A few key traits of this year’s Duke squad are strikingly reminiscent of previous Blue Devil units, among them the high potency of its offense.
As Mike Krzyzewski noted recently, there’s a direct relationship between aggressive defense, the turnovers it causes, and easy baskets in transition. While such defensive tactics were once characteristic of Krzyzewski’s squads, that hasn’t been the case much in this decade.
Lack of experience playing man defense proved especially noticeable when the Devils deployed multiple freshman starters. Those teams relied more heavily on defensive alignments meant to contain opponents, whether via zones or sagging man-to-man.