Three years ago, Jon Scheyer and Lance Thomas were freshmen on a young, undersized Duke team that suffered a first-round NCAA Tournament loss to Virginia Commonwealth.
Now, they’re captains of a squad that’s different in almost every way.
The Blue Devils are experienced, having been through the highs of a No. 1 ranking and ACC championship last season and the lows of that 2007 loss to the Rams. They are taller than just about any Duke team under head coach Mike Krzyzewski, with a probable starting lineup boasting three players who are at least 6-foot-8. And perhaps most importantly, they represent a program back on the rise.
In March, the Blue Devils reached the Sweet 16, recovering from a February swoon to win 30 games and capture the ACC Tournament title before a season-ending loss to Villanova. It was the first time Duke had reached the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since 2006 after advancing at least that far in the previous nine seasons.
The key to the Blue Devils’ late-season surge was the insertion of freshman Elliot Williams into the starting lineup, which caused Scheyer, a natural shooting guard, to move to the point. Williams has transferred to Memphis, but Duke learned how good it can be when the efficient Scheyer is running the team, and it will stick with that plan in 2009-2010.
“We played really well at the end of last year without having the benefit of practicing as much,” Krzyzewski said. “Then finally we had a horrible game in our last game, and that’s a game, with that lineup, you hope to have in mid-January, early February. So you say, ‘OK, we can have a game like that, and here’s how we can improve.’ Now we get a chance to do this right from the beginning with Jon bringing the ball up.”
That means the Blue Devils will not play an up-tempo style, because aside from a rapidly emerging Nolan Smith, they do not have the personnel to break opponents down off the dribble. As a result, they will run a more deliberate motion offense in which the players without the ball will try to create shot opportunities based on screens and cuts.
Thanks to Duke’s greatly improved size, ACC Preseason Player of the Year Kyle Singler will play exclusively on the perimeter in that new offense. After spending much of his first two years in the paint, the junior seems to be looking forward to his new role, and he is glad that this Blue Devil team has a different makeup than previous squads.
“Now we have a complete team, even though we are kind of small on guards,” Singler said. “I’d much rather have more big men than more small guys. It’s something that we’ve struggled with in the past. We’ve always had one or the other, so I think it’s good that we’re big now.”
Duke’s increased length will also force the team to employ less of its signature pressure defense, perhaps even going to a zone at times, Scheyer said.
But the Blue Devils hope all those changes, added to the most experience they have had in four years, will help them build on the steady progress they have made since the 2006-2007 season.
“There have been points throughout our past couple years where if we get off to a good start—5-0, 10-0, whatever it might be—[we get comfortable],” Scheyer said. “We can’t relax.”
That holds for the postseason as well, where Duke looks to reach the Final Four for the first time since 2004.
“We’ve had excellence of our own,” Krzyzewski said. “When this decade’s done, we’ll end up being the winningest program in any decade in college basketball. People have things to hang their hats on. The thing you’d like to hang your hat on the most is a national championship because that’s the ultimate.”
In the final season of the 2000s, Duke would love to bring both honors back to Durham.