Player Sean Stewart

[CK86]

K was so awful last year. I've tried to scrub most of it from my mind.

I've somehow completed scrubbed it from my memory bank to that point that I don't even remember who Henry Coleman is. I couldn't tell you a thing about him other than apparently he was tall.

 

[childress22]

It's not as if the staff told Coleman to go take a hike. I think he a) he wanted a bigger role THIS year and b) Buzz Williams, who'd really did a good job of tampering selling him and his family on that role being available at A&M.

Last year was just a roster clusterfuck and even Johnson leaving didn't unfuck it enough. The staff could have played Hurt less, I guess, but it feels like Mark/Henry/Jaemyn all didn't get enough minutes.

 

[rhfarmer]

Didn't Buzz recruit him hard at VPI?

 

[rhfarmer]

Also, Sean Stewart.

 

[rome8180]

Hurt's not the one I would have wanted to play less. Goldwire, Roach, Steward, and Moore could have all played fewer minutes.

I think Coleman, given his love for Duke, would have stuck around had he been getting more than 5 minutes (with a bunch of DNPs thrown in). Players of his ranking don't necessarily need 20 mpg as freshmen, but they do need to feel like they're involved.

 

[Dukenation12]

^^^it is what it is with Coleman and JBrake…goes both ways definitely.

If Duke really was your dream school and you loved Duke…do you bounce after your freshmen season doesn’t go as you thought? Many guys could have done the same (Nolan/Quinn).

If Sean doesn’t start (probably won’t) as a freshman and doesn’t play big minutes, are we to assume he will transfer and bounce too?!

From what I’ve read his dad and Grant Hill are good buddies. Sean has been around Duke basketball and a huge LEGIT fan since the 3rd grade. Sounds like he’s more of the kid that means what he says and is a true Duke fan of everything Duke has to offer. I’m really excited to see his game flourish at Duke for 3-4 years. Something I wish we could have said about the other two. Time will tell though.

Sounds like Duke and Jon landed a really good get in Sean Stewart. Around 6’8 215 PF. Slasher/attacker/great motor/High IQ/has length. And is bouncy/solid on Defense. Still developing ball handling and shooting. Who better to learn the game from then Amile.

Jon is doing it right. Landing the top talent he wants and he’s getting top 30-50 guys who will very likely stay 3-4 years and will be program building guys. The future is staying bright for Duke!

 

[rome8180]

Nolan played 15 mpg as a freshman and clearly had a role. Quinn played 12 mpg. It's hard to say "it is what it is" when your coach regularly goes 6-7 deep by conference play and certain players are logging 38 minutes against Boston College.

 

[Dukenation12]

Yo I hear you and have always thought K could use his bench more. I guess my point was: if you aren’t willingly to have some patience then Duke and K might not be the spot for you. I’m not sure even 5 -7 mins a game as a freshman would have kept Henry here. He wanted to started and play a bigger role. He took the Semi route.

Will definitely be interesting to see if Jon will employ a deeper bench and strategies than K.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

It’s quite appropriate that all this discussion is happening in a thread for Sean Stewart, who will be entering the transfer portal in about two years.

 

[Grit]

Nolan played 15 mpg as a freshman and clearly had a role. Quinn played 12 mpg. It's hard to say "it is what it is" when your coach regularly goes 6-7 deep by conference play and certain players are logging 38 minutes against Boston College.

Nolan and Quinn were also pretty good as freshman. Coleman arguably didn't get enough burn to get a fair shake at proving himself, but from what I recall he mostly played in meaningless minutes and looked bad. Like, far worse than Bates has looked. And if playing time is what gets people to stay why did Goldwire leave? It's not like we had much returning or incoming guard play.

I feel like this board tends to overstate the K/coaching blame for these kinds of things. A promising (prior to Duke) player transfers, and we act as if it's the staff's fault for not playing and developing them. The player even loved Duke growing up, how could K have fucked that up! But it could very well be a player who just didn't turn out to enjoy Duke as much as they thought they would when they were 12, who wasn't good enough to get real playing time, and who both sides felt the relationship wasn't working out how they would've wished.

