Wonder what took the ol cash cal so long to offer.
Duke has been the perceived way out front leader for this kid for a while now and most coaches will shy away when they feel another program has a kid locked up. You see some of thee kids offer lists and you know they were more talented than their list of offers seem to imply. That is just that other coaches already know they are wasting their time getting involved. But you as well see at times all the sudden big time programs will start to offer a kid thought to be locked to a program, why? Well that is because other coaches notice some slippage in that X program has him locked up or maybe it was not as real as everyone thought.
Filipowski is that kid that everyone felt was or is a duke lock, Hubert offered, kid seems to like that he did. Now Kal has jumped in and seems to be a bit of concern now in durham. No matter what dukies want you to believe, duke is no longer duke, it just isn't the program it was. What put K in the HOF and lead to so many of those wins was very strong outside shooting, very physical defense, and a coach that worked the refs for any and every advantage he could get. Duke was one of those programs that were better because of the coach, teams better collectively than their individual parts would indicate. The dukies of old would out play you more than out talent you while still have solid talent.
But somewhere around playing super coach for the USA version of collected all stars, K began to change. Maybe his time was being drained to much, don't know but K started to build teams based on out talenting opponents and his cachet of being seen around so many NBA stars drew a lot of the best talents in every class. He followed Kal's lead and committed his program to the 1&D, most as well know he as well had to resort to back room deals to make sure that talent would be delivered to him.
K was fortunate to be able to snag a title when he did still have some uppermen that could provide the experience but as freshmen began to take more and more PT from upper classmen K's teams were marked by a constant problem. They would win a lot of regular season games and spend most of the season in the top 5 but flame out in the NCAAT. They are now at the point that they must reload every single season and if they do not hit with great freshmen the slide is hard, last season was missing that game changer freshman and the best freshman they had was booted mid season, so they fell hard.
And now K is going in to his lame duck victory tour season, that is not going to be about Scheyer, it is going to be K all the time and the dude that makes funny faces on his bench that will take over when K takes his final bow. Exit K stage left, exit Banchero/Griffin stage left also and enter that next great duke class that is already wrapped up with comitted stars like Filipowski, wait, you mean that class is not locked in at this late date, you mean Filipowski has not yet committed, you mean Filipowski is not even committed and other major programs are offering him? Oh, so who is it that duke reloads with, will they even be able to keep Keels, will anyone care if they keep Roach?
Filipowski is a MAJOR recruit for Scheyer, he kind of has to get him because the stakes are huge for his future. Showing your fans and boosters that you can keep the talent pipeline working as it had is vital, Hubert has shown he can do that already but it does not look like they are lining up to play for plastic-face, they have lost that HOT program to play for aura. Situation was that duke could sail in and snag a recruit most any time they wanted, nearly able to pick the best of the best before anyone else got a pick. That is no longer true and that is the key to being successful in the 1&D, you must re-load with the best of the best talents EVERY season and you can not bring in a kid you think is a mega star and he not be that. Well their last freshman group, they missed on 4 guys so their season fell apart. Williams did not play like the most talented big man in the country, Johnson was booted mid season, Stewart was OK but he left anyway, and Roach stunk the joint up. While Banchero/Griffin/Keels is a solid trio of talents they did whiff on Baldwin and that was a huge miss because with him duke had a solid front court with Williams/Banchero/Baldwin but their front court depth without Baldwin is just not fearsome.
IN a twist of fate, both UNC and duke got a Marquette transfer, we got Dawson Garcia, anyone know the guy duke got? LOL
Hubert so far has surpassed any expectations I think most UNC fans could have hoped for, his next test is the season and the post season coming, can his teams not just win but win in such a convincing way that opponents fear them. We had kinda lost that, teams were sharpening their knives wanting to take on UNC because we seemed beatable, Hubert looks to me to be putting something together that could once again strike fear in to our opponents and one of those opponents is duke.
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