The Scariest Thing About This Duke Team
· Yahoo Sports
In our YouTube Gold today, we featured Cameron Williams and touched briefly on having both Williams and Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje on the roster, and alluded to the challenge of having this much talent and what to do with it.
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We’ve talked before about the depth of this team, but let’s list it again:
- Patrick Ngongba – 6-11
- Dame Sarr – 6-8
- Caleb Foster – 6-5
- Cayden Boozer – 6-4
- John Blackwell – 6-3
- Drew Scharnowski – 6-9
- Jacob Theodosiou – 6-4
- Cameron Williams – 6-11
- Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje – 7-1
- Bryson Howard – 6-6
- Deron Rippey – 6-2
- Maxime Meyer – 7-1
- Nick Arnold – 5-11
The first thing you notice is Jon Scheyer’s love of height. He has consistently put together taller teams, but this one is right up there. With Arnold, the average height is 6-6.7; without him, it’s 6-7.4.
But this isn’t Wisconsin with Bo Ryan, where he collected tall players, most of whom weren’t very athletic. This team is really athletic.
Which leads us back to the main question: how do you use a team with this many talented players?
The answer, it seems to us, is pretty simple. Like all Scheyer teams, it starts with defense.
And when you have this much talent, you crank up that pressure. You press, you force turnovers, and you run Then you bring other guys in and keep the pressure cranked up to 11.
First, a caveat.
Unless things change, we don’t expect Meyer, Theodosiou, and Arnold are going to play much. So basically, that’s a 10-man rotation. Assume for the moment that the starters are Ngongba, Williams, Sarr, Foster and Blackwell.
That means that on the bench you have Boumtje Boumtje, Howard, Boozer, Scharnowski, and Rippey.
Not only do you have superb depth, but you have situational depth.
If you were playing one of Ryan’s Wisconsin teams, you can match his size. If you’re playing a Rick Pitino team that likes to press and push, say with a three-guard lineup, you can match that.
If you have a superb ball handler, say Michigan State’s Jeremy Fears, you can put Sarr on him and Sarr doesn’t have to rest, because behind him is Foster and Howard. With the pressure he can put on a ball handler, Sarr becomes a much more dangerous weapon.
If Foster gets into foul trouble, you can back him up with Boozer, Blackwell, Howard, and Sarr.
If you are facing, say, UNC with Caleb Williams, you can rotate through Williams, Ngongba, Boumtje Boumtje, and Scharnowski.
We’re only talking about defense right now, but the main point is this: if this team is healthy, fouls shouldn’t be an issue, and, critically, no one one has to conserve energy.
This team has the potential to just wear opponents down to a nub. If it reaches its potential on offense, it’s going to be scary.
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