Duke Blue Planet BLOG

The NC General Assembly formally celebrating Duke’s 2010 national title on Thursday in the state capital.  The Legislature held a joint session with an introduction by Senator Dan Blue (also the chairman of Duke’s Board of Trustees).

Coach K spoke to the group about Duke’s commitment to the state and encouraged lawmakers to take advantage of Duke’s great resources.  The rest of our coaching staff joined Coach K at the event.

Coach Collins reflects on the national title and the development of our backcourt

Associate Head Coach Chris Collins graduated from Duke in 1996 after four standout seasons in the Duke backcourt that included a trip to the national title game in 1994.  Collins, a member of the coaching staff since 2001, works primarily with our perimeter players in practice.  On the following pages, the Illinois native shares his thoughts on our perimeter this past year and the season in general.

It’s amazing to think back about a year ago.  It seemed like everything was going against us.  We were losing key guys.  Obviously Gerald’s decision to go pro and Elliot’s family situation were unforeseen.  You’re looking at a team with very few bodies in the backcourt, and a lot of inexperience in the frontcourt.  At the end of the day though, we knew we had guys who had a lot of heart, toughness, and experience.  The lesson here is to always take what you have and to make the most of it.  Now did we think we were going to be a national championship team?  I’m not going to say that.  But I always trust Coach and the way we put things together that we’re going to get it done with who we have.  Some of those losses we had during the season forced us to go to a style and system that became the reason we won.  It’s a great credit to Coach K, but also to the guys and their ability to come together and get it done.

The big guys were the heart and soul of our team.  All year long, obviously Jon, Kyle and Nolan received a lot of praise.  “The Big Three” took the most shots and scored the most points.  It takes special guys to embrace the kind of roles that Brian and Lance took on and also Mason and Miles.  Those four guys did all the dirty work for our team.  They set the tone in the paint, they were our best communicators on defense, they were the reason we were one of the best rebounding teams ever at Duke, and they were the anchors of our defense.  I think the thing that made it great was that the perimeter guys knew that.  So even though they were getting the shots and they were getting the points, those guys knew that what the big guys did was the key to us winning.

The journey that Brian Zoubek went on is one of the greatest stories you can have.  In today’s world, when you have a guy who’s hurt and hasn’t played often, a lot of kids would give up and they would transfer.  He stuck with it, he believed in where he was, he got healthy, and he worked hard.  Coach always talks about each kid running his own race.  Brian ran his own race and he’s going to have a great chance to be a pro now and was a big reason we became a national championship team.  Our four perimeter players -– the guys I worked with every day in practice -– ran their own races and all four have great stories as well.

Jon Scheyer… I remember the first time Coach K and I made a recruiting trip to see Jon at an open gym at his high school.  It was my high school alma mater so we were very familiar with the surroundings and the people.  The very first thing you saw about Jon was his spirit and his leadership.  It was an open gym and he was clearly the best player there but he was always talking, he was picking teams, he was directing the whole gym, he was in control of everything.  And the more you got to see him, the more you appreciated what he does.  For him to win a state championship with the team he had in the state of Illinois in high school, and then to come to college and year after year continue to get better, to take on different roles, to start as a freshman, to come off the bench his sophomore year then to primarily be a point guard his last two years and to finish with a national championship… Above all else that shows that his best traits as a player are his will to win and his spirit.  He has as strong a winning spirit as anybody I’ve ever coached.

Coach K always creates a system with his personnel to put everybody in a position where they will be most successful, so what we tried to do with Jon was to position him to be the person who took care of the ball and to be a face of strength for our whole team.  He ended up having one of the best assist-to-turnover ratios in school history.  He was poised out there and in command when he had the ball.  Then what we tried to do was put him in a position where he could be a scorer after he gave up the ball.  So, he still scored as many points, if not more, while still leading and running our team.

