Beyond the Box: Vernon Carey Picks Up Post Quickly
Vernon Carey is third in the ACC in rebounding, fourth in blocks and sixth in shooting. He leads the NCAA with seven double-doubles, and he became just the second player under Coach K to have seven straight games with 15 points and 10 rebounds—joining Marvin Bagley III.
Not bad for a player who is in his fifth month playing down low.
“Literally, he has not played at the post,” coach Mike Krzyzewski said early in the season. “So his footwork and all that, that comes about from his work with us and our staff since about the second week of July.”
High school highlights seem to add credence to Krzyzewski’s claims. He has a couple of plays where he seals off a defender on the low post and dunks, but the majority of his offense in high school seems to have come from transition plays, dunks or other plays that started with him facing the basket. No drop steps, turnarounds, short bank shots or hooks.
With the post being so new to him, one might expect Carey to be raw, with a few clumsy moves and several plays where he’s on the wrong end of an opponent’s highlight.
Instead, he’s been dominating opposing big men. While the rebounding, blocks and shooting numbers are impressive, the stuff not found in box scores paints an even clearer picture.
Carey has drawn 12 and-one fouls on offense, which leads Duke. Cassius Stanley is next, with five. By comparison, through 10 games last season, Zion Williamson had drawn three and-ones and committed one.
Carey has drawn an and-one on 19 percent of his two-point shot attempts this season, and 15.8 percent of his free throws have been and-one shots. Both are second-most on the team.
While Carey is able to draw fouls from other big men while avoiding fouls, it’s not because he’s avoiding challenging shots. He’s blocked 22 shots, but he’s only had 10 of his own shots blocked. Only four other Blue Devils have blocked more than they’ve been blocked, and none of them have half as many blocks as Carey.
Carey has only been blocked on 8.9 percent of his shot attempts, far lower than the other Blue Devils who shoot most of their shots in the paint.
Carey is also the only Blue Devil who has drawn more offensive fouls than he’s committed.
He's producing, and he's playing clean defense, while veterans struggle to defend him. Imagine how Carey will look once he's figured this whole post thing out.
