Seth Greenberg: Duke Has It's D Back This Year

Analyst joked that it was Uke for several seasons

ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg spent eight years coaching against Mike Krzyzewski in the ACC. He thinks this year’s Duke team is a throwback to some of the classic Coach K squads.

“When I was coaching I would always talk about the essence of a team,” he said. “I think the essence of this team is they’ve going to defend. This team is more like Coach K in terms of they’re more disruptive defensively. It all starts with Tre (Jones) and his ability to disrupt at the point. By disrupting at the point, that allows his wing guys to get into passing lanes. By disrupting at the point, now all of a sudden you know you can defend that guy one-one, now everyone else can get up the line off their man and away from the basket. They do have an old school feel. I joke around—I’m not sure coach appreciates it—they were “uke” for a couple years. They were Duke without the D, and they would outscore people. Their team had a different DNA. This team now is back to more of an old school.”

While Duke has another strong freshman class, this year’s Blue Devils has more experience.

“You’ve got those upperclassmen,” Greenberg said. “You’ve got Jack White coming off the bench. You’ve got Javin DeLaurier coming. Maybe Alex O’Connell is coming. Jordan Goldwire, who’s like (Tyler) Thornton, who played my last year. You’ve got those four guys that have shared experiences and toughness and then you complement them with Cassius Stanley with great enthusiasm, with Vernon (Carey Jr.), with Wendell (Moore Jr.). Those young guys, you put them together. You have that veteran group that complements the skill sets of those young guys.

“It’s a great mix of youth and experience,” he continued. “I would think this would be a fun team for Mike to coach, because you have some guys in the locker room. When you don’t have veterans who coaches your locker room? I’m sure Coach wasn’t happy after Clemson. Some young guys might want to push back. But a guy like Tre or Alex can say, ‘Here’s where Coach is coming from.’”