Mike Krzyzewski cannot remember a season when the Blue Devils have not had at least one player on the Wooden Award watch list.
The award is given to the nation’s top college basketball player at the end of each season, and the absence of Duke players on the 2011 edition of the watch list highlights the abundance of youth on this year’s team. With such an inexperienced roster, Krzyzewski said he has altered his coaching style to an extent he has only matched “six or eight times” in his 32 years with the program.
The change is less related to in-game strategy and more about how the head coach manages his team. The graduation of Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith, who highlighted last year’s group of 50 Wooden Award nominees, left the squad without a leader who has already established his role on the team.
“Right now we won’t get as much help from a player like we got help from... Nolan or Kyle,” Krzyzewski said. “Our guys are still trying to figure out what they’re doing.”
Youth is not necessarily a predictor of early struggles, as Kyrie Irving proved last year, but even the most talented rookies can benefit from being surrounded by veterans. Irving needed just 11 collegiate games to play himself into becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, but Krzyzewski attributes Irving’s rapid adjustment to the college game largely to Singler and Smith’s leadership.
The head coach cannot rely on that type of guidance with the current roster, making quality preseason preparation all the more critical for the team and its five freshmen.
The Blue Devils’ lack of experience is not the only determining factor in his change of philosophy, though. After three straight 30-win seasons, none of the current Blue Devils have experienced the relative down years, such as the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons, in which the team combined for 50 wins in two seasons. Those rougher seasons were the introduction to the program for Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek, who would go on to spearhead the 2010 NCAA title run. Their head coach believes the early years reinforced a toughness that helped them win the NCAA championship as seniors.
“How you coach a team like this is going to be incredibly different than the team the last two years,” Krzyzewski said, “because a lot of those guys [had] already had their noses rubbed in dirt.”
Although current co-captain Miles Plumlee played for two years alongside Thomas and Zoubek, it will be new for him to enter a season where so many players have undefined roles. Ryan Kelly will be thrust into an even brighter spotlight, complicating his adjustment to expanded on-court responsibilities. Both players shined in China and Dubai during the Friendship Games over the summer, but neither have yet proven they can consistently carry a team throughout the six-month season.
“We need a lot more before we can say we’re going to be good enough,” Krzyzewski said. “I know the road we have to go through. I’d rather do it during practice than experience setbacks [during the regular season].”
In the end, though, Krzyzewski believes all the pieces are in place to match the success of recent seasons—even without the established players that have defined those rosters.
“We have the talent,” Krzyzewski said, “but do we have the maturity of a winner?”
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