Quinn Cook Finally Silences Critics

It is very rare that a four year player at Duke leaves the school with no banners to show for their tenure at the school. Quinn Cook was in danger of being one of those players until this Duke team reached the Final Four.

When you talk about raising banners, that means either winning the ACC regular season Championship, the conference tournament championship, making the Final Four, or winning a National Championship. Up until Sunday Cook had not been part of a team that had done any of those things.

In Cook’s four years he has been a very good player and the teams have had pretty good seasons, but at Duke pretty good doesn’t cut it. In his freshman and junior season, Duke was eliminated in the first round of the NCAA tournament, and after losing to Mercer in the first round last year Cook knew he only had one more year to raise a banner.

Cook has done everything in his power to carry this Duke team to the promised land this season. His numbers have gone up in every season since getting to Durham, and this season he took a massive leap. Cook has averaged 15.5 points per game while shooting 45 percent from the field and 40 percent from three, all by far career highs.

More from Ball Durham

Coming into the season it was unknown how Cook would adjust to being moved to shooting guard with incoming freshman Tyus Jones taking the reigns as point guard. Cook had been Duke’s starting point guard in both his sophomore and junior seasons, but instead of causing problems, he took Jones under his wing and they have combined to form one of the best backcourt duos in the country.

Cook has faced his fair share of criticism in his tenure at Duke, but that happens when a University with this type of tradition goes through a dry spell. Instead of letting the talk bring him down, Cook let it motivate him, and by all accounts has become a tremendous leader for a team that Mike Krzyzewski calls his youngest team ever.

Cook may be the one of the least talked about players on Duke, but he is probably the most important player on the team. Not only has he led this team with his experience but he has played tremendously all season.

Nobody could have imagined Cook having this type of a year. Not only did he finally get to raise his first banner for making it to the Final Four, but Cook was also named to the second team All-ACC which, when you consider how stacked the talent was this year in the ACC, is a huge honor. Cook has clearly proven his doubters wrong and then some.

Cook and Duke are certainly not satisfied by just getting to the Final Four though. They will look to add a National Championship banner this coming weekend in Indianapolis. The Final Four starts for Duke on Saturday night when they take on Michigan State.

Home/Duke Basketball