All three of those guys at Duke were freshmen. Houston's team was full of upperclassmen and graduate transfers. Experience matters.
They used to say the same nonsense about Coach Cal at Kentucky. 9 of the top 10 nba draft picks were college freshman. 1 was a Sophomore. Rutgers had 2 fantastic players and little else. Duke certainly had a chance in the game they lost with a Freshman heavy lineup. 18-19 year old great players going against a collection of 22-24 year old good players is likely to go the way of the experience.
They are all Frosh. They have tremendous talent but it is somewhat just starting to come into its own. First year of college ball, first year playing together and not physically mature. Sort of like jamming together an all star team and expecting them in that one game to overwhelm Championship team. While it can happen, any slip up and it goes down. One thing to have one outstanding Frosh in an upper class laden team but quite another to having them all be frosh. They stick around another year and very difficult to deal with but they all have moved on
When 40% of starting lineup are Frosh, it takes time for them get used to play at this level, to work into the system and to learn to play with each other. Just for example Buie and Barnhizer are the best we have had in a while. Both played as Frosh but as Frosh, they were nothing like what they were as upper classmen. These guys are being drafted much more on potential than what they have actually done
