I’m going to miss Quinn Cook. Not just the player on the floor but the leader of the Duke Blue Devils. He had to endure the losses to Lehigh and Mercer in the first round of the NCAA Tournament during his Freshman and Junior years. You all remember that pain and the ridicule that you had to endure from all your peers. He experienced the same torment. But all that can be forgotten now as Quinn Cook is graduating and he can call himself a champion.
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I write this piece now because as Duke’s team banquets have just concluded the reality of Quinn Cook not suiting up next year has hit home. His presence will no longer be on the floor next year. He was an important spoke in the wheel of the 2015 National Champions, just as much as Justise Winslow, Tyus Jones, and Jahlil Okafor were. The freshmen needed him just as much as he needed them. That is a true definition of a team. All the cogs running together to form one cohesive unit. He was not the most talented player or the tallest but he was our captain.
How fitting it is that Cook’s senior year was his very best. He had career highs in points per game with 15.3, FG% at 45%, 3P% at 39% and FT% at 89%. This year he averaged the most minutes per game of any year in his career. He had to take up the mantle left behind by the troubled Rasheed Sulaimon and take on the task of mentoring 4 freshmen on an eight man team. He was the rock and stability that Coach K needed during this year. Cook never wavered in his resolve for the Blue Devils. He made the switch to SG this year as Tyus Jones was allowed to come in and run the show at PG. Everything Cook did was for the betterment of the team, not his own personal accolades.
His pesky defense, his timely threes and his intangibles that could never show up in any box score will be hard to replace next season. But the seniors next year like Amile Jefferson and Marshall Plumlee will provide their own forms of leadership like all seniors do. They have learned from the very best and we should all be hopeful they will carry the same type of attitude that Quinn Cook did this year.
Duke for the quite foreseeable future will be the Duke that the country has grown up with. The national championships, the McDonald’s All-Americans, the first round draft picks and the Cameron Crazies. But players like Quinn Cook are the reason why Duke is Duke. Tough, heady players that slap the floor in protest as the opposition brings the ball up the court.
Quinn Cook is going out a winner on the scoreboard. But he is also going out a winner in all our heart’s.