>Seems like it’s hard to build any real continuity. Their
>bench sucked, and they had no shooting. Poorly constructed
>roster. But how do you fix that, given their recruiting
>strategy?

Cam Reddish was supposed to be The Shooter. Every year we've had OADs come into be the shooter.

3P% of Duke OADs:
Kyrie: 46%
Austin: 37%
Jabari: 36%
Tyus: 38%
Justise: 42%
Ingram: 41%
Tatum: 34% (tho 38% in ACC play-- he started the year DREADFULLY)
Frank Jackson: 40%
Trent: 40%
Bagley: 40%
Carter: 41%

I mean, Tatum's start aside, that's an *absurd* record of taking OADs-- including a number of whom we're supposed to be shooters!-- and getting them to a good shooting percentage from distance.

Then, you get to this year:

Barrett: 31% (33% in ACC play)
Reddish: 33% (31% in ACC play)
Zion: 34% (37% in ACC play)
Tre: 26% (an awful 21% in ACC play)

Reddish came in with the Shooter reputation, so everyone at Duke expected he'd do 38+%, and if we could get *one other* player to even an acceptable percentage, we'd be golden. But Reddish really struggled, no one (except for Zion) really improved from outside, and thus it didn't work. And when you add to that Jack White's bizarre shooting slump and Alex O'Connell's shooting regression? It was just a damn plague, man.

And sometimes that shit just happens. But Duke's roster construction in regard to having shooters? We were supposed to have one of the best in the class. He just didn't pan out. But on paper, preseason, I really liked our chances to be, at worst, *fine* from 3. It's really all we needed. Just two guys who could shoot. Instead we had zero. Sigh.

>What’s going to happen with Bolden and DeLaurier next year?
>These were big recruits and they should be solid upperclassmen
>players, but it seems they’ll be buried behind Duke’s top
>recruit bigs.

Nah, Carey is definitely playing the 4 and will desperately need rim protectors behind him. He's not a 5 imo, and neither is Hurt if we got him. Considering K wouldn't even consistently do Zion as a small ball 5, I really don't expect it with Carey. K seems to be really loving the two-big lineups lately. (Likely a result of the disaster of 2016.) I'd really, really love Bolden to come back and finish the year, because I don't think next season we'll be doing the versatile switch-everything defenses, and Bolden is just so perfectly equipped to defend the interior.