I’ve known Jon since he was five years old and I’ve known his parents for a long time.  We’ve shared a special bond because we come from the same place, we both love basketball so much, and we just have a lot in common.  It is almost like a brother relationship, so to be able to win a national championship together will be an amazing lifetime memory.  When I see our embrace after winning it all on tape, I start to tear up every time because it doesn’t get any better than that.

Nolan Smith… Nolan had as dramatic an improvement as anybody in college basketball this year, and he and Jon worked really well together in our backcourt.  I think the main reason for his big improvement was his mindset.  He was a guy who showed gumption in his first two years.  He had some good games and some not-so-good games, and we were searching for a level of consistency with him.  I think the thing that unlocked him the most was putting him in a position to be an attacker.  It was probably our fault at the time to try to have him be a guy who runs a team, sets other guys up, and tries to be an organizer out there.  That took away his ability to attack and be aggressive and that’s what he does best.  He’s a scorer.  He knows how to score, he can get to the basket, he can shoot.  When we made the switch to put Jon in charge of the offense, it put Nolan in a situation where all he was thinking about was attacking.  I think confidence-wise that gave him a big boost.  Then he came out early in the season and had some big games and he continued to build on that all year.  You saw in the tournament that Nolan had become one of the elite guards in the country as a junior.

Kyle Singler… Like Nolan, Kyle was great all season, but was at his best in the season’s last few months.  There’s no question it was an adjustment for him moving from the inside to the wing.  You go your whole life playing as an inside player and now all of a sudden you’re on the wing full time.  You’re being guarded by different players, you’re guarding different players, and you’re on different areas of the court.  Most of the time in our system he was a trailer on top of the court, and now he was a guy who’s coming off screens and learning to use the lanes.  I think it took us some time and him some time to figure out how we could best utilize him.  A key point in the season was our game against Georgetown.  We did not play well, and they dominated us in every facet of the game.  We took a good long look at ourselves after that game, which Coach always does, and decided to make a lot of changes offensively.  The main reason we wanted to do that was because we didn’t feel like we were utilizing Kyle to maximize the strengths that he has.  From that point on, we were 18-1 with our only loss coming at Maryland.  Kyle became that All-American guy, and he was as good as anybody out there down the stretch earning ACC Tournament MVP and Final Four MOP honors.

Andre Dawkins… To me, you always see a big improvement from freshman to sophomore years in players.  Andre helped us this year and got a taste of what this level is all about and what it takes to be successful.  He was primarily a three-point shooting specialist for us and filled that role well.  This summer, he has to improve his ball-handling, playmaking skills, and defense to add to his sweet shooting stroke.  Andre has shown that he has all the tools to be an outstanding player for us.  He was a big reason we won the ACC championship game vs Georgia Tech, and his two first-half three-pointers vs. Baylor in the Elite Eight were huge.

At the end of the day, you can talk about the guys individually, but we had success because of our great strength as a group.  We were a tough and together team, and that comes from the leadership.  The culture on your team is created by the players.  The coaches can do their best to create a mindset with the details and the execution, but I’ve always said that the best teams are the ones where the coaches don’t have to worry about effort or enthusiasm.  And everyday, our veterans — Lance, Brian, Jon, Nolan, Kyle — brought energy and enthusiasm in their own ways.  If you’re a younger player and you see that, you stick out like a sore thumb if you don’t follow their lead.  Because of their attitudes and the way those guys approached the game, the rest of the team just fell in line and that’s what created such an amazing chemistry.  That’s why we were the toughest team and most together team.  We had talent too, and you saw that when you put those things together something amazing can happen.

It’s as special a group as I’ve ever coached.  I’ve been fortunate now to coach two years at Seton Hall and 10 years at Duke, and I’ve never had a team that has had fewer agendas where all everybody wanted to do was win.  I’ve never seen a team that’s had such good senior leadership.  I’ve never been a part of a team that’s been so together, so tough-minded, and so close off the court.  The connection between the staff and the players was as good as we’ve ever had.  When the last game was over, we were excited as heck that we won the whole thing but it was bittersweet because it was over.  It was the last time that group was going to be together.  I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to replicate a team like this with the intangibles that they had.  They’ll always have a special place in my heart, that’s for sure.

