2 PM and 3 PM games 10 PM for the 7 PM and 8 PM games

If you have any thoughts (agreeing or disagreeing) about what we say, leave a comment and we will respond.

Instant Analysis

Tyler Zeller was phenomenal (27 points including [...]

Behind the Numbers: New Duke, Same As the Old Duke?

KCarpenter — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:49:00 +0000

Kellen Carpenter is an RTC contributor.

Last year, as you are probably aware, Duke won it all. They enter this season as the easy top pick in all the national polls and the consensus favorite to cut down the nets in the early spring of 2011. With Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith sticking around for one last hurrah, a sensational recruiting class starring the incredibly skilled Kyrie Irving, and Coach K masterminding things as usual, picking Duke as the best team in the country is pretty easy. Duke is going to be very, very good this year. [...]

RTC Live: Princeton @ #1 Duke

rtmsf — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 17:13:17 +0000

Game #10. RTC Live is pleased to make our first trip into the hallowed halls of Cameron Indoor Stadium on the campus of Duke University this afternoon.

The Duke home opener is always a special day in Durham, but today’s game commands even more attention than usual. An extra banner hangs from the ceiling of Cameron Indoor Stadium, and this team enters with pressure its predecessor didn’t have: expectations of another national title. Questions do exist for Mike Krzyzewski’s team, though. Can Kyle Singler improve, or was last year his ceiling? How do Duke’s young guards fill [...]

2010 NBA Draft Winners and Losers

zhayes9 — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:51:45 +0000

Zach Hayes is an editor, contributor and bracketologist at Rush the Court.

Now that the Draft is complete, time to look back at Thursday night’s winners and losers, from coaches to NBA teams to players to conferences and everything in between:

Paul George saw his stock skyrocket all the way to #10 and the Pacers, Al Bello/Getty Images

Winners:

Big 12 – One of the premier college basketball conferences has gained quite a surge of momentum in the last few weeks. Big 12 commish Dan Beebe convinced Texas it was in their best [...]

Singler’s Return = Duke #1

rtmsf — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:05:17 +0000

The SCOOP doctor, Jeff Goodman, is reporting that Duke all-american forward Kyle Singler is returning to Durham for his senior year. A formal announcement from Singler is expected in the next 24 hours, but suffice it to say that good fortune is shining on Mike Krzyzewski and his Blue Devil program in a big way lately. According to the mock drafts, Singler was projected as a late first-rounder but he has decided that a shot at another national title at Duke is worth more than the guaranteed dollars that he would have received as a new draftee. He and fellow ACC big man [...]

Selected Thoughts From Final Four Weekend

rtmsf — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:21:13 +0000

You know how this works… here are some random thoughts bouncing around our head as we come out of a pretty damn good Final Four in Indianapolis.

Welcome to Indy!

Coach K is the Current Dean of Coaches. But let’s get one thing put to rest right away. He’s not John Wooden. For all you presentists out there convinced that the era we’re currently in is tougher than any other previous one, get your head out of your sphincter. Make all the excuses you want, but Wooden beat all comers west AND east, year after year [...]

RTC Mea Culpa: K Shows His Brilliance Again as Duke Wins #4

rtmsf — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 07:35:20 +0000

If 70,000 people can act in unison as a single living organism, that moment was when Butler’s Gordon Hayward put his shot into the air from fifty feet last night. The crowd, roaring its approval after Duke center Brian Zoubek intentionally missed his second free throw attempt with 3.6 seconds remaining, took a collective breath. All eyes bored through the orange ball as it sailed in the direction of the opposite goal, and when it approached the intended target, there wasn’t a soul in the house who believed that it would actually miss its mark.