ESPN: How will Coach K handle the Tyus Jones/Quinn Cook PG situation? - SCACCHoops.com

ESPN: How will Coach K handle the Tyus Jones/Quinn Cook PG situation?

by WebMaster

Posted: 10/15/2014 8:29:34 PM


ESPN has an article with big questions as the college basketball season is now less than a month away.  One question raised is how Coach K will handle his point guard situation.

Read the full article here

Mike Krzyzewski has a great problem. Quinn Cook, a senior point guard who has been a member of three Blue Devils teams that reached the NCAA tournament, returns to lead a group with legit national title hopes. Plus, Coach K's top-ranked recruiting class boasts the best prep point guard in the country, Tyus Jones.

He's had two point guards in the past. Jason Williams and Chris Duhon were backcourt cohorts in the early 2000s. The arrangement can work. But Jones might be Williams 2.0, an incredible talent with an undeniable knack for handling the ball and facilitating. Duke needed a facilitator in last season's NCAA tournament loss to Mercer. Now the Blue Devils have one of the best in America.

So how will Coach K handle that? Will he trust his veteran or his adept freshman? He could play Jones and Cook together. It wouldn't be a foreign idea.

The challenge, however, is that the roads to the ACC and NCAA titles feature multiple massive backcourts. Louisville enters Atlantic Coast Conference play with 6-foot-1 future pro Terry Rozier and 6-7 freshman Shaqquan Aaron possibly next to him on the wing. Syracuse will be led by 6-3 freshman point guard Kaleb Joseph. North Carolina could use 6-7 Justin Jackson next to Marcus Paige. Kentucky and Arizona can put 6-6 athletes in their backcourts, too.

A Jones-Cook pairing -- both players are 6-foot -- could give Duke an advantage with speed and quickness. But size could be a challenge. Using the 6-5 Rasheed Sulaimon at shooting guard would solve that dilemma but complicate Duke's PG situation.

Coach K is loyal to his vets, so regardless of what unfolds throughout the season, Cook will get minutes. It's just a matter of how many for the veteran of a program that has the manpower to joust with any team in the country.

-- Myron Medcalf

Myron hits all of the points, and raises one interesting point about the size of ACC backcourts.  Clearly backcourt size is a major factor in the college basketball landscape.  Just ask 6'1" Shabazz Napier and 6'0" Ryan Boatright, the backcourt of the 2013-14 National Champion Connecticut Huskies. 

I do expect that Duke will use Tyus Jones and Quinn Cook in the backcourt together a good bit of the time, I predicted as much in our Duke basketball preview.  Playing the two together is one of many options that Coach K will have with quite a versatile team. 
 



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