The confident Blue Devil had no doubt… Duke is No. 1

Ladies and Gentlemen of Blue Devil Nation, order has indeed been restored.  And restoring Duke Basketball to its rightful place was an incredible journey.  I’d give anything to be able to relive the championship experience, but I’ll have to wait ‘til next year for that!  In the meantime, I’ll continue to reflect on the glorious bliss of being a champion (again), and the spectacular run that got us there.  From start to finish, this season will go down as one of my favorites: from last October 16th with the Countdown to Craziness (recall Nolan’s outfit), to April 5th, when we were crowned Best in the Land after a truly epic title game.

The title run wasn’t without a tinge of personal pain, however, as I watched my relationship with my mascot comrades start off well, but then decline sharply over the course of the each tournament game.  For example, my ego and I began Final Four week with a good working relationship with the Mountainette (WVU) and Butler’s Bulldogs, Hink and Blue 2.  We had several cordial photo shoots, events, and television appearances together.  But then came game time.  That beauty from West Virginia who gave me a picture of her just the day before wouldn’t even look at me after we dominated her team.  And Hink certainly didn’t stick around to congratulate me after our victory, despite having bonded after being co-champions of the Final Four mascot dance competition.

For me, once that final buzzer sounded and my deeply entrenched confidence — no, CERTAINTY — that we were going to win was confirmed, the disappointment of deteriorated relationships with the mascot community faded, and positive lasting moments were created.  One in particular stands out.  After I was done flashing No. 1’s for countless photos, chest-bumping Lance, and addressing millions via CBS video feeds, and Coach had finished doing the same (minus the flashing No. 1’s and chest bumping), he grabbed me near center court and gave me one of the biggest hugs of all time.  But it was far more than a hug.  That manly embrace was emblematic of the solidarity between the Team and Blue Devil Nation, the solidarity that it took to will ourselves back to the top.  It was the culmination of the emotional rollercoaster that was the 2009-2010 season.  It was heartfelt.  It was poignant.  It was “The Hug.”  Sports Illustrated captured the moment and put it in the Championship Edition.  For that reason, the edition has a forever place on the top shelf of my locker.

Although it was tough being away from the Crazies, Cameron Indoor, and Duke for five days/week for a month during our tournament run, I will never forget how awesome it was to get to know the Duke Basketball family better, especially the team and our cheerleaders.  I will truly miss Lance, Jon, and Zoubs (and their families).  I’m glad, though, that Nolan will still be around to provide us with constant entertainment while traveling on the road.  And Kyle, you toyed with my emotions for a few weeks, but thanks for deciding to come back because you love Duke.  Obviously, I also love Duke, and I think we can both agree it’s the world’s best and most complete university.  Lastly, I wish everybody could see Duke Cheerleading behind the scenes: the seemingly endless workouts, the studying, the extreme dedication, and always-positive attitudes.  I am a lucky man to have spent so much time with them!

Well, it would be great to sit around and reminisce all day long, but summer has begun.  That means it’s time for Blue Devil appearances, working out, getting ready for football season, and planning some new timeout material for next year.  So fellow Blue Devils, stay classy and prepare yourselves for 2010-11.  Until then, ’91, ’92, ’01, ’10.

Speech by Duke’s President Brodhead delivered at our 2010 hoops banquet

PRESIDENT RICHARD BRODHEAD: What a gathering.  So, I did some research this winter, I sometimes do.  I read about a biography of Naismith, the inventor of basketball.  I used to think that basketball was invented by someone who was dribbling and dribbling and finally had the idea to shoot.  This turns out not to be true.  It turns out Naismith grew up in one of the coldest parts of Canada and the furthest south he ever went for most of his life was northern New England.  And the reason basketball was invented, he had no concept of the game at all, he was given a task to invent something that people can do all winter that absorbs them so they don’t drive each other crazy.  Well, he invented something that was incredibly absorbing, it’s one of the perfect inventions of all time.  And I ask myself, what would we do all winter if basketball had not been invented?  But, I do not know the answer to that question.

