The baseball team squared off against the Elon Fighting Christians (13-4) this weekend at Historic Jack Coombs Field, and the result left coach Bill Hillier struggling for an acceptable way to explain his thoughts.
"I can't honestly tell you what's on my mind," he said. "You wouldn't want to put it in print."
The Blue Devils lost all three games this weekend and dropped to a disappointing 5-13 on the season. Duke lost game one 6-0 on Friday, fumbled game two 7-3 then lost 12-9 on Sunday at Elon to end a weekend that left everyone involved with the program extremely frustrated.
"We're not very good. You can quote me on that," said Hillier. "We're not very good right now."
The loss puts the Blue Devils in a difficult situation as they are already eight games under .500, and have yet to begin ACC play. Last year, Duke was 4-18 in the conference.
Early problems inevitably lead to questions of blame. Hillier's response to question as to what was behind the Blue Devils' early struggles indicate he intends to accept a share of the responsibility.
"[The problem is] poor coaching," he said. "Someone has to teach them how to hit, and I guess we haven't taught them how to yet. We haven't done a good enough job as coaches."
The hitting woes Hillier spoke of were apparent all weekend. In Friday's shutout loss, the Blue Devils only managed four hits. During game two, Duke led 3-1 after three innings, but the Blue Devils produced only two hits in the final six innings en route to a 7-3 loss. On Sunday, the Blue Devils scored nine runs, but still mustered only seven hits.
Hillier said part of the reason for Duke's hitting woes lies in the players' attitudes.
"One reason we're not hitting is that when they go to the plate they don't think they're going to hit," he said. "When that happens you're not going to hit.
"They aren't mentally tough right now."
Duke has coupled its lack of hitting with a series of defensive miscues. In Sunday's 12-9 loss, the Blue Devils made seven errors.
These mistakes have left Hillier less than pleased.
"I'm upset," he said. "I'm a very intense competitor and I don't like losing. I'm upset at my team. My team isn't competing hard.
"I was hired to build a team and I'm going to build it. I said when I took this job that this team was going to compete hard, and we're not competing hard. You can lose, but when you don't compete, I can't take that. These guys have got the rest of the year to show me they're good enough to play in this program. Otherwise, I'm going to find other players."
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