11/11/2009 - Al Featherston, GoDuke.com

DURHAM, N.C. – When Duke opens its 105th season of basketball Friday night in Cameron Indoor Stadium, it will be a night to appreciate the infinite possibilities that every new season brings.
           
And in the three decades that Mike Krzyzewski has been guiding the program, those possibilities have been realized more often than not. In his first 29 years at the helm, Duke has enjoyed three national championships, 10 Final Fours, 11 ACC Championships and 19 top 10 finishes (including seven No. 1 finishes).
            
Krzyzewski expects to add to his resume with a 2009-10 team that features talent – including the preseason ACC player of the year and the returning ACC Tournament MVP – experience (three seniors and two juniors with a combined 243 career starts) and more size than any Duke team in a generation.
 
“I’m excited about our team,” Krzyzewski said. “It’s going to be a different type of team, but I think it can be a really, really good basketball team. We have talent and we have experience and we have good players.”
 
Those players have already been on display in two exhibitions and a Blue-White scrimmage. But UNC Greensboro offers the first official test for the 2009-10 Blue Devils Friday night at 7 p.m. Three more home games will follow in the next eight days, including the first two rounds of the Preseason NIT Monday and Tuesday of next week.
 
Duke will enter the new season ranked No. 9 nationally in the AP preseason poll. Just how significant is that projection?
 
Well, the Blue Devils have been ranked in the AP’s preseason poll in 26 of Coach K’s previous 29 seasons – and have improved on their preseason ranking 10 times; another six times they’ve finished precisely where they were ranked.
 
That means that more than 60 percent of the time, Duke has matched or exceeded national expectations under Coach Krzyzewski.
 
The same is true of the preseason ACC media poll.
 
This year, for the first time in the 40-year history of the poll, Duke tied rival North Carolina for first place in the voting. It’s the 19th time that one of Coach K’s teams have been picked first or second in the media’s preseason ACC poll. And, like the AP preseason poll, Coach K’s teams have matched or exceeded those expectations more often than not – overall, Duke has finished better than predicted 11 times and exactly where it was predicted nine times.
 
That’s almost 69 percent of the time that Duke has matched or exceeded expectations in the ACC. Junior Kyle Singler believes that the Blue Devils can exceed this season’s lofty preseason projections.
 
“I feel like this team has the talent to be the best team I’ve been on,” the 6-foot-8 junior said recently.
 
Singler’s freshman season produced a 28-6 team that finished ranked No. 9 nationally. As a sophomore, he was part of a team that won 30 games, claimed Duke’s 17th ACC Championship, reached the NCAA Sweet 16 and finished No. 6 nationally.
 
If this Blue Devil team is going to be better than that one, then Singler is going to have to play a large part. The tall, versatile Oregon native was recently voted the ACC’s preseason player of the year, coming off a sophomore season that saw him average 16.5 points and 7.7 rebounds a game.
 
But his role is going to change this season. After two seasons anchored in the post, Krzyzewski is moving Singler to the perimeter.
 
“It’s a lot different,” Krzyzewski said. “He can bring the ball up. We’re excited about him facing the basket and his ability to shoot. We’re going to see him drive the ball. It gives him a chance to offensive rebound.
          
“I think he’s going to be a really good player for us.”
          
Singler’s move from the post to the perimeter is the key to the changes that Krzyzewski has installed this preseason. Duke has been an undersized (compared to its ACC opponents), perimeter-oriented team since 2001, when Coach refashioned his team late in the season to emphasize the 3-point shot and pressure man-to-man defense. Those changes – a response to the late-season injury to center Carlos Boozer – led to a national championship and set the style that Duke would play in the first decade of the 21st Century.
           
But Krzyzewski has not always preferred three-guard teams that heavily relied on the 3-point shot. He’s had all manner of teams in his three decades at Duke, including a huge team in 1989 that looked very much like this year’s Blue Devils.
          
The ’89 Blue Devils were, in fact, slightly bigger than the 2009-10 Devils on paper, although three of the big men on that roster rarely played (George Burgin, Crawford Palmer and Clay Buckley). Still, Krzyzewski rotated big men Danny Ferry, Alaa Abdelnaby and freshman Christian Laettner up front, along with two smaller players who had previous started at center for Duke – Robert Brickey and John Smith.
          
That was a BIG team ... just as this one will be.
           
“We’re a very tall team,” Coach K said. “But I think we’re very athletic and I would hope we’ll be a good rebounding team. It will be a different team than we’ve had here for a while in the fact that we’re changing the way we do offense and some of the things we do defensively to kind of match the talent of who we have.”
          
With Singler on the perimeter, Krzyzewski will juggle 7-foot-1 senior Brian Zoubek, 6-foot-10 sophomore Miles Plumlee and 6-foot-10 freshmen Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly in the post. Lance Thomas, a 6-foot-8 senior, has started 62 games at “center” over the last three years, but the slender, athletic forward will play a more varied role this season – using his length and quickness to defend players inside and outside.
           
