Duke Assistant Coaches, Chris Collins and Steve Wojciechowski were kind enough to answer a few questions for Blue Devil Nation Premium Members.

You will love this question and answer session with the Duke Basketball Assistant Coaches!  It's quite rare to get open and honest answers straight from the horses mouth! 

Keep reading, as you are about to finally find out that Lance Thomas is happy at Duke ... that Greg Paulus played on a broken foot all season long ... and more.

The following questions were asked by the members of the BDN Newsletter otherwise known as the premium section.  While I allowed members to ask the questions, it was my intent to share this with the entire Blue Devil Nation.

The answers were so detailed , that I am breaking them into two parts.  I hope the Nation enjoys this and be sure to link this for all Blue Devil fans to see. 

This is the exact exchange, verbatim.

Does Duke evaluate the team each season in terms of what style of play it uses?  Can you elaborate on what went into last seasons style of play and how you might utilize next seasons roster?

There is no question that we enter each season trying to maximize the abilities and potential of our aggregate roster.  We don’t have a set system that we hang our hat on year in and year out. Rather, we try to place our guys in positions where they can be the most successful. With this past year’s team, first and foremost we believed we had a very good defensive team. We showed that by being one of the nation’s leaders and tops in the ACC in scoring defense. Offensively, because of youth and inexperience, we never were able to have the continuity that we would have liked to have had. With Greg’s injury to open the year, it forced guys to take on different roles and responsibilities which we believe had an effect on our performance on the offensive end. As the season progressed, our offensive efficiency was much better, but our defensive mentality wavered. Going into next year, we will evaluate who we have and how we would like to play based upon where our guys are at the start of practice in October. We believe that all of our returning players will have great summers and return as better players, and we also can’t wait to welcome and work with our incoming freshmen.

Hey guys. Why were Marty's minutes so limited this year? I understand that he had post season surgery but a few games late in the season he looked solid. Do you see Marty getting 10+ minutes a game next season? Thanks!

We have a great deal of confidence in Marty and in his ability to be a great player here at Duke. This past season, Marty’s performance was greatly impacted by the injury to his ankle. He was never able to practice at full speed day in and day out. It was an issue he dealt with every day and that forced him to miss practice at times. Therefore, it was harder for him to maintain a consistency and continuity in playing with our other guys. He just underwent surgery to repair that ankle and will spend a bulk of the summer rehabbing to get to 100 percent. There is no question that Marty can score the ball and he gave us a huge boost of energy in the postseason. We expect him to challenge for major minutes next season.

Marty Pocius is expected to vie for minutes after battling a bad ankle for the majority of last season.

First I would like to thank you guys for taking the time to keep us Duke fans informed.  My question is, Will Brian Zoubek be attending any big man camps this summer? I think he has great potential and would love to see him have some moves without having to put the ball on the floor to get a shot opportunity. Things like a hook shot or little 10 foot jumper. 

We also believe Brian has great potential and are confident he will have an outstanding summer. He has been in the weight room almost every day since the end of the season and we believe that added strength in both his upper and lower body will really help him in his development into a very good college player. Along with the added strength, we will develop a detailed and personalized workout program for Brian, as we do for all of our guys, that will help him continue to improve his basketball skills. As far as plans to attend a Big Man Camp are concerned, our staff, Brian and his parents will discuss any and all options to assist him in reaching his potential as a player.

How much longer do you guys think Coach K will be coaching at Duke University?

The Duke program has been so lucky to have Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski as its coach. Many of our great supporters are aware of his on-court success: three national titles, 10 Final Fours, NCAA Tournament’s all-time wins leader, 10 ACC Tournament titles, 11 ACC regular-season crowns, 10 NCAA Tournament No. 1 seeds, 13 seasons ranked No. 1 (AP poll), nine National Player of the Year awards, nine National Defensive Player of the Year awards, an average of over one All-American per year, nine ACC Player of the Year honors and of course over 700 wins at Duke alone. These stats only tell a small part of the story. His relationships with his current players, his former players and the Duke community are incredibly unique not just in college athletics or sports but in any kind of organization, environment, community, or group. Coach K clearly loves Duke and has done and continues to do a great deal for the Duke and Durham communities. In the years we have been a part of the program, he has built an entire community center in Durham in honor of his mom, developed a basketball-specific fundraising group to support our program (and in turn to provide more financial freedom to the Duke Athletics budget), played a primary fundraising role for the Duke Children’s Hospital, created a scholarship for Duke students from the Carolinas, and is significantly involved with the Jimmy V Foundation and the Duke Children’s Miracle Network, among other charities. These types of projects and contributions energize him as much as a big Duke play made in Cameron. In general, we feel Coach K is as passionate as he ever has been about coaching in general and at Duke specifically. We have no reason to believe he won’t be here for years to come.

Coach K remains passionate and is in no hurry to quit coaching and molding young men. 

Are any improvements in store for Cameron Indoor Stadium?  Also, can you tell us about the new practice facility?

