{"id":1104,"date":"2011-02-21T22:50:20","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T03:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capitalsports.us\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2011-02-28T15:33:39","modified_gmt":"2011-02-28T20:33:39","slug":"duke-reaches-no-1-despite-singler-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=1104","title":{"rendered":"Duke reaches No. 1 despite Singler slump"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Duke ascended to the No. 1 spot in the polls again Monday, a move that reflects the carnage of the top at last week and the fact that the Blue Devils have steadied themselves after the loss of Kyrie Irving.<\/p>\n<p>The Devils are continuing to win despite an odd shooting slump by senior star Kyle Singler. Coach Mike Krzyzewski continues to praise Singler for his defense, which you can take as a way of boosting Singler\u2019s confidence, but there\u2019s no doubt Singler\u2019s shooting woes are puzzling.<\/p>\n<p>Singler scored 24 at Wake Forest on Jan. 22, 14 against Boston College Jan. 27, 20 vs. St. John\u2019s Jan. 30 and then 22 at Maryland on Feb. 2. So he was pretty much rolling along to a year worthy of national honors.<\/p>\n<p>Then suddenly, he skidded. Here are his last five games, with shooting from the field and three-point range:<\/p>\n<p>Feb. 5, N.C. State 5-13 (1-2) 14 points<br \/>\nFeb. 9, Carolina 3-17 (1-6) 10 points<br \/>\nFeb. 13, at Miami 6-12 (2-6) 14 points<br \/>\nFeb. 16, at Virginia 1-5 (0-2) 2 points<br \/>\nFeb. 20, Georgia Tech 5-14 (0-1) 15 points.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if there\u2019s any one thing,\u201d Krzyzewski said Monday. \u201cSometimes you just don\u2019t shoot as well. Sometimes when you don\u2019t shoot as well you don\u2019t play as well. To me what\u2019s remarkable about that kid is every other part of his game is terrific.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt Virginia, he let that, for one of the few times in his career, affect how he played. And he can\u2019t do that. He\u2019s so important for us, whether he goes 2 for 12 or 8 for 12.<br \/>\nWe won\u2019t win a really important game unless Kyle plays with that spirit. And when he hits that shot, he\u2019s a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Krzyzewski compared Singler to a .320 hitter who is suddenly hitting .250.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think that he will hit .320 and balance out for the season. But I\u2019m proud of him. He\u2019s handling all his other responsibilities well.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Duke ascended to the No. 1 spot in the polls again Monday, a move that reflects the carnage of the top at last week and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,79,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-duke-blue-devils","category-featured-stories","category-uncategorized","wpcat-82-id","wpcat-79-id","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1118,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions\/1118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}