And then what about this year, you guys were so incredible.  There’s a famous sports university that has a fight song that begins “hail to the conquering hero, hail to victor valiant” but you know the conquering hero is us, the conquering hero is the people who are sitting here.  But, I just want to say what we all know who were here all year, which is this season was so fun at the end, but this season was so fun since the first minute of the first game.  And I’m specifically remembering the blue-and-white scrimmage even before any of you came out on the courts, the videos… I first was introduced to Mason Plumlee in his role as mini-me.  Nolan’s unexpected talents impersonating people of one sort or another from the Titanic, the dunking contest that night, Nolan’s appearance in the shorts of Johnny Dawkins… You know if nothing else had happened all year it would’ve been a fun year at least to that extent.  But then it got more and more fun, and then it went on and it went on and on.

And then I can pause over the evening of just inexpressible joy in here when we not only beat Carolina, but if I may say demolished them.  On that occasion a wise man looked into the stands, this was Lance, and he said “we’re not done yet, we still have a lot left to do.”  And that was literally true.  You didn’t have a little more to do, you had a lot more to do.  And you won the ACC Tournament, you won round after round, then it was the Final Four.  I’d like to thank the couple here who gave me the badge that I still have, it’s a vintage thing that says “the Final Three and Duke again.”  And then you won it all.  And I’d have to say, I wasn’t President last time you guys won the tournament so I had no idea how hard it is or how supremely satisfying it is and I congratulate you all.

But here’s what I really want to say.  You know basketball at Duke works a little differently from basketball at some other great basketball schools, because this isn’t a university that happens to have a great basketball team, this is a university who’s deepest values as a university are symbolized by its basketball team.  Everything about basketball tells us things about the larger activity we engage in here.   Who are the players in basketball?  They’re talented, young people.  Universities are all about talented young people coming there.  But, what kind of people?  Not just people with talent, people who have something added to talent, which is the desire to take their talent and live up to it, to take it to the fullest extent of its realization, to work, work, work in the name of some self invented idea of excellence.  Then there’s something else I’d say about it, which is you guys worked hard to get as good as you were, but you would not have gotten as good as you became by yourselves because this sport is also all about teaching.  And I remember Mike, one of our early times together was at a press conference and I told the national audience of sports writers that the reason you belonged at this university was because you are a natural teacher.  And I think this year we all saw just how true that is and we saw what a great teacher you are.  You had a lot of help and I thank all the help, but there’s really no one who’s quite like you and your amazing ability.  You know you can’t go out and play, you can’t, you’ve got to take somebody else and help them see what they can do, so that they can live up to their ideal and make it all work.

And then the last thing, and this is the simplest, which is you guys are great individuals but that’s not why you won.  You won because you put yourselves together and made a team out of yourselves.  And you did something together that none of you could’ve done on your own.  So I’m just going to say, when I think back to the year 2010, I was amazed I came home the night after the game and I did probably what everybody else did, I watched the game over again.  I’m visualizing my retirement years where I can just watch it over and over and over again.  I think that will be just fine.  But I will tell the guys on this team we will always remember you individually.  And I’ll just tell you my mother-in-law remembers you individually, my mother, my father, my sister, the whole world remembers you.  I’ll tell you how I remember you because I’m a fan.  I’ll mostly mention seniors but I’ll pick out a couple others.  Kyle Singler, I think of you as the battler.  I always see you down under the basket fighting your way up like coming to the surface and I will say to you too p.s. great decision!  Then I will say of Nolan, Nolan you’re a battler too, but when I think of you in my mind the picture I see is just the look of pure joy.  I’ve never seen a face capable of projecting the emotion of joy quite as much as yours.  After you won in Indianapolis, I picked up your mother and swung her around and I really hope I didn’t break her ankle.

