Still very busy with Duke Football around here but there is admittedly a lot going on in the world of Duke Basketball which has started practice and kicks off its season in a matter of months.
Countdown to Craziness is this coming Friday, and we will be there catching the sights and sounds with Jim Oliver of Duke Report.com. I will have lots of updates and thoughts on what transpires there, though I’m not expecting to see all that much real basketball.
The news coming out of Duke’s camp early is not all good. Redshirt Marshall Plumlee, whom Mike Krzyzewski called the 6th best player on the team broke a bone in his foot and is out at least 6 weeks and possibly longer. Krzyzewski said he hoped he would be back in a month but the more shocking news is that the younger Plumlee is considered that good.
I figured he would play minutes but the way Krzyzewski was talking he might have been one of the first guys off the bench and that I wasn’t expecting. Marshall Plumlee was likely to back up his older brother Mason, but he is bigger, Duke’s biggest big so I figured his injury hurt but maybe it is more than I first thought, which is both good (that Marshall is that talented) and bad (because he won’t be available.
Krzyzewski also said that Seth Curry is fighting an injury that could end up bothering him the entire year. That is definitely bad news because nagging injuries are never good.
Curry apparently is not practicing every day and that is never a good thing for team chemistry. When asked at the ACC Media day, Krzyzewski said that health could end up being the biggest determining factor for how high this Duke team can go; again both an exciting and terrifying prospect.
The injuries didn’t quell the media expectations as the Blue Devils were ranked No. 8 in the USA-Today Coaches poll, two spots below NC State and four above arch rival North Carolina. The ACC Media votes came out today and the Blue Devils were voted second behind the Wolf Pack and just ahead of the Tar Heels who finished third in the voting.
Pre season rankings mean nothing and Duke has an early tough schedule that could feature a lot more loses this early in the season than many Blue Devil fans are accostmed to, but we will have more when we roll out our season prospectus next week.
Mason Plumlee was the only Blue Devil voted into the preseason All-ACC first team.
Looking ahead into a bit of recruiting news, Jabari Parker announced on Tuesday that he would not be making a decision on college during the early signing period as he had said earlier. At the moment Parker is down to Duke, BYU, Florida, Michigan State and Stanford.
Jabari Parker doesn’t look to be committing or signing during the early period in November after all.
I’m not certain if this is a good or bad sign for Duke, but just about every school on his list could be wondering that because at this point I’m not sure Parker has a favorite. My hope though is he doesn’t drag this out like Tony Parker or Shabazz Muhammad or Even Amile Jefferson did this past season.
The only thing I am sure of is that he doesn’t care what I want or think. I have to believe Duke still has a shot with Parker but you never know in the world of recruiting. The early signing period runs from Nov. 14-21 and if he doesn’t sign and commit then as his father now says he won’t he will have to wait until the April 17-May 15 in the spring to sign though Parker’s father says he could commit in December.
Stay tuned for more updates on Duke’s injury woes, and Jabari Parker.
