I am one of those Blue Devil/Hokie fans. I justify this by being a Duke fan ever since I was a kid watching Laettner and Hill, and became a Hokie watching football games with my Dad (he went to Tech). I love both schools. It is possible.

With that being said, I don't think Coach K is losing his touch as much as the game is different. I agree that if you give him players who stay all four years and he can mold them into a cohesive team, he is a heck of a coach (although I do still question him as an X's and O's coach at time with his game management). This is evident as to how successful he was with the USA team. He is great with talent, just not necessarily young and inexperienced talent.

With that being said, I agree with everything you said. The combination of talent and youth. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Kentucky is a great example. A lot of Duke fans believed this young team would be similar to the one in 2015 but I think the biggest difference in this year's team compared to that 2015 team is senior leadership and having a freshman who doesn't play like a freshman, which Duke had in Ty Jones. He looked like a senior, played like a senior, and played with heart. All of Duke's freshmen looked like that all season.

I think Grayson Allen had an amazing career at Duke and was a great college player. However, something just seemed off this year. Duke in 2015 had the senior leadership of Quin Cook and Allen simply did not have the personality or ability to be that missing piece or missing link to the team going all the way. This Duke team was very mysterious to me. Something just never clicked with them and often times I found myself questioning their heart and effort. They would appear to be going through the motions a lot, not getting those 50/50 balls, and playing soft. They would dig themselves in a hole and only then would you see any fight in them as they would attempt to come back. This year's Duke team was one of the strangest I have ever watched as a fan. They were hands down the worst defensive team of Coach K's era. While it did improve towards the end of the season, it still played a factor in Kansas beating them Sunday. Every team that wins a championship has that player that you know is not going to let them lose. Duke never had that this year. Everyone wanted it to be Allen but that's just not who he was.