The Duke-Florida rivalry continues!

[mflag]

haha, so apparently I opened up a can of worms with my knock on Duke. Although after intensive Research, I would like to show Coach K's record his first 8 years of coaching compared to Coach Donovan's record his first 8 years of coaching

Comments

No he didn't.

[hardcorerocker]

There's a reason he only chose 8 years instead of the more rounded 10. Because then you would've seen that Duke was on the rise at the end of Coach K's 10th coaching year, whereas Billy D hadn't progressed with his by his 10th. Let me complete the sheet for Matt, shall I?

COACH K'S FIRST 10 YEARS
1976 Army 11-14
1977 Army 20-8
1978 Army 19-9 NIT
1979 Army 14-11
1980 Army 9-17
1981 Duke 17-13 6-8 NIT
1982 Duke 10-17 4-10
1983 Duke 11-17 3-11
1984 Duke 24-10 7-7 final AP ranking: 14 NCAA 1st round (0-1)
1985 Duke 23-8 8-6 final AP ranking: 10 NCAA 2nd round (1-1)

Hmm, so they were improving steading by the end of the 10th year, that's interesting. Let's see Billy D's complete stat list now, shall we (including added-in conference win loss records as well)?

COACH DONOVAN'S FIRST 10 YEARS
1994-95 Marshall 18-9
1995-96 Marshall 17-11
1996-97 UF 13-17 5-11
1997-98 UF 14-15 6-10 NIT; 0-1
1998-99 UF 22-9 10-6 NCAA Sweet 16; 2-1
1999-00 UF 29-8 12-4 NCAA Runner-Up; 5-1
2000-01 UF 24-7 12-4 NCAA Second Round; 1-1
2001-02 UF 22-9 10-6 NCAA First Round; 0-1
2002-03 UF 25-8 12-4 NCAA Second Round; 1-1
2003-04 UF 20-11 9-7 NCAA First Round; 0-1

Hmm, UF seems to be past their peak. But disregard that for a moment, cuz Billy could still be the winner. Let's see the new win-loss record over 10 years for both:

Coach K: 158-124 56%
Coach D: 207-104 66.5%

Wow, still pretty good Billy D! In fact, it looks like Billy D is still the winner!

BUT MATT ALSO DIDN'T MENTION THIS:

Coach K inherited a flailing Duke basketball team that had lost all its talent from its 1978 championship run and had zero new recruits during that time, thanks to the awful recruiter known as Bill Foster. Coach K came in with nothing. Not to mention he was a no-name Polack that was hated when he first came to Duke because it didn't look like a guy who took an Army team to the NIT would make a difference.

Billy Donovan had worked for Rick Pitino, already had a name, and inherited a team that had been to the Final Four 2 years earlier, not to mention some damn fine talent like Greg Stolt and Eddie Shannon. Florida had hit a plateau when Billy D came in. But they certainly weren't suffering from lack of talent, and a guy who worked for Pitino would have no trouble getting players to come play for him. It wasn't until his 3rd season when Coach K was able to get talent to come play for Duke.

If Billy Donovan had achieved those stats at CLEMSON, then we could talk. But this is as reliable as a Sean Hannity sports report.

AND HERE IS THE KICKER, THE REASON WHY MATT LEFT HIS STAT LIST INCOMPLETE:

If you took it to Billy's current year, #11, you'd seen this line on Coach K's list:

1986 Duke 37-3 12-2 final AP ranking: 1 NCAA runner-up (5-1)

SO BY MATT'S LOGIC, BILLY DONOVAN SHOULD HAVE WON A 30-GAME SEASON THIS YEAR AND THEY'LL BE NCAA RUNNERS-UP.

But what is UF's record this year?

2004-05 UF 20-7 12-4 NCAA appearance (?-?)

Let's now factor in the win loss record, updated into Donovan's 11th year (wins and losses that follow notwithstanding).

Coach K: 195-127 61%
Coach D: 227-111 67%

You can now see that coaching win loss percentages mean absolutely doo doo. Billy Donovan has made his team a winning basketball team, to be sure, so his winning percentage will continue to rise very slowly. Coach K's win loss percentage sky rocketed over the next seasons. Billy Donovan will reach Coach K's 75% win loss percentage around the year 2021 at this rate.

But where Coach K made his team progress, Billy D has reached his plateau. He hasn't made the Sweet Sixteen since 1999-00, a year where he had two first-round NBA Draft picks on his team to carry the load. Oh yeah, UF hasn't had a first-round NBA Draft pick since.

Coach K is in a conference three times as tough as the SEC, and yet he continues to win more than Billy D on a regular basis. That's another stat you didn't show. Coach K this year, the year YOU are supposed to reach the championship game and sit atop the AP polls according to your claim that UF is evolving into an elite program at an equal/better rate than Duke did, has a 22-5 record with one of the hardest schedules in the nation according to the RPI.

So it is MATT who is getting the Culpeppering here, since his Fox News tactics shouldn't fool anyone.

[hardcorerocker]

Insert Chris comment about how shitty Duke football is, even though it has nothing to do with the topic at hand which Matt brought up, here.