The NBA season has begun and the basketball media camp is flush with ad nauseam stories about The Big Three, Blake Griffin, Boston and L.A. For some relief, swallow this GetReal NCAA prediction: The Duke Blue Devils will repeat their national championship in 2011.
While Duke may not be the most athletic team in the country, the team is a hell of a lot more than a cornbread-fed group of three point shooters. Rest assured Mason Plumlee, Kyrie Irving, Andre Dawkins and Nolan Smith are all big and quick enough to handle the nation’s ultra-athletic teams. From Michigan State and North Carolina to NC State, Duke can hang. While Duke’s best shooter, Jon Scheyer, has moved on to some sort of inevitably disparaging career in the real world, forward Kyle Singler shot 42% from beyond the arc last year and will compensate for his loss. To further increase the team’s fire power, Duke also acquired Seth Curry (brother of Stephen Curry, son of Dell Curry) from Liberty College where he averaged 20 ppg last year. Yes, he shoots like the rest of his family.
Duke Coach Mike Krzyewski is the undisputed master of Xs and Os basketball. Mike is the basketball world’s version of Hannibal Lecter crossed with Jack Welsh. And, fresh off a gold medal in Turkey this summer, where he led players like Kevin Durant and Chauncey Billups, he’s going to be like a coach on managerial cocaine. He’ll undoubtedly have developed higher expectations, which will trickle down into tighter, more intense and demanding leadership. Ask and ye shall receive, I believe the adage goes.
Moreover, Krzyewski will be coaching a team largely comprised of returning players, meaning he’ll have yet another season of tweaking and engineering on which to compound before heading into the tournament come March. This will make a team offense and chemistry that’s already deadly effective more so.
GetReal Hoops is a huge fan of 4th-year retuning forward Kyle Singler. At 6’8, 235lbs, this kid can shoot the three, play the low post, run the break and pass the ball. With a brilliant basketball IQ and the work ethic/stamina to play the entire game (he usually did throughout the 2010 tournament), he’s a candidate for player of the year. Singler fills stats sheets like water and how much he steps up in 2011 will be key to Duke’s success. Our bet: He will.
Cause we ain’t talk’n about LBJ today, you heard it here first: Duke 2011 Champs, again.
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