a team photo taken before the green flag Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.While the commotion around his car was nowhere close to what it was last November at Homestead-Miami Spee

You freshman grow up! Sophomores too! Weve got to quit being little kids! Mike Krzyzewski has seen enough. His team, the favorite to take the national championship, with a freshman class that includes four of the nations top 16 recruits, is setting weak screens and missing block-outs. Worse, the players are failing to talk to one another, as deadly a sin as youll find in the Gospel of K. So at a practice one month before the season, Krzyzewski calls his players the only thing that seems appropriate: little kids.It is also the one label that doesnt apply. Because while the Blue Devils have an abundance of young talent, there is nothing little about them.As his players watch, Krzyzewski orders 6-foot-10 sophomore Chase Jeter to flip his jersey from white to blue and motions for 6-10 freshman Javin DeLaurier to take Jeters place with the starters. When 6-11 freshman Marques Bolden fails to prevent an offensive rebound, he joins Jeter in blue while 6-7 Jack White slides to the first unit. Amile Jefferson, Dukes 6-9 senior captain, barks at his teammates to show some fire. And looking on from a folding chair, his left knee elevated and wrapped, healing from an arthroscopic procedure, is the nations top recruit, 6-10 freshman Harry Giles.In fact, according to ESPN Stats & Information, the Blue Devils have never fielded such a giant squad: Nine of Dukes players are 6-8 or taller. Few teams in the last 10 years have had that blend of size, depth, experience and NBA first-round talent, an ACC assistant says. Adds an NBA executive who attended Dukes pro day in late October: Its kind of crazy. Ive rarely seen this much size and talent on one college team.Question is, what will Coach K do with all of it?DUKE BASKETBALL IS known for many things. Size and depth are not two of them.Two years ago, Duke won the national championship with only eight scholarship players. The 2015-16 squad often rotated just six men. Meanwhile, last decade, the Blue Devils went through a stretch in which they missed on the majority of the big men they recruited. Brandan Wright, Blake Griffin, Patrick Patterson, Greg Monroe-they all spurned Duke for other programs. For a time, Duke played and even excelled with four-guard lineups and NBA wings masquerading as centers-think Kyle Singler and Lance Thomas.So when associate head coach Jeff Capel returned to his alma mater in 2011, he discovered a recruiting landscape rife with negative stereotypes about how Duke handled bigs. Rival coaches would tell prospects that Duke catered to guards, that big men would spend four years setting screens. Scare tactics, Capel says.Krzyzewski needed an example he could reference in real time, and in 2012-13, 6-11 Mason Plumlee became that guy, averaging 17.1 points and 9.9 rebounds and earning the Pete Newell Award as the nations best big man.Then came 6-11 Jahlil Okafor, who fundamentally changed the conversation. When Duke landed him before the 2014-15 season, Krzyzewski built an attack centered on Okafors array of low-post moves and preternatural ability to pass out of double-teams. The result was the nations third-most efficient offense, according to kenpom.com, a national championship and a new message for hyped prospects: Duke was back in business for bigs.Jah being here really set the tone for all the bigs that, like me, are coming through, says Bolden, a McDonalds All-American. We saw how much they played through him.Among the current freshmen, Giles was the big prize. Duke landed him last November, and the North Carolina native and his close friend Jayson Tatum (himself 6-8) gave Coach K the top two players in the class of 2016. But Duke wasnt satisfied and kept chasing Bolden; the Blue Devils saw him as a true back-to-the-basket center with soft hands and advanced footwork.The massive Texan-Bolden weighs 250 pounds and has a 7-6 wingspan-took his time deciding. He was fully aware of the size of Dukes roster and could have stepped into a 30-minute, 15-shot role virtually anywhere else. But as the rest of the top recruits came off the board and the calendar turned to May, he opted to join Krzyzewskis army of giants.He saw a need, that theres no one like him in our program, Capel says. And the recruiting class that we already had signed, the guys we had coming back, I think he wanted to be a part of something like that.Adds Bolden: I didnt want to shy away from any competition. Anything worth having isnt easy.WHICH BRINGS US to Coach Ks dilemma: When the injured Giles, Bolden and Tatum return to the lineup, he will have more bigs than he can possibly use-and a penchant for small ball.Duke is just as stacked on the perimeter. Grayson Allen is the preseason ACC player of the year. Tatum should be a top-five pick in next Junes NBA draft. Shooting guard Luke Kennard could be a 2,000-point scorer if he plays four years at Duke. Freshman Frank Jackson, yet another McDonalds All-American, is the closest thing Duke has to a point guard. And senior Matt Jones started on the 2014-15 national championship team. Krzyzewski says Allen has got to play 30-something minutes a game. Even before Bolden got hurt, Coach K had already planned to use Tatum at the 4 spot in spurts. That would leave fewer than 80 total available minutes for Dukes bigs, a hefty portion of which will belong to Jefferson-the teams vocal leader-and a healthy Giles. Do the math and its clear several players will be left out of the rotation entirely.But Krzyzewski isnt worried about keeping people happy. He proves that at the lackluster Friday practice. Ill play five guys! he shouts as his players look on, hands on hips. Im not gonna do the thing where everybody gets playing time. His message evokes memories of Kentuckys team from two years ago. It too was loaded with size and talent, and coach John Calipari famously implemented a platoon system in the first part of the season, winning the first 38 games before losing to Wisconsin in the Final Four. That group is the