Duke Basketball: Naismith committee still has chance to restore credibility

The midseason list for Naismith Defensive Player of the Year includes one Duke basketball freshman, but another’s absence dings the award’s credibility.

I don’t have time to list each committee member whose basketball IQ must have taken a nosedive when selecting the midseason watch list for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Award. No, I’m too busy staring at my Twitter feed hoping to see news of the return from injury of a freshman point guard whose name already pops up in any discussion of the best on-ball defenders in Duke basketball history.

Also, this is only the second year the award has existed, so I’ll cut the committee some slack by not naming names of those who were responsible for choosing the 15 candidates that were announced Tuesday.

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However, I will point out that the infant award’s reputation seems to be in jeopardy at the moment, to the same extent that possessions by Duke’s opponents have been in constant jeopardy this season largely as a result of the presence of Tre Jones.

Anyone who hasn’t heard the news should sit down for this: Jones was inexplicably left off the list.

The 6-foot-2, 185-pound Minnesota native is averaging 2.1 steals per game and somewhere in the vicinity of a gazillion movements per game that disrupt the flow of opposing offenses. And he’s done so while committing only 1.3 fouls per game.

Many of Jones’ harassing maneuvers — notably his aggressive, yet precise swipes, jabs, and lunges at the ball — have led to opponents’ turnovers, which so often materialize into the Blue Devils’ transition plays that have captured the imagination of the basketball world.

While fellow freshman Zion Williamson, who is averaging 2.0 steals and 1.8 blocks across No. 2 Duke’s 15-2 start, deservingly made the list, the Blue Devils’ defense deserves two representatives — only Texas Tech, who lost to Duke on Dec. 20, had two on the list.

After all, statistics to date suggest the current Blue Devils, led by Williamson and Jones, play defense as well as any group in the country or any team in the history of a program that is known for its stellar defense:

1st among all 353 Division I teams in blocks per game (7.7), on pace to be by far the best mark in program history
3rd in steals per game (10.5), on pace to tie the best mark in program history (set by the 2001 national champions)
9th in opponents’ combined field goal percentage (38.5), on pace to be the best mark of any Duke team in the Coach K era
19th in opponents’ combined shooting percentage from beyond the arc (29.3), on pace to be the fifth-best mark in program history

Note that Duke has accumulated the above stats while playing nearly a third of its games (five) against teams that are ranked in the top 16 of this week’s AP poll.

Sure, Jones missed the 72-70 win over now-No. 3 Virginia on Saturday after suffering an AC joint separation in the first half of the overtime loss to Syracuse eight days ago — he is expected to return soon but is not expected to see action when the Blue Devils play at Pitt tonight at 9 p.m. (on ESPN).

That being said, Jones was consistently the catalyst for Duke’s historically dominant defense prior to his injury.

And there’s little doubt that, once he is back to 100 percent, he will continue to be a nightmare for opposing guards and spark transition opportunities that often begin with Jones’ jaw-dropping 50-foot passes. The Naismith committee should take into consideration those passes — even though they are technically considered plays on offense, considering they often occur a split second after Jones makes a remarkable defensive play, they should be looked at as the exclamation points to his defense.

Either way, the committee still has time to correct its obvious mistake. According to the website for the award, players who did not make the midseason list “are still eligible to be selected as award semifinalists, which will be announced in February.”

Hopefully, Jones will be back in action well before then.

Surely, if he returns as the same ball-hawking machine who had four steals against Syracuse in the six minutes leading up to his injury — which, by the way, came as a result of his diving to the floor for a loose ball on defense — the committee will be bright enough to partially restore the awards’ reputation by naming both Williamson and Jones as semifinalists.

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And the committee will have a chance to fully restore its reputation — at least in the eyes of this Duke basketball fan, pending Duke’s continued defensive prowess — by naming the Blue Devil duo as shared recipients of the award come spring.

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