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So Nate James will have his introductory press conference in less than an hour and I'm feeling old. I mean, what does it say about me that I guy I used to know only as "Nate Dogg" is now an assistant coach at Duke? (And will I slip up and call him Nate Dogg while addressing him today?)

Not that K consulted with me on this, but I think the James hire makes a lot of sense - particularly if James takes a major role in recruiting, which we'll find out more about later today.

Given K's recent hiring practices and the realities of college basketball, it wasn't hard to narrow down the list of candidates for the job. It was pretty obvious that the new assistant would be a) a former Duke player and b) African-American.

Don't get all PC on me about the second part of this. It's a reality of college basketball, and quite frankly a good one, I'd say - that every staff have at least one African-American coach on its bench. This isn't about quotas or affirmative action. It's just common sense. Think about it from this direction: how weird would it look, in a sport in which most teams have a majority of African-American players to have a coaching staff that is all white? And, given how much Duke fights a reputation as being a lilly-white elitist institution, how much flack would the Blue Devils take for having an all-white staff?

But really, I digress. This wasn't meant to be a discussion about race, but rather what many felt Duke needed for its staff. And, despite the sterling reputations of each of its assistant coaches, there were many Duke fans and observers who felt K's bench needed some new blood. Certainly Nate James brings that. And a strong reputation as one of the toughest, most unselfish players K has ever had. It's a lot easier to teach those values to your players when you've walked the walk so to speak. You'd have to assume that James will be out on the road recruiting quite a bit more than the man he essentially replaces, Dawkins.

Speaking of recruiting, while the late commitment of Miles Plumlee certainly was a coup for the Blue Devils, it also raises a troubling question - why wasn't Duke interested in him in the first place? Plumlee's high school coach admitted that Plumlee had drawn zero attention from Duke before he initially signed with Stanford. Clearly, the Blue Devils eventually decided Plumlee was a player worth having. Why didn't they know that back, say, last summer.

The answer, I'd think, comes in the laser-like focus Duke has applied to its recruiting in recent seasons. The Blue Devils cast a very narrow net for prospects, which allows them to spend a great deal of time and energy on the recruits they go after. That's great when you're getting pretty much everyone you go after, which Duke had pretty much done until recently. But in the area of of big men, it's been widely publicized that the Blue Devils have swung and missed on their primary targets several times in recent years.

This last season the target was Greg Monroe, who committed to Georgetown without ever even taking his official visit to Duke. With other schools there would have been a backup plan. Heck, even Roy Williams uses them - Ed Davis didn't come along until after the Tar Heels lost out on guys like Samardo Samuels and Drew Gordon. If Duke had been operating a little differently, Miles Plumlee would probably have been on the Blue Devils' B list.

The good news for Duke though, is that it did eventually get Plumlee anyway. And the early indications are that the Blue Devils are changing recruiting tactics now, going after more prospects and putting a greater emphasis on finding athletes.

And now, the Blue Devils will have Nate Dogg, err, Nate James, helping out in that area.