Thoughts on Duke, Butler, Kentucky and More
Some random thoughts on the heels of the NCAA Championship Game and the exodus at Kentucky.
Duke
Duke wins the National Championship in what very well may be Coach K’s best coaching job to-date. This is easily the least talented of his four championship teams. The past Duke championship teams were typically filled with an All-American or two and contenders for the national player of the year. This year’s squad has no All-Americans, no Naismith contenders, and quite frankly none of the players on this year’s teams are seen as potential NBA lottery picks.
Don’t get me wrong some of the kids on this year’s team will play in the NBA. Jon Scheyer will probably get a shot to make a NBA team as a 3-point shooter off the bench, Nolan Smith will probably get a shot at being a scoring guard off the bench, and Kyle Singler will definitely be drafted by someone once he leaves Duke, and there are those who think Brian Zoubek will have the longest NBA career simply because he is seven feet tall and is willing to do grunt work under the rim.
Scheyer is a borderline draft pick but should get a shot to earn an invitation to camp via the summer league circuit.
Smith is not expected to leave school this spring and is probably a second round prospect at this stage. In watching the title game one could see why K made the choice to go with Scheyer at the point and move Smith to playing primarily off the ball. If Smith can come back and show an ability to run an offense during his senior year he could mature into a first rounder. As it is he looks more like a candidate to be a guy who gives a team ten points a game off the bench.
Singler has the best shot at being a first round pick and is seen by some as a borderline lottery prospect. His stock is going to be on the rise given how well he played the last couple of months of the season. I never realized how well he can defend until he locked down Gordon Hayward in the championship game. The problem with Singler is he is not perceived as a good athlete and does a little bit of everything on the floor but does not excel at any one thing.
Kentucky
John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Patrick Patterson, Eric Bledsoe, and Daniel Orton all announced they are putting their names in the NBA draft. On the surface this looks horrible for Kentucky. While I think Wall, Cousins, and Patterson are as good as gone I think there is a decent chance Bledsoe and Orton could be back next season. Wall and Cousins are practically mortal locks to be top five picks this summer while Patterson should end up being a lottery pick. Orton and Bledsoe are not seen as locks to go in the lottery and quite frankly neither guy showed they are ready to be NBA players while at Kentucky.
Butler
A lot of folks are saying Butler should be a top five team heading into next year with all of their top players likely coming back next season. While their players may be back will coach Brad Stevens be back next season? Oregon is rumored to be preparing a pretty sweet financial package to bring Stevens out west and two decent jobs just came open in the ACC with Oliver Purnell jumping ship at Clemson to take the job at DePaul and Wake Forest firing Dino Gaudio.
The hot rumor is that Stevens is atop Wake’s list of preferred candidates. One has to think that job would be awfully attractive to a guy like Stevens. Wake is a similar school to Butler in that it is a small private school. The caveat would be the chance to coach in the ACC and make a little more coin than Butler will pay. It should be interesting to see how things play out.
One has to think if Stevens jumps ship there is a decent chance Gordon Hayward puts his name in the draft rather than stick around and potentially play in a different system for a different coach. I expect if there is any inkling that Stevens is fielding offers Hayward will at the very least put his name in the draft and see how things unfold before deciding ultimately what to do. Hayward is seen as a solid first round prospect right now.
Final Thought
A lot has been made about whether or not to recruit one-and-done players of late and whether elite programs need to bite the bullet and recruit them to remain competitive. This year’s tournament is a testament to how overrated recruiting can be and that a team does not need the elite recruiting classes to win a NCAA Championship.
How many legit NBA prospects are on this year’s Duke squad? How about Butler, West Virginia, or Michigan State for that matter? The hyped teams that have two or three players who will likely go in the first round of this year’s draft all failed to reach the Final Four. They lost to teams that were veteran teams with significantly less talent.
This year’s Final Four shows us how overrated athleticism and talent can be in basketball and how much it matters to have a cohesive team that has played together for a couple of years and executes well. The one common thread of this year’s Final Four teams is they were solid cores that had been together for more than one season, defended well, and executed well. The teams that were a collection of traveling All Stars all wilted under the pressure when they got punched in the mouth by supposedly inferior teams.
Just consider that the top NBA prospects in this year’s Final Four were Devin Ebanks, Da’Sean Butler, and Gordon Hayward. None of these are considered locks to go in the lottery and are generally considered fringe lottery picks at best.
