Duke basketball: The firm decision Coach K must make to win national title

One way to help a young Duke basketball team is to trust one starting five.

Last season, with a historically short leash in hand, Duke basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski gave 11 different players at least one starting nod and rolled out 14 different starting lineups in all. Even his most common combination — Tre Jones, Jordan Goldwire, Cassius Stanley, Matthew Hurt, Vernon Carey Jr. — didn’t even draw double-digit starts.

Unfortunately, we’ll never know how the frequent changes to the starting five would have impacted Duke’s postseason. But the 25-6 regular season, leading to a No. 11 ranking in the final AP Poll, was a relatively mediocre one for the Blue Devils.

Maybe, though, the never-ending battles to get on and stay on Coach K’s good side would have resulted in an April run due to a slew of finely honed weapons emerging from all the competition. Or maybe they would’ve flamed out due to several guys ultimately experiencing an excessive number of confidence-dinging trips to and from the Hall of Famer’s doghouse.

What we do know is the three Duke basketball squads that won national titles this century each enjoyed a fairly stable starting five.

The 2014-15 champs had only three starting lineups. If not for Jahlil Okafor missing a game with an ankle injury, that number would have been only two. And the only difference between those two was whether Coach K decided to go big with Amile Jefferson over Matt Jones. Meanwhile, Quinn Cook, Tyus Jones, and Justise Winslow started every game of the 35-4 campaign.

Five years earlier, Jon Scheyer, Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, and Lance Thomas each started at least 38 games of the eventual 35-5 national championship journey. The only real change the Duke basketball staff made along the way came at the five-spot, permanently giving Brian Zoubek the nod over Miles Plumlee after the first 24 outings.

In 2000-01, Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy, and Shane Battier started across the entire 35-4 title chase. Up until a late-February foot injury to Carlos Boozer, the starters had included him and Nate James; from that point forward, Casey Sanders and Chris Duhon replaced them in the starting five. Nevertheless, there was considerable stick-to-itiveness on Coach K’s part.

Outside of the three title teams since 2000, Coach K has been much more volatile when choosing starters from one game to the next. Sure, injuries factored into that. Still, looking at just the past nine Duke squads that failed to capture the NCAA crown, they averaged nine different starting lineups.

The current Duke basketball team needs stability more so than any before it

Now, as of this week, the 2020-21 Blue Devils are officially practicing — i.e., vying for minutes and starting gigs. Seeing that 11 different players on the roster exhibit at least some hint of an argument as to why they should be on the floor when Duke tips off its season at home against Gardner-Webb on Nov. 25, Coach K and his gang have some difficult choices ahead.

Yet no matter which starters the coaches go with, their picks should stand a better shot at panning out if they commit to them for the long haul. With six freshmen, two sophomores, and a shortened regular season, Coach K mustn’t play games with the youngsters’ emotions.

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Just pick a starting lineup. Two at the most. Then, stick with the starters — at least all but one or two — all the way to the end. After all, history says that doing so boosts Duke’s chance at ending the season under falling confetti.

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