What's going on with Sheed? Hearing he is not in the starting lineup...

birddog23;1532086 wrote:What's going on with Sheed? Hearing he is not in the starting lineup...

From what I've read, he appears to be suffering from a severe virus of some sort that has been traveling around campus. It is not believed to be an injury of any sort, so that's a positive. I guess whatever sickness/flu/whatever is going around Duke is taking out a lot of students. Hopefully, he recovers soon. Duke needs his explosiveness.

There are also some reports floating around that Sulaimon may not be in K's "circle of trust" right now, so I am not so sure it's actually an ailment that is keeping the kid out of the lineup -- though he is sick -- as much as the fact that he could be in the dreaded K doghouse. When they found Martynas Pocius there at end of his senior year, he was barely clinging on to life, but he eventually made a full recovery overseas.

With that in mind, it could be an open door for Andre Dawkins...

Hopefully if Rasheed is sick he has a speedy and full recover. If he is in fact in the doghouse for some reason, he needs to get his ass out quick.

Matt Jones looked fantastic in the two exhibition games, so there is certainly more competition surrounding Rasheed at the two-guard slot this year when also taking into account the fifth-year senior Andre Dawkins. Duke went smaller on occasion last year with three guards, which really allowed Rasheed to blossom early on. This year, K has the horses to field a traditional lineup with a pair of forwards and a center. He's got top 20 NBA draft talent IMO, but Rasheed will need to bring it hard each night if he wants to be the top shooting guard on the roster. He might still be a year away from really exploding.

Go Duke.

Tyler Thornton with the start for Duke. Another solid guard (who K absolutely loves having on the floor) fighting for time at the two. With Thornton, Sulaimon, Dawkins and Jones all in the mix, it's going to be an all-out dogfight for minutes at that position.

Duke off to a quick start with a very fast pace. I like it. Except for Josh Hairston shooting threes. Somebody needs to tie one of his hands behind his back so that he can only run and rebound.

birddog23;1532236 wrote:Hopefully if Rasheed is sick he has a speedy and full recover. If he is in fact in the doghouse for some reason, he needs to get his ass out quick.

You got your wish. Rasheed with eight points in about six minutes off the bench. He's come out swinging. Glad to see that he's feeling better and back to his old self. Duke looks great early. This is going to be a very fun team to watch.

This team is the real deal! We havent been able to get up and down the court like this in years!

Hood/Parker/Sulaimon will make us forget about Curry/Plumlee/Kelly

I need to watch more teams play, but Hood and Parker could easily compose the best forward tandem in the country. Certainly the best front-court to play at Duke since the days of Battier and Dunleavy.

Duke can score some points. I've heard many claim this team has the tools to average 90 this year, and while I didn't believe it at first, I do now.

Duke is throttling one of the favorites of the Southern Conference, just putting a choke hold on them. Devils up 110 to 73. And Davidson is a good team that will win a lot of games this year.

Needless to say, I am impressed by Duke's opener.

So, the Drury game was obviously a teachable moment because Duke played far far faster than they did in their two exhibition games. Its apparent that the coaching staff decided that they needed to get more than double the possessions they did in preseason. I am happy they did because this team was built to run run run. Duke won't shoot 70% in a game the rest of the season I don't figure but that was a dang impressive. Davidson is a really good basketball team. Far superior to the Oakland team I saw in Chapel Hill and Duke made them look average. I haven't been so happy to be so completely wrong in my assessment.

What will Tuesday bring? Bigger stage and coming out party for all involved.

Just returned from Chicago. Great three days. On the one hand, I drove 300 miles to watch Duke lose. On the other, I'm glad I got to witness live the future of basketball. Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggins and Julius Randle are all going to develop into First Team All-NBA talents at the next level. Admittedly, I'm partial to Parker -- I think he was the most polished and League-ready talent on the floor; he definitely stood out IMO -- but there's very minimal separation between Parker, Wiggins and Randle. They're all phenoms.

As for Duke, the Blue Devils lost to the better overall team at this stage in the year. KU's size on the interior was just too much. I had my reservations about how good KU really was after losing its top five offensive producers from a season ago, but I was mistaken. Yes, Perry Ellis played like fucking George Gervin (where the hell did that come from), but the Jayhawks have all the ingredients. If Duke can shore up some glaring deficiencies, notably free-throw shooting and protection of the rim, the talent is there to compete with KU and Michigan State. If not, Duke will not be able to beat either, no matter how offensively talented.

ccrunner609;1535242 wrote:Do you feel that Rasheed should be starting and getting more minutes then Tyler?