Some critics have suggested that Duke is thin in the backcourt with just 6-foot-5 senior Jon Scheyer and 6-foot-2 junior Nolan Smith returning, alongside backup 6-foot-4 freshman Andre Dawkins.
           
That’s just three natural guards – and with Smith sitting out two games for playing in an unauthorized summer game, Krzyzewski will have just two recruited guards to work with Friday night against UNC Greensboro and Monday against Coastal Carolina in the NIT opener.
           
Of course, the Duke coach just laughs at such considerations.
 
“I’ve been here 30 years and I don’t think you’ve ever heard me call guys guards, forwards and centers,” he said last summer. “You all call them that. Somebody said, ‘What about your backcourt?’ and I said, ‘We’re not a Major League infield or a football backfield. In our sport, you put five people out on the court and they play. Because somebody has to give them positions, you call them guards, forwards and centers. But I’ve never liked doing that.”
 
It’s interesting to look back at Krzyzewski’s 1989 Final Four team – the one that was so big up front. That team included just two guards – Quin Snyder and Phil Henderson – in the playing rotation. And, just like this season, neither Snyder or Henderson was a natural point guard.
 
“We don’t have like a [lead guard],” Krzyzewski said. “We’re going to run motion offense. We don’t have as many plays. I think we’ll advance the ball quicker this year, but do it more with the pass. We’ll be a team that doesn’t break you down with the ball and try to create shots. We should try and break you down off the ball to create shots.
 
“Kind of like the [Danny] Ferry teams, when we ran almost exclusively motion offense.”
 
Krzyzewski is pretty confident that his no-point-guard offense will work – not only because of his experience in 1989, but also because of what he saw last season. Duke was struggling in early February last season when Coach K revamped his lineup, moving Scheyer to the point and allowing the natural wing guard to run the offense. The Devils promptly won 10 of their next 11 games – including three in the ACC Tournament, where Scheyer was the MVP.
 
“Jon has proven himself to be one of the better players in the league,” Krzyzewski said. “He’s a great competitor. He handles the ball real well. He scored more when he was bringing the ball up than when he didn’t bring the ball up. I think the more the ball is in Jon’s hands, the better. Because he usually positions it well, whether he shoots it, passes it or he’s dribbling ... he positions the ball well when he has it.”
 
Scheyer will share the backcourt with Smith, who endured a rollercoaster sophomore season, when he started strong, slumped at midseason, missed three games with a concussion, then returned in the postseason to play the best basketball of his career.
 
“I think he’s been as good a player as we’ve had in preseason,” Krzyzewski said. “When he came back from [his injury], he was really good. We would have never won the ACC Tournament without his contribution. For about five games there, he was outstanding. That’s who we hope he will be for an entire year. I mean, he’s capable of doing that.”
 
Krzyzewski doesn’t yet know what his young big men are capable of. Miles Plumlee started two games early last season, but played less and less as the season wore on. Still, he possesses great physical gifts for a big man – as does his younger brother, Mason Plumlee.
 
“Mason has got a chance to be really, really good,” Krzyzewski said. “He has skills of a guard and the body of a big man, and a great basketball mind. He’s very competitive, he likes the stage, and he’s comfortable with the ball.”
 
Mason’s presence appears to have energized Miles. In his three preseason appearances, he’s been a dynamo inside.
 
“I had a lot of stuff to deal with, both on the court and in school,” the older Plumlee said when asked about last season. “It was kind of a downhill cycle. Once I lost confidence, it was hard to come back. I think I’m past that now. I’m a lot tougher and stronger.”
 
Based simply on what we know about Duke’s returning players, those lofty preseason projections – No. 9 nationally and No. 1 or No. 2 in the ACC – appear to be fairly reasonable. Duke’s hopes of exceeding those expectations and making a run at the national title probably depend on the newcomers and how much they contribute.
 
Can Andre Dawkins, originally a 2010 recruit who moved up his arrival a year to help bolster Duke’s thin backcourt, make an impact as a freshman? Can the physically gifted Plumlee brothers push each other to excel? Can offensively advanced freshman Ryan Kelly find a role in his first year?
 
Obviously, those questions won’t be answered in Friday’s opener against an opponent that Duke – on paper – should handle easily. Still, that’s the beauty of opening night. It brings the optimism engendered by three decades of sustained success.
 
A new team ... a new year ... new hopes.
 
What could be better?
 
NOTES: Krzyzewski’s teams have won 27 of 29 opening games. The only losses were to Stanford in the 1999-2000 opener and to Vanderbilt in the 1981-82 opener. The Stanford game was in New York; the Vandy loss in Coach K’s second season is the only time in 29 years that Krzyzewski has dropped his first home game. Coach K will be looking for his 834th career win. He has more wins than any active coach and the fourth most Division 1 coaching wins in NCAA history. Jon Scheyer will start the season with 1,349 career points – 32nd best on Duke’s career list. Scheyer has a chance this season to become just the ninth player in school history to average double figures in all four varsity seasons. Kyle Singler will start the season in 53rd place with 1,060 points.