Coaches will go out of their way to find creative strategies and processes to get their players to perform at an appropriate level. Duke has not been doing that this season with a terrible loss to N.C. State at Cameron Indoor, the first of its kind since 1995. Coincidentally, that was also the last time Coach K was not on the sidelines as he had a surgery that season that kept him out most of the year.
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The 84-82 loss is something that really grinds Coach K's gears and so he called a team meeting at his house Tuesday night and he informed players that they were temporarily kicked out of the locker room and also forbidden from wearing Blue Devils apparel, sources told ESPN.
This is a strategy Krzyzewski has used in the past and so he's hoping it gets his team to focus and get back to playing basketball the right way. "He needs to do more than just take away their jerseys," added another source close to the program. "There are bigger issues that need to be addressed."
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While there could be excuses made at the beginning of the season with three major contributing freshmen out due to injury, that is certainly not the case now. And it's certainly not the reason the Blue Devils have lost three of their last four, which can be attributed to poor shooting, a serious lack of defense and perhaps even Coach K missing.
Duke plays at Wake Forest on Saturday and have a chance to get back to .500 ball in Krzyzewski's absence as they are 2-3 without him on the bench this season.
