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.
