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Wednesday, August 11, 2010

We've Moved!




Please follow our posts over at http://www.DukeHoopBlog.com. I considered keeping this site open as well, and the url will remain live for as long as Google will allow, but I now have a much more functional and hopefully more pleasing to the eye Wordpress site.

I also teamed up with YardBarker.com who promotes some fantastic sports-related blogs on their site, and hopefully one day mine will be included in the fantastic. Thank you very much for reading over here, and I hope you will continue to do so as I'm having fun writing.

Thanks for your support,

Adam

Monday, August 9, 2010

Boost Mobile Elite 24 Rosters



The first 12 members of the Boost Mobile Elite 24 event taking place in Los Angeles’ Venice Beach Friday and Saturday, August 27 and 28 were announced on August 5th. This is a game between what ESPNRise.com considers the Top 24 players in the country, regardless of class. It is obviously quite an honor to be selected. The announced list as of now is quite impressive:

Adonis Thomas, Amir Garrett, Austin Rivers, Bradley Beal, Dajuan Coleman, James McAdoo, Johnny O'Bryant, LeBryan Nash, Myck Kabongo, Deuce Bello, Quincy Miller, and Rakeem Christmas.

We have learned today that 2012 prospect Shabazz Muhammad will be participating as well. Congratulations to what we believe is the best scorer in the Class of 2012. The complete list will come out later today and we want to offer our preemptive congratulations to the other 11 names that will be announced this afternoon. We will, of course, let you know when the rest of the list is released.

ACC/Big Ten Challenge Times Set



Monday, Nov. 29

7:00 p.m. - ESPN2 - Virginia at Minnesota


Tuesday, Nov. 30

7:00 p.m. - ESPNU - Iowa at Wake Forest

7:00 p.m. - ESPN2 - Georgia Tech at Northwestern

7:30 p.m. - ESPN - Ohio State at Florida State

9:00 p.m. - ESPN2 - Michigan at Clemson

9:30 p.m. - ESPN - North Carolina at Illinois

Wednesday, Dec. 1

7:15 p.m. - ESPNU - Indiana at Boston College

7:15 p.m. - ESPN2 - N.C. State at Wisconsin

7:30 p.m. - ESPN - Purdue at Virginia Tech

9:15 p.m. - ESPN2 - Maryland at Penn State

9:30 p.m. - ESPN - Michigan State at Duke

Every year when this schedule is announced, it's a time for embarrassment for the one ACC team that doesn't make it into the Challenge, as the conference always has had more teams than the Big 10. Unfortunately for Miami, they will forever go down in infamy as the last team not to make it into the made for TV event as the Big 10 has now added Nebraska to it's ranks to make it the same size as the ACC. While the Big Ten stupidly refuses to change it's name even though it now has twelve members, the numbers will now add up if this event continues in the future.

Duke posted it's only loss in the event this past year at Wisconsin, and hopes to avenge that loss in Cameron vs. universally Top 5 ranked Michigan State. If the Devils can pull off the win, they will end with the best record of any team in the Challenge. The contract between the two power conferences is up this year, it remains to be seen if ESPN will continue extend the contract another time, as they did in 2005.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

NC Pro-Am Highlights -- Andre Dawkins, Ryan Kelly

D1 Sports/Charles Ryan Basketball won the 2010 NC Pro-Am Summer League Sunday, August 8th, 2010. Duke Sophomores Ryan Kelly and Andre Dawkins were two of the team's top scorers (Andre had 18 pts and Ryan had 16.) Since joining the Duke Blue Devils, Ryan and Andre have competed in 4 tournaments (2009 Preseason NIT, 2010 ACC Tournament, 2010 NCAA Tournament, 2010 NC Pro-Am) and won all 4. Let's hope that trend continues with the CBE Classic this Fall.

TV Alert: Adidas Nations Final -- USA 2012 vs. USA 2011





We have the dream final tomorrow night on CBS College Sports TV. That is Channel 613 on DirecTV and 537 on Time Warner Cable in the Triangle Area. Watch as Duke recruits Marshall Plumlee, Quinn Cook, Rodney Purvis, Shabazz Muhammad, Alex Murphy, Kaleb Tarczewski, and Amile Jefferson compete on live TV at 8:45 PM EST.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Alex Murphy Throws Down on an And1

Who said Alex Murphy wasn't athletic? Watch him take it to Hanner Perea at the Adidas Nations in Chicago:



