The size, depth, athleticism, and experience of Duke's frontline will be a primary strength of this year's team. Mike Krzyzewski expects senior Miles Plumlee and juniors Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly, backed up by several promising underclassmen, to score regularly and to take up space, block shots, and generally make life difficult for opponents.
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"How we incorporate our bigs in what we're doing, both offensively and defensively, is a change from the last couple of years," Krzyzewski says. "So there's some habits to break as far as just how we score, how we defend, so we incorporate our big guys more. We're going to do that."
One side-effect may be an increase in blocked shots recorded by the Devils, more perimeter-oriented in recent seasons. Duke led the ACC in rejections each year from 2004 through 2006 when it had Shelden Williams and played team defense secure in the knowledge he was guarding the basket.
Contrast that with 2011, when a unit led by Kyrie Irving, Kyle Singler, and Nolan Smith was fourth in total blocks (162) and seventh in blocks per game (4.4).
How the frontcourt operatives are deployed will be key to Duke's defensive strategy this season.
"Where do you want the ball to go?" Krzyzewski asks rhetorically. "Do you channel it? Do you funnel it? That type of thing, where the big guys are active ingredients to a half-court defense, I mean really big, big parts of a half-court defense. Our big guys can be very good. They should be. They're ready to be. A lot of success that we'll have this season will be dependent on their play."
Expect Ryan Kelly, who blossomed before our eyes last season, to become an even more prominent defensive factor with his ability to block shots (51) and take charges.
Better things also appear in the offing from Mason Plumlee, whom Krzyzewski considers on the cusp of the stardom promised by his raw abilities. That includes emerging as a consistent offensive force.
"Mason's right there," his coach says. "Mason's at a really good spot. He's not completely over the bridge, but he's on it and he's more in the direction of becoming the player that he'll be."
Last season MaP and Kelly each ranked among the ACC's top 10 in blocked shots. They became just the 13th set of teammates to record at least 50 blocks in the same year since the league began keeping track in 1976.
UNC coach Roy Williams, entering his ninth season at his alma mater after 15 years at Kansas, is duly impressed with the Duke contingent. He calls the frontcourt veterans, including Miles Plumlee, "as good a trio of big guys in this league since I've been back."
That's no small accolade considering this year's Tar Heels placed both forwards and their center on the preseason all-conference first team.
Forward Harrison Barnes, projected by most media members (not this one) as the ACC Player of the Year, blocked a mere 16 shots last season.
Junior John Henson, a human spider, rejected 118 shots in the same 37 games, most by an ACC player since Duke's Williams recorded 137 in 36 outings in 2006. If the unorthodox Henson becomes a better scorer he could emerge as the ACC's best player.
Seven-foot Tyler Zeller, solid but earthbound, blocked 45 shots in 37 games in 2011, leaving the Heels close to having a pair of 50-block players. (Expect someone to refer to "Z," as teammates and coaches call him, as an aircraft carrier in the middle, an expression Al McGuire made famous. Expect it especially when the Heels take on Michigan State on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson on Nov. 11.)
Remarkably, over the 36 years the ACC has tracked blocked shots, only five pairs of teammates recorded at least 60 blocks in the same year.
Duke did it in 2004 with Williams and Shavlik Randolph. Maryland did it three times between 2000 and 2008 with three different pairs under coach Gary Williams.
And North Carolina did it in 1994 with Rasheed Wallace and Eric Montross. Those '94 Tar Heels were the only team so far that's had three 50-block players. For all that, UNC, the defending national champion, never quite jelled that season, with too many pieces and egos and not enough playing time to achieve harmony.
REJECTION CONNECTION | ||||||
Pair Of Players On ACC Team With At Least 50 Blocked Shots Same Season |
||||||
Year | School | Team Total | Player | Total | Per Game | Mins Per |
2011 | Wake Forest | 175 | Ty Walker | 79 | 2.5 | 7.3 |
Carson Desrosiers | 51 | 1.7 | 11.6 | |||
Duke | 162 | Mason Plumlee | 62 | Â 1.7 | 15.3 | |
Ryan Kelly | 51 | 1.4 | 14.6 | |||
2009 | North Carolina | 196 | Ed Davis | 65 | 1.7 | 11.0 |
Danny Green | 51 | 1.3 | 20.4 | |||
2008 | Maryland | 224* | James Gist | 77 | 2.3 | 13.7 |
Bambale Osby | 69 | 2.1 | 12.8 | |||
2007 | Maryland | 233* | Ekene Ibekwe | 88 | 2.7 | 9.4 |
James Gist | 72 | 2.1 | 13.1 | |||
2004 | Duke | 240* | Shelden Williams | 111 | 3.0 | 8.7 |
Shavlik Randolph | 61 | 1.7 | 11.6 | |||
2003 | Duke | 178 | Casey Sanders | 54 | 1.6 | 10.9 |
Shelden Williams | 52 | 1.6 | 12.2 | |||
2002 | Maryland | 216* | Lonny Baxter | 69 | 2.0 | 14.6 |
Chris Wilcox | 53 | 1.5 | 16.3 | |||
2001 | Maryland | 213* | Terence Morris | 79 | 2.2 | 12.6 |
Lonny Baxter | 55 | 1.5 | 17.0 | |||
2000 | Maryland | 235* | Lonny Baxter | 79 | 2.3 | 12.3 |
Terence Morris | 71 | 2.1 | Â 15.5 | |||
1995 | North Carolina | 177 | Rasheed Wallace | 93 | 2.7 | 11.1 |
Jerry Stackhouse | 59 | 1.7 | 19.8 | |||
1994 | North Carolina | 218* | Rasheed Wallace | 63 | 1.8 | 11.6 |
Eric Montross | 62 | 1.8 | 17.9 | |||
Kevin Salvadori | 58 | 1.7 | 12.6 | |||
1990 | Clemson | 235* | Elden Campbell | 97 | Â 2.8 | 10.7 |
Dale Davis | 58 | 1.7 | 18.6 | |||
* Team led ACC in total blocks during season. |
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