I have no idea what the actual stats are on this, but I don't have the impression that many of these transfers people wish the staff played more ever ended up doing much.

 

[torontoduke]

It seems like a few of the exits, Coleman included, may have been prevented if more playing time was granted. Players obviously need to show something in practice and earn their opportunities...it's puzzling why some of these guys don't work out.

As you mention, sometimes the fit isn't there, unfortunately.

 

[Grit]

It seems like a few of the exits, Coleman included, may have been prevented if more playing time was granted. Players obviously need to show something in practice and earn their opportunities...it's puzzling why some of these guys don't work out.

As you mention, sometimes the fit isn't there, unfortunately.

Yeah, and in fairness there are definitely times I agree and want the staff to play someone more or try different things. But I think we tend to ignore the idea that they probably have a good idea about which players aren't fully committed and buying in to the program, and that those players both won't end up not getting much play time and are very likely to leave.

As has been alluded to previously in this thread, if a guy really was "bleed Duke blue" or something like that, he probably wouldn't leave over playing 5 subpar minutes a game as a freshman instead of 12 subpar minutes a game.

 

[rome8180]

K plays a shorter rotation than your average school and we have more transfers than average. No chance the two are related though!

I'd challenge you to look at UNC's typical roster depth and the number of transfers in comparison.

 

[rome8180]

I also don't think you can judge the production of someone who gets in for 30 seconds, makes a mistake K would overlook if it were one of his rotation players, and is immediately yanked. That said, Coleman wasn't bad when he was on the floor. Sure, he wasn't as good at the one true god Bates Jones. But Bates has been playing CBB for four years already.


You're right that most of these guys don't amount to much elsewhere. Players that went on to do something notable elsewhere:

Semi Ojeleye
Michael Gbinije
Elliott Williams
Billy McCaffrey


As for why Goldwire left, who knows. You don't have to be able to explain every case to have a general pattern.

 

[Grit]

I also don't think you can judge the production of someone who gets in for 30 seconds, makes a mistake K would overlook if it were one of his rotation players, and is immediately yanked. That said, Coleman wasn't bad when he was on the floor. Sure, he wasn't as good at the one true god Bates Jones. But Bates has been playing CBB for four years already.


You're right that most of these guys don't amount to much elsewhere. Players that went on to do something notable elsewhere:

Semi Ojeleye
Michael Gbinije
Elliott Williams
Billy McCaffrey


As for why Goldwire left, who knows. You don't have to be able to explain every case to have a general pattern.

Sure, you and I only saw him make one mistake in 30 seconds of game time. But the less we see a player the more the coaching staff has a relative knowledge advantage with regards to that player. I'd be more worried about the lack of game time for these guys who suck if on average they actually went on to be great elsewhere. Usually they don't.

And I'm with you on wishing that Semi and Gbinije played more. But Williams kind of was bad at a lot of things his freshman year and got to play more and more as the year went on because he gave the team a dimension no one else could fill. And wasn't he starting by the end of the year? McCaffrey I can't really speak to, but he played 25 minutes a game before leaving? On top of that, I'm somewhat confused why you are bringing him up. Is your contention that K has been screwing up these roster moves since the early 90's? How much better do you think the program would have done during that period if you had final say on play time?

 

[aiw]

Jamal Boykin was 2nd team All-PAC 10 his senior year

 

[rhfarmer]

@Grit I think that what we bitch about isn't necessarily "player A needs more burn or else he will transfer" because Player A is so good or valuable. It's that Player A gains more value over time in the program relative to his replacement, who might also only be in the program for one year.

Coleman/John is a perfect example of this. Coleman is having a really nice season at A&M and John is having a really nice season at Duke. Next year, Coleman will be having another nice season at A&M, and Duke's roster is a hamster wheel.
Coleman is a better value long term, IMO because he likely has 3 and possibly 4 more years at A&M being a productive player.
Duke, on the other hand, is rolling the dice.

 

[childress22]

I think Coleman, given his love for Duke, would have stuck around had he been getting more than 5 minutes (with a bunch of DNPs thrown in). Players of his ranking don't necessarily need 20 mpg as freshmen, but they do need to feel like they're involved.