best proxy for this Duke squad, but Krzyzewski isnt Calipari and wont spread minutes evenly.Now more than ever that type of crunch for playing time can lead to attrition in college basketball. And if history is any guide, Duke wont begrudge anyone who departs: Since 2012 alone, the Blue Devils have lost six players. Some guys stick it out. Some guys, if its not happening for them right away, they leave, Capel says. A kid has to make a choice of what he thinks he should do.But if a big man chooses to stay, his resilience might be rewarded. Look at Jeter. He was the nations No. 11 recruit coming out of high school but played less than eight minutes per game as a freshman last season. As Krzyzewski added more and more stars to this freshman class, no one could have blamed the 6-10 Jeter for bolting. Instead, he went to work. And with Giles recovering from his scoped knee and Bolden suffering a lower leg injury in November, Jeter opened the season as Dukes top center. These guys are my teammates, he says, but we have to be willing to go between the lines every day and fight for a spot.Duke has already seen how capricious a basketball season can be. It lost Tatum for two weeks during the preseason after he sprained his foot. Just as he was coming back, Bolden went down. Giles hasnt played in a year, though hes getting closer. Other issues will doubtlessly emerge, and yet Dukes depth puts it in a unique position to absorb them.Krzyzewski will tinker with that depth, especially early, studying it to see which combinations work and might be effective come conference play, which prospects he can mold into cornerstones. Whether the lineup is big or small, Duke will press full-court more than it has in recent years since fatigue shouldnt be an issue, and it has the length to play a stifling zone. Coach K, in other words, might prefer a style of play, but hes not inflexible. We could put some interesting lineups out on the court, and one of the cool things about Coach is hes open to it, Capel says. Hell try things.And hell push. The day before that lackluster practice in Cameron, the Blue Devils went at each other in high-intensity drills and furious games of five-on-five for nearly three hours. Krzyzewski says there was more contact that one afternoon than in a months worth of practices last year, when he simply tried to nurse his depleted squad through the season. Now he can challenge his players.Luke is busting your ass! Krzyzewski shouts after Allen recklessly throws himself into a defender, looking for a foul. He watches Jeter dunk off a pick-and-roll and Bolden respond with a nifty drop step. 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MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Jeff Gordon made sure to have a team photo taken before the green flag Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.While the commotion around his car was nowhere close to what it was last November at Homestead-Miami Speedway in what was supposed to be his final Sprint Cup race, Gordon made sure to at least create a lasting memento if it was his last time taking a NASCAR green flag.Just like Homestead, you dont really know how special some of those moments are until years down the road, Gordon said. Maybe thats just my personality when I can reflect on it, go back through my career.This has really done a lot for me integrating into the team and the organization. ... Its memorable, certainly. Its ironic this is the last one.Gordon finished sixth in the Goodys Fast Relief 500 in his 805th and likely/possibly/maybe final Sprint Cup race. The four-time Sprint Cup champion does not have any additional races scheduled in a substitute role for Dale Earnhardt Jr.With 93 career wins, the 45-year-old Gordon finished his eight-race substitute schedule with his best result in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 car.Its really tough to be out of the car and jump back in and race with these guys without having the week?to?week input into the car, said team owner Rick Hendrick, who called Gordon to share substitute driver duties when Earnhardt suffered a concussion. Dont you guys agree, hes too young to retire? Hes too good. Maybe well vote him back in. Maybe we can come up with a new deal.Hes the one that said I could call him if I needed him.Hendrick was joking about how he would want Gordon, an equity owner in Hendrick Motorsports, to sign a new deal. Hendrick has its four drivers for next year with Earnhardt saying Sunday he fuully expects to return.dddddddddddd.Gordon had no plans to slide behind the wheel in Cup this season as he spent the first half of the year in the Fox broadcast booth. The transition wasnt easy, but he appeared comfortable at Martinsville, where he has nine career victories.Driving between fourth and seventh for the final 300 laps, Gordon got to be part of a 29-lap caution period as NASCAR tried to sort out a scoring issue. The problem stemmed when cars were running out of fuel after a caution interrupted green-flag pit stops.A few weeks earlier at Dover, Gordon asked during the drivers meeting about a similar situation on how NASCAR would determine lead-lap cars. Gordon ended up being the lucky dog, restarting fifth and eventually appearing to be at least near the right spot on the grid.Theyve got to fix that scoring situation, Gordon said. I called them out on it at Dover. ... Obviously they dont have it right.I dont think it affected us a lot, but it wasnt right the way they scored it and then we went green. And then we had to run there for 30 laps. That wasnt good.Gordon fell back to seventh after the restart and then picked up one more spot before the finish.I would rather have won, Gordon said. I felt like we had a fourth- or fifth-place car the run before that [set of pit stops]. I always want to get the most out of it and I was a little disappointed we didnt take off at the end. ... I was proud of this team, proud of my performance -- best finish Ive had in this car.All in all, it was a great way to end our run here this year in the 88 car. I think this will be the last one. Well see. 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