Video via Dan Poneman of SwagAir.com

Thursday, August 5, 2010

#8 Favorite Moment From '09-'10

There were so many moments from last year's title run that made it so special to enjoy watching from the sidelines. One that most Duke fans I knew pegged as the one that needed to happen in order for Duke to be a true National Title Contender was for the Plumlee Brothers to be a consistent offensive force. While the Devils didn't end up needing that on a regular basis, it was always nice when it happened. One game in particular, both Plumlees had excellent games at the same time and here is what resulted:

NC Pro-Am Highlights 08.04.10

Mason, Nolan, Ryan Kelly, Andre Dawkins, Miles Plumlee, Marshall Plumlee, Quincy Miller, and Deuce Bello. Enjoy!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Nearly Entire Duke Basketball Schedule

Some dates are not finalized yet, but we have nearly every opponent in ink here:

15-Oct Countdown to Craziness 7PM
23-Oct St. Augustines (exh) 7PM
4-Nov Cal Poly Pomona (exh) 7PM
14-Nov Princeton (CBE)
16-Nov Miami OH (CBE)
19-Nov Colgate
22-Nov vs. Marquette (CBE-KC) 7:30PM
23-Nov vs.Gonzaga/Kansas State (CBE-KC) 10:15PM
27-Nov vs. Oregon (Rose Garden, Portland) 4PM
1-Dec Michigan State 9:15PM
4-Dec vs. Butler (Meadowlands) 3:30PM
Dec Bradley
Dec St. Louis
20-Dec Elon
29-Dec vs. UNC-G (at Greensboro Coliseum) 7PM
Jan Miami FL
5-Jan UAB
Jan Maryland
Jan at FSU
Jan Virginia
Jan at NC State
Jan at Wake
Jan Boston College
Jan at St. Johns
Feb at Maryland
Feb NC State
Feb UNC
Feb at Miami FL
Feb at Virginia
Feb Georgia Tech
Feb Temple
Feb at Virginia Tech
Mar Clemson
5-Mar at UNC 8PM
Mar 10-13 ACC Tournament (Greensboro)

Official release should come out soon, but hopefully this will help you plan your trips to Durham and elsewhere...

Originally posted at DukeBasketballReport.com

New Austin Rivers Highlights

The kid can score in so many ways and is now adding defensive stalwart to his repertoire. If he can bring his defensive skills up anywhere close to his offensive game, it's gonna be hard not to put him as the #1 player in the Class of 2011... Watch him in this outstanding highlight video via OneEntertainmentHoops.com:

Austin Rivers Interview via Scouts Focus

Austin says he will take a "couple visits" and then make his decision before his high school season.

As he told Scout.com in an interview earlier this week, "Honestly I'm going to get it done before the beginning of my high school practices,". I spoke with someone recently who heard from the Winter Park AD (where Austin goes to high school) who told him their first official practice would be November 1st. I'd expect a decision sometime in October...

Austin Rivers and Michael Gbinije Make 1st Team



Congrats to Duke commit Michael Gbinije and Duke recruit Austin Rivers for making the First Team of the AAU Super Showcase down in Orlando, Fla. Both of these youngsters continue to raise the level of their games as they move into their senior years of high school basketball.

ESPNRise.com All-Tourney Teams

Michael Gbinije, Team Takeover
Gbinije had a strong cast around him, which gave him plenty of opportunities to get looks. But the senior didn’t waste his chances. He showed a fluid jumper and a willingness to take the ball strong to the hoop, not to mention an ability to finish after contact. Gbinije, committed to Duke, is the nation’s No. 29 recruit in the ESPNU 100 and made a strong impression on the Boost Mobile Elite 24 selection committee.

Austin Rivers, Each 1 Teach 1
His team was beatable … until he showed up. Once Rivers was on the floor, the team didn’t lose again. The senior helped his squad win twice in the televised games, and his mere presence on the floor opened up opportunities for teammates. Rivers showed again why he's No. 2 in the ESPNU 100 with a legit chance to be No. 1 before the end of his senior season.


(Photo credit ESPNRise.com)

#9 Favorite Moment From '09-'10

As you can tell, sometimes Duke news comes up and interrupts a planned Top 10 Countdown. I hope you've enjoyed the posts that have come between #10 on our Top 10 Favorite Moments from last season's title run and this one, as so many things have come up since then.

Without further adieu, here is #9 on the list...

Jon Scheyer's highly efficient night against Gardner-Webb in Cameron was a sight to see. While the Duke team was still finding it's legs, Jon showed his steady hand and pushed the ball in the hoop 11 times out of 13 with his trademark sideways spin. Going 7-9 from 3-point land, he notched 36 points in 30 minutes, totaling more points off less shots than anyone not named JJ Redick in the last ten years.

