Opinion: To win titles, Mike Krzyzewski and John Calipari may need new building-roster plan

CLOSE SportsPulse: The Spartans shocked Zion Williamson and the Duke Blue Devils with their thrilling upset. USA TODAY's Jeff Zillgitt believes how they did it is a recipe to win it all in Minnesota. USA TODAY

While a non-traditional Final Four has its own kind of appeal, Sunday’s outcome seemed to invite a larger conversation about whether it’s more likely to go deep in college basketball’s postseason tournament with older players instead of younger ones. Krzyzewski critics have taken pleasure in the idea that he couldn’t get to the Final Four despite having players ranked No. 1 , No. 3 , No. 5 and No. 14 in the final Rivals evaluation of last year’s recruiting class. Is it underachieving to have such a wealth of talent and yet lose to a Michigan State team that probably won’t produce a first-round draft pick? Possibly.

Duke largely found ways to overcome those flaws and win lots of close games because Williamson proved to be a transcendent talent. But aside from that season-opener on Nov. 6 — a 118-84 win over Kentucky — the Blue Devils never functioned as well as they would have hoped because the skill sets just didn’t fit very well together.

John Calipari might have thought he had that kind of team this year with forward P.J. Washington coming back as a sophomore and Reid Travis transferring in as a graduate from Stanford to form an older frontcourt that could help out his young guards. As it turned out, what Kentucky really could have used was a veteran in the backcourt for a game like Auburn when freshmen Ashton Hagans and Immanuel Quickley struggled badly against senior Bryce Brown and junior Jared Harper.

When Calipari started the trend of specifically targeting one-and-dones with Derrick Rose when he was at Memphis, the formula for success was to add those types of players to already-established teams. Now, the way both Kentucky and Duke operate, that’s almost impossible.

DanWolken usatodaysports Statistically speaking, there are fewer Conservatives in a ton than Liberals.

DanWolken usatodaysports Wolken has had a chubb on since the final buzzer Sunday. For a guy who covers basketball for a living he sure doesn’t comprehend how hard the tournament is to win.

DanWolken usatodaysports Lads and Lasses we are almost to the FinalFour Minneapolis

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