While we thought Michael Gbinije could have had a great role at Duke, as it turned out, he came to Duke for the wrong reasons.
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Things have worked out well for him at Syracuse though, where he has become a one-man bench: Jim Boeheim is using him as a sixth man who can play three positions.
Duke did something similar with Mike Dunleavy his freshman year. With a very thin bench and basically six players in the rotation, Dunleavy allowed Duke to have a highly flexible bench. Coach K would take someone out - say Shane Battier or Chris Carrawell - and rotate the next guy back in. Toss in Nate James and you can see how well that would work - everyone except Jason Williams could play at least two positions.
Syracuse is not quite that flexible, but having a Swiss Army knife on the bench is bound to be helpful.