We'll miss ya Jon!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Adidas Nations Roster Announced




Many of our 2011 and 2012 targets have been selected for the prestigious Adidas Nations Global Experience. From their press release here:

The world's elite 18-and-under players from six international teams including Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, US 2010 and US 2011, will train and compete in the prestigious annual program. Current NBA players, highly esteemed NBA veterans and collegiate players join the global program as head coaches, mentors and camp counselors.

NBA players Corey Brewer (Minnesota Timberwolves), Jrue Holiday (Philadelphia 76ers), Toney Douglas (New York Knicks), Robin Lopez (Phoenix Suns), Anthony Randolph (New York Knicks) and Serge Ibake (Oklahoma City Thunder) will counsel and mentor players throughout the weekend. Former players and head coaches Eddie Johnson, Detlef Schrempf, Tony Brown, Frank Johnson and Eric Musselman will act as regional head coaches.


If you are in the Chicago area and would like to attend this event,
The culmination of adidas Nations will feature a championship and third place game at UIC Pavilion with the top four teams. General admission tickets are available for $10 at www.ticketmaster.com or by calling (312) 413-5740. The final games will be broadcast live on CBS College Sports Network and exclusive same day video highlights will be available at www.maxpreps.com. Daily practices, workout rotations and early tournament games will be held at Attack Athletics Center located at 2641 West Harrison Street, Chicago.


Rosters can be found here: 2011 and 2012 USA Rosters

Congrats to Duke recruits and commits Quinn Cook, Rodney Purvis, Marshall Plumlee, Shabazz Muhammad, Amile Jefferson, Isaiah Austin, Alex Murphy, and Kaleb Tarczewski for making the team!

Tyler Adams Wavering On His Commitment?




A new post from BullDawgJunction.com, a Mississippi State recruiting website, seems to allude that 2011 verbal commitment Tyler Adams is open to other schools. Specifically, that he is open to the Bulldogs:

He told me MSU and Georgetown are really the only two schools still recruiting him since his commitment to Duke. And interesting enough, he told me "Mississippi State is still in the mix and still an option".


We know that Tyler has had grades issues in the past and everyone knew this would be a possible hindrance to him playing basketball at Duke, but by all indications Tyler had accepted the challenge put forth to him by the Duke coaching staff and was making strides towards achieving those goals. It's possible he has not and is keeping his options open. Or, it's possible Tyler's quote was taken out of context. It just goes to show that in the crazy world of recruiting a verbal commitment isn't worth the paper it's written on. We will continue to monitor this situation as it unfolds...

NC Pro-Am Schedule Tuesday, Aug. 3rd



6 pm Body Of Christ vs. Team Dreamworks

7 pm D1 Sports/C Ryan vs. Lucky 7

8 pm Team Jamison vs. Hendrick Of Durham

9 pm Coaches in Christ vs. Team 212/Trianglegi.com

Well, looks like this could be one of the last chances to catch a lot of Duke players at one time for this NC Pro-Am Summer League. With only two more regular season games and 3 playoff games remaining, get out to North Carolina Central ASAP if you want to see your favorite Devils compete before Countdown to Craziness on October 15th.

A lot of players are scheduled to compete Tuesday, Thursday, and into the weekend, including Kyrie Irving, Nolan Smith, Mason, Miles, and Marshall Plumlee, Tyler Thornton, Andre Dawkins, Seth Curry, Ryan Kelly, and Kyle Singler. As the playoffs wind up, you'll start to see more and more of the players make appearances, so don't be surprised if 2011 target Quincy Miller, last year's Freshman of the Year John Wall, and any number of pros listed on the rosters here show up sometime this week.

Monday, August 2, 2010

New Shabazz Muhammad Highlights

Floaters, threes, dunks, layups, the #1 Shooting Guard (#1 player according to some) in the Class of 2012 shows off a diverse repertoire of scoring abilities in this new highlight video from PremierBall.com. Watch Shabazz make defenders look stupid during the Adidas Super 64 Classic below.

New Recruiting Calendar -- August 1st





As the new recruiting calendar turned over August 1st, prospects got one year older according to the NCAA and coaches began a whole new round of phone calls, text messages, emails, and social media connections.

Rising Juniors can receive telephone calls once per month through July 31st, 2011. Rising Seniors can be called twice per week, and off campus contact is only one month and a week away. There are obviously ways around this, but these are the guidelines put in place by the NCAA, however toothless they may be.

The Duke staff has surely contacted many of their primary targets and verbal commits today. You can be sure that Duke will do everything they can to stay in front of their uncommitted prospects and verbal commitments in this recruiting period and moving forward.

Alumni Update -- Paulus and Melchionni

We have a couple of updates on former Duke Basketball Players.


