Former UConn Coach working his magic
February 2, 2007 11:02 am by donaldCall me a hater, but I love watching Duke lose. The whole hatred stems from my youth, when those punkasses Alaa Abdelnaby, Bobby Hurley, and Christian Laettner beat my beloved UConn Huskies not once but twice. The first time was during the 1989-1990 season when Laettner hit that ridiculous double-pump jumper in overtime to end UConn’s dream season and to send Duke into the Final Four. The very next year, Duke sent them out again, this time in the second round (remember the Rod Sellers incident?). Of course, UConn got its sweet, sweet revenge in both 1999 and 2004.
So it brought me much joy last night to watch the last few minutes of the Virginia-Duke contest, which was a great game. Singletary hits this ridiculous fading one-hander and Virginia’s fans storm the court (they had lost 9 straight to Duke). What makes it even sweeter is that Dave Leitao, longtime UConn assistant coach, is in his second year at Virginia and he got the victory. It’ll be impressive if he lifts Virginia, which hasn’t done much in a while, to the top of the ACC.
That said, Duke is again overrated this year. I’m impressed with the job that Coach K has done, given that the team has such little talent. It always amazes me how Duke can land 10 McDonalds All-Americans, and have so many of them suck. Paulus is too slow for college ball, Scheyer needs to lift some serious weights, and all this talk about Josh McRoberts being ambidextrous and “equally gifted” with both hands is bullshit. He’s just confused and “equally bad” with both hands. Like I said, congrats to Coach K for getting them to number 10 in the polls, but I think they’ll be out of the NCAAs this year by the second round.
In Big East news, Georgetown looked amazing in the second half shooting 72% from the field against St. Johns and rolled to their fifth victory. Looks like the Hoyas are starting to hit their stride.
Categories: Commentary, Nostalgia, Big Willie Style, donald
2 Responses to “Former UConn Coach working his magic”
Duke has long hung its hat on offensive skill and athleticism, and K deserves some notoriety for caring so little about defensive game planning. Exhibit A will always be his defensive scheme against UConn in ‘99, during which Duke played the same man-to-man D with the same matchups and switching scheme all game.
This team is very different, and is oddly among the best defensive teams in the country while having a very mediocre offense. Duke has yielded above average scoring efficiency (1.01 points per possession) just twice all year. A poll of the rest of the top 10 defenses makes a case for Duke being the most consistent defense in the country: UNC had 4 such outings, Kansas 4, Texas A&M 4, Oklahoma 7, UCLA 5, Southern Cal 4, Wisconsin 5, Florida 6, and Memphis 4. (Note: the best outing against Duke all year? Props to Marquette with 1.12 ppp in November. Virginia had the only other 1.01+ performance at 1.04 last night.) Duke, like any imbalanced team, will be in trouble in March, but their defense shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Georgetown’s been phenomenal since their loss to, coincidentally, Duke. What is exceptional is Georgetown’s offense. JT3’s system has produced the 3rd best effective field goal percentage to date, and that’s weighed down by their first 7 games. 5 of those 7 were below their current 59.4% average, and 11 of 14 have been above average since. 60% is an exceptional shooting day and the Hoyas have enjoyed better than 60% in 6 of 8 conference games.
Feel the same way about the Virginia game last night.
Georgetown is SO patient and they continue to run their offense until something good happens. They could have panicked in the 1st half last night but didn’t and then just took charge in the 2nd half. Green was unbelieveable!!!!
My pick to win the BE tourney
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