The spin on Vernon Carey wearing no.1

[christophero]

Not sure where to put this but I am watching the Duke Butler title game from 2010. It is stunning how experienced we are, and how talented. Zoubek is huge, Thomas is long, and Singler Smith and Scheyer are smart and savvy. I'd put that team up against any of our great teams and they'd have a shot to win. Also 2 Plumlees and Dawkins off the bench. Such great chemistry. That was a Butler team of destiny in their own house and we still beat them.

 

[jimlsumner]

Until and unless the NCAA changes its early-entry policy or Duke gets a new recruiting philosophy or new coach, we may never again see a Duke team with this kind of roster composition. Once Zoubek moved into the starting line-up,Duke started three seniors-Zoubek, Scheyer and Thomas--along with juniors Singler and Smith. The reserves were sophomore Miles Plumlee and freshmen Mason Plumlee, Andre Dawkins and Ryan Kelly, all of whom stayed (at least) four years. The way teams used to be put together.

And only a decade ago. How quickly that paradigm was blown up.

 

[christophero]

Agreed. It is shocking to see that level of experience on a recent Duke team.

 

[jimlsumner]

Even more recently that 2010, the 2013 team had seniors Mason Plumlee, Ryan Kelly and Seth Curry, along with sophomore Quinn Cook and freshman Rasheed Sulaimon starting. Not as experienced as '10 but three senior starters, all good enough to eventually play in the NBA.

 

[christophero]

Watching the Butler game, Butler just kept on coming. They had answers. But so did Duke, and they never got rattled. Singler and Scheyer were the difference in that game imo.

 

[BeerPoisoning]

As I said, the only legitimate reason Singler gets in this conversation is the title. If Quinn Cook is not around in 2015 providing the leadership and steady-hand (you know, the intangibles like heart and soul) then Duke likely doesn't win a title.

In your previous post you mentioned Laettner's career scoring average then brought Singler's up and called for context. Context would be that Laettner was sixth, nearly seventh, on his freshman team in minutes per game and spent the first half of the season playing behind Danny Ferry and Alaa Abdelnaby until he was inserted into the starting lineup for Abdelnaby. John Smith and Robert Brickey also played a lot of minutes in the frontcourt that season. You could certainly argue that Singler would have had a career average of 16.2 had his career started in that situation rather than beating out Taylor King and sophomores Lance and Zoubek (who were not near the guys they were 2 years later).

Man, I’ll be honest with you and Jim — I typed out a reply to your post (pretty lengthy) and deleted all of it on the last sentence. I brought up discussion about Grant, Shane and Bobby’s career ppg. I ended the last sentence with, “I’m not trying to imply that Kyle is on the same level as these guys because I don’t think that he is” I just paused mid-sentence. Our rafters are for the VERY elite and if I don’t think Kyle isn’t as good as multiple guys hanging up there then really what business does he have up there? I have no debate and I shouldn’t think that he belongs there. Kyle was fantastic, a jack of all trades. However, I’m going to swing my opinion that I’ve had for 8 or so years and say that Kyle Singler shouldn’t have his jersey retired.

PS- I love Q as he is one of my favorites but his 4 years collectively are not on the same level as Kyle’s collective 4 years.

 

[BeerPoisoning]

BeerPoisioning--what's the story behind that user name--raises a good point relative to accolades.

I think you have to have objective criteria. Stats are one of those objective criteria but recognition outside the program also has to be one. And that's not just my opinion. I have had conversations on this subject with Kevin White over the years and Duke does take that sort of thing into consideration.

Jay Bilas has stated that his classmate David Henderson should have his jersey required. Now, if you want to start a thread on toughest players to ever wear a Duke jersey, then Henderson would be on my short lsit. Tough physically, tough mentally, a great clutch player.

But Henderson never even made All-ACC. He should have been in 1986, IMO, but that's another discussion. But Jay's opinion is personal and impressionistic and not backed up by any objective criteria.

Let me elaborate a bit on my contention that Dukes' standards for jersey retirement necessarily have to be very strict. Duke has an athletics hall of fame. There are anywhere between 14 and 17 former basketball players--depending on how we count someone like Bob Gantt--who are in the Duke hof who do not have their jerseys retired, including a lot of the people we're talking about, e.g. Verga, Spanarkel, Denton, Banks, Marin.

Again, that speaks to the depth of the bench, so to speak. I know/knew a lot of these people and they all consider this a great honor. Down the road, I suspect Singler, Scheyer, Smith, maybe Cook or Duhon or Allen join that list.

And Elton Brand is a member, so there does not appear to be a graduation requirement.

Here's a link, for those interested.

http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=209600156

Years ago when I created my Playstation account I had to come up with a username. I was suffering from food poisoning at the time. I drink a lot of beer and thought BeerPoisoning was fitting. Since then it has been my go-to choice when creating an account name. — I’d like to know how that relates to accolades though haha

I hear you about objective criteria and I heavily agree with your post. Kyle would be retired elsewhere but at Duke the amount of great names are endless. That being said — If you didn’t see it before reading this, I think you’ll enjoy my post above replying to someone else.