There’s no Zion Williamson on Duke’s basketball team. But the roster is full of talent.
As a junior, Duke’s Joey Baker is older, wiser, more experienced ...
Baker even has a beard. Pretty fresh-faced his first two years at Duke, he looks almost professorial and the 6-6 forward now qualifies as one of the “old heads” on the basketball team.
Duke has been a program in flux the past few years and it’s no different in the year of the pandemic. There’s a mix of older and new, with guys like Baker, Wendell Moore Jr., Jordan Goldwire and Matthew Hurt showing the way for freshmen such as Jalen Johnson, Jeremy Roach , DJ Steward and Mark Williams.
“We have a deep team,” Baker said Tuesday during a call with the media. “We’ve obviously reloaded with a good freshman class. Those guys have been great. They bring it every day. They have enthusiasm, they compete.”
Mike Krzyzewski demands that. The Blue Devils coach has done that for more than four decades. And this year’s team, in particular, could be one where the minutes are divided among those who compete the hardest for the longest, given his options.
There is no Zion Williamson on this team, a bigger-than-life, ready-for-NBA-stardom kind of player. But the talent is there, Baker said.
“I think we’re deep, we’re versatile and we’re athletic,” he said. “We’ll get into teams and we’ll play fast. We have a lot of good players that bring different things to the table and I think Coach will let that be seen. It’ll be a fun year.”
Coronavirus and basketball’s uncertainty
The NCAA has approved the start of basketball practice for Oct. 14, with a Nov. 25 start to the 2020-21 season and a 27-game regular-season schedule. All that is tentative, as college football coaches quickly learned this fall.
The Blue Devils were ranked 10th nationally, had a 25-6 record and were about to face N.C. State on March 12 in the 2019 ACC Tournament in Greensboro when the tournament was canceled. At the time, Duke president Vincent Price suspended all athletic competition because of concerns about health and safety during a burgeoning coronavirus pandemic, and that was that.
ACC commissioner John Swofford declared Florida State the champion and everyone quickly left Greensboro. Other conferences canceled their tournaments. The NCAA tournament was a no-go and everything came to a halt.
The months since has been filled with uncertainty. As Baker put it, “It’s been an entirely different world in terms of what we’re able to do compared to a normal year.”
Baker wants to lead and improve
Baker, a Fayetteville native, has had to earn his minutes the first two years at Duke. He has the smooth jumper and is dependable from 3-point range, which Duke will need, and No. 13 never lacks energy on the court. But he has been streaky and wants to have a more consistent, complete look to his game as a junior.
“I think all areas of my game needed improvement and they still do, but I’d say defensively I wanted to improve a lot,” Baker said. “Being able to defend and stay on the court for long periods of time without fouling – that was a big area of focus over the quarantine and the time we had off.”
Baker also wants to be more vocal this season. Speak up, lead. He knows what Coach K wants and expects. He knows what it takes to win in the ACC and is willing to be seen and heard.
“Working hard every day, competing every day, bringing enthusiasm when talking and kind of showing what needs to be done on a daily basis,” he said. “Obviously, as an older guy, there’s times when I need to be a leader in a way that I haven’t been before.
“I’m learning, as well, how to show the younger guys how everything works on and off the court here. That’s been an awesome experience for me because I’ve grown from it as well.”
Even grown a beard.
This story was originally published October 8, 2020 at 9:50 AM with the headline "There’s no Zion Williamson on Duke’s basketball team. But the roster is full of talent.."
