Duke basketball: Not buying classic Coach K promise

Despite what the minutes-decider says now, history says no more than eight Duke basketball players will appear in tight games come March.

Maybe this year will be different. After all, Duke basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski comes across as a bit more definitive and repetitive with his deep-rotation guarantee this go-around:

"“Because we’re going to play more guys.”"

Krzyzewski made that declaration to media the day before his squad’s first official practice on Tuesday. In this instance, his message was an attempt to support his suggestion that sophomore Joey Baker has a realistic shot to play significantly more than his 18 total minutes from last season.

Of course, the college game’s all-time winningest coach did leave some wiggle room regarding Baker’s opportunities:

"“He can carve out playing time by how hard he works and if he can put that ball in.”"

But efficiently putting the ball in the hoop wasn’t the issue last season for Baker — at least not during games — for the 6-foot-7, 205-pound wing led all Blue Devils in 3-point accuracy at 50 percent. No, the problem was his number of 3-point attempts: two.

Year in and year out, Coach K rarely trusts more than two or three reserves. Therefore, as the expected fourth or fifth bench option this season, Baker’s number of minutes in close games should serve as the perfect gauge for the sincerity of his coach’s preseason pledge to suddenly change his ways by making use of more backups.

ALSO READ: Five bold predictions for the 2019-20 Blue Devils

On Monday, however, the 72-year-old even went as far as to point out just how much the effectiveness of Duke’s defense will hinge on his sticking to his word about relying on more pieces than he typically has across his previous 39 seasons in charge:

"“I think we are going to have a real balanced team. Hopefully, we can play really good team defense because we’ll have more guys capable of playing at the level that we need to in order to win.”"

While that sure sounds great, all it takes is a glance at any Duke message board or Duke Twitter to see most longtime followers aren’t buying the hype of a deeper rotation — not yet, anyway.

So at least in the minds of those Duke basketball fans who have watched the “Coach K will play 10 guys” song and dance enough times to know what will actually happen by March, a seven-man rotation remains the expectation until proven otherwise.

Stay tuned to Ball Durham for more updates, analyses, opinions, and predictions concerning the 2019-20 Duke basketball team.