You may be right, but I still bet decisions like this are more based on expectations for the sophomore year than what happened in the freshman year. I think the fact that he had almost no likelihood of starting this year with Paolo/Mark/AJ ahead of him didn't work in our favor.

Coleman can be a 3-year starter at Texas A&M. Most Duke fans wanted him around so he could play 15 minutes off the bench the next and maybe start as a senior.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

With the new transfer rules, the benefits of having homegrown upperclassmen and program continuity instead of a revolving door of transfer mercenaries are much less important. In the past, it was obviously better to have a lesser-recruited guy in your program for four years, get gradually increasing playing time and be a leader as a senior, rather than investing so much into bringing in a guy to sit out a year and then possibly play a year.

That's the system K had to operate in for nearly his entire career, which I assume caused him to take so few transfers, which in turn made it frustrating when a 4-star freshman transferred so predictably after getting hardly any playing time at Duke. Now that the risk/benefit has swayed heavily in favor of making liberal use of the transfer market, I don't think there will be the same level of frustration in the fanbase or really any negative consequences of losing transfers whom Scheyer doesn't deem worthy of playing time as freshmen.

The big assumption here is that Scheyer will make liberal use of the transfer market. It's understandable that K, a 74-year-old who has operated under the old transfer rules for 30+ years, wouldn't suddenly change his ways in his final offseason for Duke. It would be much less understandable for Scheyer not to adapt. In the discussion here, we're assuming Theo John is a one-off event for Duke and there won't be another Theo John next season, and another one after that, and a long, endless string of Theo Johns, like agents in the Matrix.

If we have to replace a Henry Coleman with 3 straight Theo Johns under the new transfer rules, that's fine. There's predictability in what you're getting out of an old man transfer. The downside is the unpredictability of landing those high quality transfers year after year, and the lower chance of hitting on an NPOY-caliber junior or senior. A junior year Wendell Moore, for example, is almost never going to be available in the transfer market. In the current Duke roster construction model, this isn't as much of a concern to begin with, since the stars at Duke are expected to be freshmen OADs.

On the other hand, Moore got significant playing time as a freshman and sophomore, and the fanbase wondered why K played him so much when he was so bad. This suggests the coaches wouldn't often lose a guy like Moore, because they (at least sometimes) know what to look for when assessing potential in a player. Empirically, this has been true, as only a very small portion of Duke transfers amount to anything special.

 

[Slap the Floor]

@Grit I think that what we bitch about isn't necessarily "player A needs more burn or else he will transfer" because Player A is so good or valuable. It's that Player A gains more value over time in the program relative to his replacement, who might also only be in the program for one year.

Coleman/John is a perfect example of this. Coleman is having a really nice season at A&M and John is having a really nice season at Duke. Next year, Coleman will be having another nice season at A&M, and Duke's roster is a hamster wheel.
Coleman is a better value long term, IMO because he likely has 3 and possibly 4 more years at A&M being a productive player.
Duke, on the other hand, is rolling the dice.

But next year there wouldn't be room at Duke for Coleman unless he's content with playing 10 minutes off the bench and not being a scoring option. Then he has one season left in his senior year to hit it big. I think that's more of rolling the dice, on just hoping Coleman develops into his full potential and is a monster by his senior year. It's less rolling of the dice for Duke to pick up a big guy that rebounds well and plays solid defense and doesn't expect to score in the transfer portal every year, IMO.

Ultimately it comes to what the recruit expects out of high school. If someone is willing to ride it out for 4 years and just play their role hoping that one day they become the man but also expecting that it might not happen and he will be a 4-year role player, I'm completely fine with that. A recent example of this is Javin DeLaurier. If you are expecting to come to Duke and work hard, develop, and by your junior or senior year become a star I think it's a waste of time for both parties because the transfer is inevitable. Talent acquisition is the #1 responsibility of the head coach in college basketball, and at the recruiting machine that is Duke, players that expect to be a central cog by their junior/senior will just be recruited over by a top 10 pick an rightfully so, IMO.