Steve Johnson, Jordan Davidson, where else are there people who come in the game as late as often as you did, who got the kind of ovations as you get here?  Everybody loved you and no wonder.  You were just the real steady eddies.  Whenever it was time for you, you were ready to go and you were just as fresh.  It was just marvelous to see you bound out there in that state.  Lance, there was a famous general in Europe who’s famous line was “ils ne passeront pas,” “they shall not pass.”  And that’s what I see when I see you and even more I actually see this look on your face like “what were you thinking?”  Brian, you were always such a talented player, but I think you accomplished something that no one else in this room and few people in history have accomplished.  Which is you took yourself as being very good and with all the challenges in your career you made yourself go so deep down.  You came up and became the player you could’ve been, but you couldn’t have been if you didn’t work as hard as that.  That was a source of such joy to all of us and it looked like it was a source of some joy to you too.  And Jon Scheyer, you know I saw your video so I realize my image is only one image but this is the one I have of you.  I just can’t imagine how you were so calm out there all the time.  You just always seemed so calm and so composed.  It always seemed to me like you were just computing everything around you and thinking like three or four minutes ahead and then thinking back from there and figuring out “well then here’s what I can do or here’s what someone else could do” and from there on it was all pretty easy.

Ok.  So my point is this.  We will remember you and we will remember you individually or singly as they say here, but we will remember you individually because of what you did collectively because of the way you came together and the way you lifted yourselves and each other through your life as a team.  A wise man once said “two are better than one, if two can play as one” … five are even better than two if they can play as one.  And you guys played as one.  And there’s one other thing that I’d quote from that wise man, he taught me once upon a time that teaching is about making people better.  Right?  You don’t say how they’re going to be better, you don’t say how you’re going to make them better, but that’s what it is.  We had a good team and with your help and with the help of everyone connected with this operation, good became better.  And then at the end, better became the only thing it had left to be; better became best.  On behalf of Duke University, I thank the players of the Duke Basketball team of 2010.  Duke is proud of you and Duke will never forget you.  Thanks.

Coach Wojo on Duke’s 2009-10 big guys Zoubs, LT and the Plumlee Bros

Coach Wojo starred in the backcourt at Duke as a point guard, earning All-ACC honors and the 1998 National Defensive Player of the Year award in his senior season.  A member of the coaching staff since 2000, Wojo works primarily with our big men in practice.  Below, the Maryland native shares his thoughts on our frontcourt and the season in general.

We’re national champions because we were the toughest and most together team.  We had some really good players individually, but they were all better together.  We arrived at that point because our older players used the reference points that they developed throughout their careers to make them better.

Our post, Brian and Lance especially, tasted heartache over the course of their careers.  Whether that was through injury or a performance that wasn’t up to their standard, they tasted heartache.  They used those tough times to become better as players and to become more determined in their pursuit of a championship.  When people think of Brian and Lance, they’re going to think of those guys walking away from Duke as national champions.  When I think of those guys, I think about how they responded to the tough times that they encountered during their growth as college players.  They used that process to play to their potential, ultimately putting their team in the position to be national champion.

The number one reason was that they used their experiences in the past as underclassmen in the Duke program to develop a mindset that they were going to go out on top.  And as good as they were in games, the biggest key was practice.  I thought our practices and individual work really enforced what we thought were our greatest strengths, which were defense and the ability to rebound the ball.  Our staff recognized those two things; if we could get outstanding play on the defensive end and develop a mindset to dominate the boards with our strong perimeter, we could compete with or beat anyone that we came up against.