First, Greg Paulus has been hired as an Assistant Men's Basketball coach at the Naval Academy. This is Greg's first foray into the coaching world, and he steps into a pretty good situation as Navy finished the year at 7-7 in the Patriot League, 13-17 Overall and return quite a few players. Good luck to Greg as we know it has long been a goal of Greg to become a basketball coach!


Second, Lee Melchionni landed former Villanova and Duke-Killer Scottie Reynolds a contract with Prima Veroli, a second-division Italian team. Good to see Lee staying motivated in his post-basketball career. If you don't remember Lee's contributions in the early 2000s, here's a refresher: http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=152121

Kyle and Nolan to Train With US Team




Seniors Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith were selected as two of the ten USA Select Team members to train against the USA Men's National Team in New York City for the World Basketball Festival.

See the rest of the list here.


This is quite an honor and should cap off an extremely busy Summer for both team captains. Kyle has attended the Chris Paul Guard Skills Camp, the Amare Stoudemire Skills Camp, the USA Training Camp, played a few games in the NC Pro-Am, and now will travel to New York to help send the USA Team off with a bang. Nolan participated in all of the above as well as the Deron Williams Camp.

Congratulations to both of our Senior Leaders!

The Festival concludes Sunday, Aug. 15, when the USA squad takes on France at Madison Square Garden, 1 p.m. (EDT), in the first game of an exhibition doubleheader. China will meet Puerto Rico at 3:30 p.m. (EDT) in the second contest. Tickets for the exhibition doubleheader, which start at $15, are available on the Web via www.Ticketmaster.com and www.thegarden.com, by phone at 1-800-4-NBA-TIX, and at the box office at Madison Square Garden.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Where Nolan and Kyle Might Rank After 2011

Last year saw many milestones reached such as Cameron Indoor Stadium's 70th year, 754th victory, and 15th undefeated season. Duke fans also saw Coach K's 395th victory in Cameron, his 868th career victory, and his 1,000th game.

Jon Scheyer played his part and moved past 2,000 points on a Free Throw in the second half of the 2nd round Cal game, something only 9 other Duke players have done in their careers. Jon's 2,077 points put him at the #9 spot on the career scoring Ranks. Jon's 297 made 3-point FGs moved him into 3rd place on that list, just passing Bobby Hurley. He didn't stop there, also passing Hurley into 3rd place for Career AST-TO Ratio with 2.08:1.

While Jon has graduated, and can't move up the ranks any longer, Seniors Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith have an opportunity to make their own history this coming season. Based on their career totals to this point, let's have a look at where they might end up after their senior seasons.

Kyle has a chance to pass the 2,000 point threshold quite easily next season. He currently sits at 1,767 after 3 seasons, and if he tops the 702 points he notched last year, he would join JJ Redick and Johnny Dawkins as the only two Duke players with over 2,500 career points. At 15.5 PPG, Kyle ranks 18th on the all-time scoring average list at Duke. We can only assume he'll improve on that percentage next season. By only repeating his 32 blocks from last year, Kyle will move into 9th place, but only 4 blocks would separate he and Grant Hill at 6th place.

Somewhat surprisingly, Kyle needs to play 38 games to move past Christian Laettner as the player to play the most Duke games in his career. If the expectations for this season are met, Kyle should be able to achieve this feat late in the NCAA Tournament. Kyle also has a chance to move into 1st place in minutes played, as he currently sits at 3,601 minutes and is 1,212 minutes behind Chris Duhon. By starting 30 more games, Kyle will also move into 1st place on that list.

By returning for his Senior Year, Kyle has the opportunity to move into some rare company among many Duke greats who have their jerseys in the rafters of 70 year old Cameron, and names burned in the minds of Duke fans for eternity. He wouldn't be back if not for Nolan's decision to return. Let's see where Nolan could end up next.

While Nolan doesn't have quite the numbers as Kyle, he can put himself into the upper echelon of a few statistical categories. Nolan more than doubled his scoring output from his Sophomore Season, and he shows now signs of slowing down this year. While he will have more company at the guard spots, with Seth Curry, Kyrie Irving, and Tyler Thornton joining the back court, and only Scheyer leaving, Duke's more uptempo pace will create many more scoring opportunities and shouldn't lead to a big drop off, if at all.

Nolan ended last season with 1,147 points after dropping 660 points in 40 games. If he matches that point total this year, Nolan will end up in 17th place, just between Jeff Mullins and Bob Verga.

These two Seniors turned down millions of dollars to return to Duke for their final year under Coach K. At the end of their fourth year, their names will be at or near the top of many statistical categories of past Duke greats. Let's enjoy these two special talents and their climbs up the Duke statistical ladders for (hopefully) 40 more games. This will be the last assault on the leaderboards for quite some time.