College Basketball Preview Part 6: Why are you sleeping on Duke?!

Yes, this is it. My official column of bias. But quite frankly, I am sick of college basketball experts and keyboard warriors not giving the Blue Devils the credit they deserve as they head into the season.

Duke is the deepest team in the country. Does that make them the best? Maybe. Does that mean they will win the National Title? Probably no. The really, really good Duke teams get upset in the tournament and leave their big stars title less (see Redick, JJ and Williams, Sheldon). It is the very good, but not great Duke teams that win National Titles these days.

So no, as a Duke fan, I do not think they will automatically win the National Title. Will that stop me from penciling them in as National Champs when the time comes to fill out a bracket in March? Only time will tell.

But this column (OK, so it is kind of a rant) is not about what will happen in the Madness of March (and April?). It is about how teams like Kentucky, Kansas and Michigan State are all getting their due above the Blue Devils, a team that matches their fabulous freshmen and returning veterans, combines the two and has unrivaled depth.

I will be the first to say that I am not buying into the Andrew Wiggins/Julius Randle hype until the time comes when they actually do something. And no Mr. Randle, getting dunked on by a walk on does not count. So for that same reason, I am not 100% on the Jabari Parker hype train either. Duke has been nailing down the “can’t miss one-and-done” prospects and while good, they haven’t lived up to a mostly unattainable hype. Kyrie Irving was too injured, Austin Rivers was too one dimensional and Rasheed Sulaimon just wasn’t ready.

But how, in anyone’s mind, does Jabari Parker not cancel out Randle and Wiggins, who were basically Johnny-come-lately compared to the long standing thought that Parker was the best player in the Class of 2013 for years. On top of Parker, Duke’s freshman class is more than solid. Matt Jones is stuck down the depth chart for Duke, but will be a thriller when he gets his due. He is the next in a long line of Duke clutch shooters and can knock down from almost anywhere on the court. And next to him, getting a little more playing time is Semi Ojeyele. While I was excited about getting Parker, Ojeyele is something that Duke hasn’t had since Grant Hill, in many ways. He is transcendent of a particular position and does a lot of intangible things. He dominated the Kansas high school scene, hit 38% of the three-pointers he shot and just proved at Duke’s Countdown to Craziness that no person on the team has hops quite like he does. Did I mention he averaged over 38 points PER GAME his senior year?

So while the new faces of two McDonald’s All-Americans and a guy who scored 38-freakin-points per game will help negate Kansas and Kentucky’s so-called “stellar recruit classes,” it is the veteran depth that with help keep Duke high atop the mountain as the season progresses.

Seniors Tyler Thornton and Josh Hairston are the final remaining pieces of the last “just OK” Duke recruiting class, but still add real value. Thornton will get to log some starting minutes, but as Quinn Cook has become a calming force, the senior isn’t really needed for that. Instead, look for Thornton to become a real threat from deep most of the time, while still playing some point. And Hairston is Hairston; he is a body on a shorter team and has the aggression that will help strengthen the younger forwards.

Bu the real veteran depth that makes Duke equal or better than Michigan State comes from Sulaimon and Cook. No, Rasheed was not the one-and-done prospect he was expected to be, but he is going to be a very good player for Duke and I think for all four years because his tenure, very realistically, could end with a National Player of the Year honor in 2016 if he does. He is a more established and out together version of what Ojeyele could be if he develops correctly.

I was worried, as he came out of high school, about what Quinn Cook would provide to the program. When I watched him at Oak Hill High School, I was in awe 85-percent of the time. The other 15-percent though, I cringed. During those times, he was too fast, too out of control and too selfish. He has lost all of those things at Duke. His assist-to-turnover ratio was phenomenal last year, showing maturity of leadership while running the point as a true point guard that Duke has been missing FOREVER. Cook is a general, could be one of the very best at his position in the country and could be a Player of the Year contender as a senior in 2014-2015, if not this year. Quinn Cook is the guy who could make the difference from pretender to 100-percent legit contender.

Quinn Cook should end up as the best point guard in the
modern era of Duke basketball.

And then there is Rodney Hood, the highly anticipated transfer from Mississippi State who sat out last year with NCAA rules. Is Hood that big of a difference maker? I am not so sure. But with the explosive wing game that Duke has, he doesn’t have to be. He has to be Ryan Kelly or Brian Zoubek or Josh McRoberts. He doesn’t have to be the post that Sheldon Williams was because there are enough threats that he doesn’t need to be, he just needs to be productive.

On top of ALL OF THAT, returns Andre Dawkins. Is that a good thing? I think so, at least more so than when he last was with the program. His life has been tragic for some time now, but I really think the year off will not only clear his head, but mature him, which he needed. He was too loose with his shooting when he wore #20 and I hope that is remedied. Because if it is, he can slide right into Seth Curry’s role and thrive in it just as well.

The return of Andre Dawkins is a great catalyst for Coach K.

Hood and Hairston as bodies, Thornton and Dawkins draining threes and Sulaimon and Cook taking you off the dribble; who is going to contend with that?

And I have only mentioned nine guys. Amile Jefferson and Alex Murphy have each put on 15-20 pounds of muscle to help bang around down low with depth, and IF Marshall Plumlee is actually healthy, he is – if nothing else – a 7-feet, 260 pounder that helps give the Blue Devils a depth of, IMO, 12 on a good night and at least 8 on a night when the game is too close to pull players 9-12 off the bench.

And when the skill of players runs out, let us not forget that this team, even if they were less talented, are led by Coach K...THE SINGLE GREATEST COACH IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS. Period, end of discussion. And then a bench that consists of Wojo, Jeff Capel (who has been a major Division 1 head coach) and newly added Jon Scheyer, who knows a thing or two about the Duke system and how it transfers into a National Title.

Again, its not that I think they won’t lose, they will. Duke plays in the toughest conference in the country with an ACC that has only gotten tougher this year with a bevy of new league opponents. They are going to lose.

But the reality is this: too many people are sleeping on Duke because of elements on other teams that Duke also has in droves. You want shiny and new, you got it. You want smart and veteran, you got it. You want depth, try to top it.

Don’t sleep on Duke.