Throughout the course of a season, we start the year with a bunch of practices but then really cut down on our practice time as a team.  Instead of having the end of practice as a cutoff point, each day after practice we would do workouts with our bigs to reinforce habits that we would need to be successful in the game.  These post-practice sessions included tough things like defensive and rebounding workouts in competition.  We really honed in on what they could do offensively to help our team.  And each day there were battles.  If you could create an atmosphere in practice that was going to be tougher than the games, you have an advantage against your opponents mentally because you’ve invested a lot.  The more you invest, the harder it is to give up something.  I think this created a great mindset for all of our post guys every time they walked on the floor in competition.  It also developed strong habits so they were well-trained to do the things they were going to be asked to do in a game.

A lot was made about our team lacking depth, but we had great depth in the post.  Because all four of those guys (Brian, Lance, Miles and Mason) are really capable players, we were in a great position to use that to our advantage, positioning those guys where they never had to pace themselves.  We could offer 40 minutes of hard-nosed, tough, aggressive basketball together between those four guys.  We wanted those four guys to be like four starters, and all of them were very important to the success of our team.

Being in that group, I think Miles and Mason made huge strides over the course of the year to figure out how to be the players that they’re capable of being.  I think Miles in particular over the last month of the season really crossed the bridge to being an outstanding player where you trusted him every second he was on the floor.  That bodes well for their futures and they know the level of commitment and dedication that it takes to be good players because of the example that Brian and Lance set.

I’ve never been around better teammates than Lance and Brian.  They were completely selfless throughout their entire time at Duke.  We asked them to do some incredibly tough things in what I think is the toughest position in college basketball.  In the college game, it’s so physical in the post and there’s so much riding on good post play to be successful.  Those guys never once batted an eye, they were never jealous, and they created an atmosphere that was conducive for success.  They also created a day-to-day interaction with the rest of the team that allowed everybody to feel good about what they were doing.  They embraced their roles on the floor and they embraced their roles as teammates about as well as you could possibly do it.

Brian had an outstanding year from start to finish but there is no question when he was in the starting lineup that he added another dimension to our team.  I think we went from a very good team to a team that was capable of winning a national championship.  He provided us with an amazing presence.  First of all, on the defensive end he protected the basket.  He’s an outstanding position defender and he was our best communicator on the defensive end.  Our guys who were on the floor with him drew strength from that.  His rebounding numbers were better than anyone’s in the country on a per minute basis.  You knew what you were going to get from him.  He was dependable and he continued to improve.  As he improved and his confidence improved, our team improved and our team’s confidence improved.  Brian’s taking the opportunity to start and really entering the starting lineup with an exclamation point was huge for our team.

There are a couple of great moments among many from the season working with our post guys that stand out.  One was hugging Brian right after we won the national championship.  It was a great moment and I was so happy for Brian.   He had a ton of adversity early in his career mainly because he had health problems.  He had broken feet and there’s nothing that you can do about it.  Then he had adversity with a lot of unfair negative press.  Throughout those challenges, he remained positive, he worked incredibly hard, and he served as an example for everyone in our program that when you meet adversity you push through it.  For him to have such good things happen and for him to be such an important part of a national championship team, I was really happy for him to go out like that.

With Lance, we had an intense moment in the Elite Eight during a TV timeout where we got eye to eye and were really locked in.  I told him to dunk the ball, which later in the game he did and it was one of the biggest plays in the NCAA Tournament for us.  Those moments are symbolic of the relationship that I had especially with the seniors because we had been through so much together during their time here.  When you have that strong relationship with somebody, a coach can talk to a player and a player can talk to a coach honestly and directly and know that you both have each other’s best interest at heart.  The moment with Lance was just a culmination of four years of going through experiences both good and bad, and being at each other’s side through it all.

I’ve been fortunate now to be a part of multiple national championships teams and a team that won a gold medal, but I’m not sure I have more respect for any group than I have for our upperclassmen at Duke because it was really a process for them.  In that process, you go through highs and lows, and through all those highs and lows our core group of guys stuck together.  They kept working with the team and together we were able to accomplish something that very few people are able to accomplish.  It’s the most rewarding experience that I’ve had as a coach.