Why Wojo? Why now?

Let me start this by saying that it is my opinion that Duke Head coach Mike Krzyzewski is the best coach in basketball today. He is one of the best ever. Best in college, best in basketball, best in sports. If you make a top 10 list of the greatest coaches ever, and he isn’t there, then you are lost.

And call me a homer for that if you want. It is the not the opinion as a Duke fan. It is the opinion as a coach and a student of the beautiful game of basketball.

But for a long time now, I have expected and hoped that Steve Wojciechowski would be the heir to Coach K’s glorious throne. And that, I have expected as a Duke fan.

Everything that I love about Duke basketball is rooted in who Wojo is and how Wojo does things. He is hard nosed, true grit, slapping the floor on defense and all out. I guess so you could say that everything Wojo is also is what makes some people hate Duke. After all, it was Wojo who made the floor slap a Blue Devil signature and that is what those less educated use as a basis for hate so many times.

But this isn’t about Duke love or Duke hate. This is about Wojo, the last remaining remnant of modern day Duke assistant coaches who have made history in the program both with titles and with recruiting. Now long gone is Johnny Dawkins (Stanford) and gone is Chris Collins (Northwestern), all riding that Duke pedigree to Division 1 major conference jobs. Wojo follows, now the head coach at Marquette, a program who has been essentially obscure since Tom Crean’s exit and nowhere near a legit title threat since the Dwayne Wade days.

But what Marquette gets is a man on a mission.

See, as much as I have been part of ‘Team Wojo,’ I have almost known better since the day Jeff Capel landed in town. VCU, Oklahoma….Jeff Capel has the head coaching experience that common theory suggests Duke will want in Coach K’s eventual replacement. Capel joined a long line of Coach K players turned Coach K assistants. Bilas, Amaker, Dawkins, Collins, Wojo. They’ve all done it. The latter four of those guys are all thriving or going to thrive. Amaker and Dawkins not only danced this March, but contributed to the Madness with “upset” wins.

But none of them had major experience before joining the Duke staff. Jeff Capel, as it sits today, is the man who is going to replace Coach K. Five years, ten years – it doesn’t matter. Today, he is the guy.

Tomorrow, if Wojo has his way, he won’t be.

Because what Marquette gets is a man on a mission. When he played, Wojo was the hardest working player on the court every second of every game. He was hardly the best. Seeing #12 in the NBA wasn’t a pipedream, it was a laughable side joke. He didn’t get where he did in college basketball on talent or size. He did it the hard way, the dirty way, the on the floor after a loose ball way.

And he will do the same thing as the head coach at Marquette. Because, he won’t be the best coach. He wasn’t the best coach on Duke’s sideline; he wasn’t even the best assistant in some ways. But he will outwork, and therefore out coach, a lot of guys in the coming years on behalf of the Golden Eagles. Because, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And that light says that Coach K isn’t retiring tomorrow. So Capel having that job in hand today doesn’t mean much if someone can snatch it away. And if Wojo wants to do that, now is the exact right time to move on, even if it is just for a little while.

So Wojo will work. It will benefit him and it will benefit Marquette. It is a golden opportunity for everyone.

But the most important part to me is that he will work for those kids, that school and that community – but, it will be with a different end goal in mind: to lead those crazies in Cameron. And when the day comes that Coach K walks away, while Amaker and Dawkins and Collins and Capel and maybe even Jon Scheyer reach for that golden rung, they shouldn’t get there in time.

Because with his new gig in front of him, Wojo is going to work harder than them all.

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.

> Resolutions for (other people in) 2011

7. Can they dance?
IPFW is having a great year in mens basketball, so let's see them go dancing. It will be hard with Oakland in league, but this is by far the most realistic chance Dane Fife and company have had.

6. Can I get Michael Bisping a title shot?
Look, Bisping is a solid two wins away from being back at the top of the heap that he is the 'gatekeeper' to. He'll beat Jorge Rivera (lotta good that'll do in the rankings), so then it just depends on who wins the 'Fight Wanderlei Silva' sweepstakes. Chris Leben probably lost his pull to get Wandi by losing to start the year, but now Brian Stann wants in. I say give Stann the old man and then have the winner face Bisping for a title shot. Or, if Chael Sonnen is gonna get screwed out of a shot (see #2), then let's have Stann/Wandi and Bisping/Sonnen in a little playoff for the Anderson Silva/Vitor Belfort winner. If you did this, imagine the ratings for The Ultimate Fighter with Bisping and Sonnen jawing back and forth as coaches.

5. Beat LA....but BEAT the HEAT first.
I am all about the Celtics winning banner 18 this year, but also I could deal with several other teams betting the Lakers in the final too. But alas, they aren't the true evil this year. Someone, anyone, has to eliminate the Heat. If it comes down finally to LeBron vs. Kobe, I may have to (ugh) find myself cheering for the purple and gold.

4. Is He finally done?!
Brett Favre, please go away! Don't come back later in the season for some 2-12 team...just go away.

3. Hey, um....TCU wants a college football playoff
I don't even know who is going to win the National Title in a week or so (my money, if I had any, would be on Oregon), but here we are again with another year where there is more than one undefeated team at the end of the season. Wake up already.

2. Chael Sonnen gets his rematch with Anderson Silva
I have little hope that Vitor Belfort will be the one to out duel The Spider when they meet next month. So my hope is that once Chael Sonnen gets through with his BS suspension, that Dana White and the powers that be in the UFC give him his due second shot. BJ Penn and Gray Maynard got immediate rematches and they didn't dominate a champion like Sonnen did, let alone a champ who is one of the most dominant ever.

1. Coach K breaks Bobby Knight's All-Time Win Record
Lets face it, this is bound to happen and if the start align right and the Blue Devils stay healthy, it could happen before Spring is fully in bloom and with a 5th title for the Duke boys.