Sulaimon should be getting 30 minutes a game. Thornton should get about 20. I don't care who starts, I just do not think Duke can afford (offensively) to have Tyler on the floor more than 20 minutes a game.

ccrunner609;1535242 wrote:Do you feel that Rasheed should be starting and getting more minutes then Tyler?

In a way, I think I understand what K is attempting to do, and that's bring Rasheed off the bench in that sophomore Jon Scheyer type of role to provide instant offense off the bench. It's certainly a great luxury to have. But Scheyer was brought off the bench in 2007-08 because there was a blossoming Nolan Smith ahead of him. Tyler Thornton is not Nolan Smith. Thornton is what he is. A workhorse who will get after it, maybe hit one or two threes and provide energy defensively. He's not a starter.

Sulaimon is superior to Thornton both offensively and defensively and, outside of some unknown factor that we unaware of, I have no idea why he is not starting. I mean, Rasheed dropped 20 points in off the bench in just 25 minutes in Duke's opener. Thornton has scored nine points in two games. Thornton should be playing the spark-plug-off-the-bench role, which is what he's best suited for.

birddog23;1535251 wrote:Sulaimon should be getting 30 minutes a game. Thornton should get about 20. I don't care who starts, I just do not think Duke can afford (offensively) to have Tyler on the floor more than 20 minutes a game.

Agree with this. In the end, it doesn't really matter who starts as much as who finishes the game on the floor. And there should never be a circumstance where Tyler Thornton is playing as many or more minutes than Rasheed Sulaimon. Rasheed is just too valuable.

Duke is playing Florida Atlantic tonight and is currently up 93 to 61.

The big story, however, for Blue Devils fans is Andre Dawkins, who has 17 points and 5 threes. The kid got some time tonight and he capitalized on it. According to Seth Davis, apparently he's been limited due to a bruised tailbone early this season. Hopefully, this is the sign of big things to come for the kid. Duke needs his scoring off the bench.

Sulaimon started just for CC. He played like shit though, Dawkins stepped up big.

Parker was Parker. He does some amazing things. Hood scored whenever he wanted which was nice to see.

Probably will need some better play out of Cook because he looked kind of sloppy at times.

Best thing about yesterday was landing BOTH Okafor and Jones! Huge for Duke basketball going forward.

Rodney's 28 was nice to see as well. As you say, he was scoring any time he felt like it, which is always the sign of a superstar. Kid had a rough go against KU, but he's going to have more 28-point nights than he does 11-point ones.

Rec you will appreciate this stat:

Duke is 30-2 when Andre Dawkins scores 10 or more points

birddog23;1538282 wrote:Rec you will appreciate this stat:

Duke is 30-2 when Andre Dawkins scores 10 or more points

That's a great stat.

I think a lot of that can be attributed to the simple fact that when Dawkins is making shots, the other team has to practically faceguard him, or get burned badly. He's one of the best spurt shooters I've ever seen. Once he makes one, you could blink and he might already have three. He is the ultimate in-the-zone scorer. He really opens up the offense for Duke.

Really impressed with Duke's defense tonight. They really got after it, compared to previous games.

Jabari Parker's 180-degree dunk tonight on the alley from Quinn Cook in transition was pretty nice. Parker finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists.

[video=youtube;l1CveU3bJV0][/video]

Great article about how Dawkins has to deal with tragedy and depression

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-basketball/news/20131113/andre-dawkins/

Dukies back in action tonight in Cameron. The Blue Devils take on the Vermont Fighting T.J. Sorrentine's on ESPNU at 6:30 in defense of their 105 straight home victories against non-conference opponents.

Interesting stat on ESPN today: Jabari Parker is one of just 4 freshman in college basketball over the last decade to score at least 20 points in his first 5 games. Michael Beasley, Eric Gordon and Kevin Durant are the others.

The good: Duke offense(93ppg) continues to thrive; Parker and Hood are as good as advertised plus they've been getting a third guy to step up every night and help with some scoring. Free throw shooting has improved greatly since the first two games. Wish I could say something good about defense but I can't.


The bad: Can't contain the dribble, especially Cook. Just back off a little and keep the in front. Duke has no real true rim protector. Getting beat off the dribble leads to help defense which means the backside has to rotate and cover up for the helper which Duke is absolutely terrible at right now.