We are incredibly excited about the Michael W. Krzyzewski Center for Athletic Excellence. We believe the facility, set to open in early 2008, will be a huge addition to our basketball program, the women’s basketball program and the academic programming of all Duke student-athletes. The Center will include practice courts for both the men and women, a brand-new, state-of-the-art weight training facility with a separate cardio area, a theatre and video room along with private video viewing stations, and a dining and events center. The whole second level will be dedicated to the academic pursuits of every Duke student-athlete. With Cameron, discussions are always ongoing regarding improving the facility without negatively impacting its history, mystique and character. We believe there needs to be improvements within the next few years in order to keep up with the programs we compete against. More importantly, we think it is critical to maintain and enhance a venue that has given us so much over the years and that we feel is the best place to play basketball in the world.

How long will it take Paulus to heal and how much did his injury effect his play this past season?

Greg played on a broken foot and did not play at 100 percent at any point during the season. To his credit, he never made an excuse or complained about this injury or how it may have impacted his play. Without question, playing on a broken foot impacted his performance. He had surgery right after the season and is in the process of rehabilitating his foot. We expect him to be out for eight to 10 more weeks. Hopefully at that point, he will be given a clean bill of health. Greg is anxious to get healthy and to begin to work on all areas of his game. We are confident that Greg will come back a better player next year.

Greg Paulus played on a broken foot all season long!

Tell us about Lance Thomas.  There is so much talk of him transferring in various Internet forums.  Is he transferring?

We fully expect Lance to be back with us next season and are excited about his potential. We felt that Lance was a key contributor to this year’s success, as evidenced by the fact that he started 18 of our 31 games as a freshman. To put it in perspective, he started more games as a first-year Duke player than did Chris Duhon (10 starts), Daniel Ewing (zero starts), Mike Dunleavy (2 starts), Corey Maggette (3 starts), Shavlik Randolph (6 starts), Chris Carrawell (10 starts), William Avery (0 starts), Antonio Lang (8 starts) and Christian Laettner (16 starts). All of these players ended up in the NBA or are still in the NBA. Lance needs to be allowed to develop his game at the same pace as those guys were able to. We believe Lance will have a great summer and should be a major factor on next year’s team. As far as transfer rumors are concerned, Lance has told us that he believes those are started by fan bases of other teams.

Lance Thomas, pictured here with Josh McRobert's, is happy at Duke!

Mark has said that Duke doesn't have true positions.  If that is true, then how do you match up with the opposition?

What we mean by not having true positions is that we never want our players to view themselves as a number or a certain position. We want them to be basketball players and to be versatile enough to play all over the court. We have always believed in putting a group of five guys on the court that gives us the best chance to be successful. With that in mind, you tailor your game plan based upon your personnel and how you can best be successful against your opposition. We always feel, though, that our approach forces the opposition to worry about how they are going to match up with us. Over the years, this concept has worked quite well for us, both in terms of team success and player development. We are the winningest program this century, and have reached 10 Final Fours and won three national championships in the past 22 years. In developing our players this way, Coach K has produced more individual National Players of the Year than any coach in history (seven), more lottery picks than any coach in history (14), six more National Defensive Player of the Year honors than any coach in history (nine) and nine more All-America selections (AP, NABC, UPI/TSN, USBWA) than any program in the nation since 1985.

Jon Scheyer tired late in the year.  Teams seemed to defend him better. They seemed to recognize that he has trouble getting his shot off in traffic.  Was the fatigue due to the minutes he played as a freshman?

We were very happy with the season that Jon was able to have as a freshman. He was one of our most consistent players throughout the year and was honored as such by being named to the ACC All Freshman Team in a year in which the league featured some outstanding freshman. There is no question that the physical and emotional toll of the season had an effect on Jon in the last few weeks. We don’t think that is atypical of most freshmen across the nation. Jon is hungry and excited to have a great summer, and to continue to improve and build up his body and skill level, so that he is better able to handle the rigors of a full season as a sophomore. Like all of our other players, he will be following a detailed program to improve himself in all of these areas.

Scheyer was named to the ACC All Freshman Team.

It seems that Greg was hesitant to push the ball up the floor this year and most of the time he appeared to be just walking the ball up the court. Do you envision Duke getting back to more up tempo style of play like we had with Du, JWill, Avery, etc? Thanks!

Our program has never been content with a lower-scoring and slower game. To the contrary, we have always prided ourselves as being among the nation’s leaders in both scoring and scoring margin. Over the past 10 years, we have ranked among the top two scoring teams in the nation four times. Until this year, we had been among the top 10 scoring teams among major conference programs nine years in a row, including No. 3 last year. We have also led the nation in scoring margin four of the past 10 years and have been in the top 10 in scoring margin nine straight years prior to this year. We will continue to pride ourselves on these types of scoring stats and will place this emphasis on each one of our teams. The pace of play, our ability to score, and our defensive aggressiveness are dictated to an extent by the abilities of the guys on our team. Our highest-scoring teams have been those with five and six future NBA players and several lottery picks. Regarding Greg specifically, in his freshman year we were the No. 7 scoring team in the nation (third among major conference teams), despite the fact that our strength of schedule was ranked the most difficult in the country.