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Duke's dynasty disgusting
Posted: Monday November 05, 2001 11:10 AM
Updated: Monday November 05, 2001 8:20 PM
By Mark Button, CNNSI.com
It's enough to make you sick.
Gagging, dry-heaving, crawling-around-on-the-cold-bathroom-tile sick. Unless of course you're a Duke fan.
Only the Blue Devils could win the national championship, lose the national player of the year and return the following year improved.
It's disgusting. Enviable, too.
So here we are, at the start of another college basketball season and Duke sits atop the rankings. Right where it sat at the end of last year, when the Blue Devils won 35 of 39 games, finished second in the nation in scoring (90.7 points a game) and won the ACC and NCAA tournaments.
They lost to graduation everybody's All-American Shane Battier, the team's glue, guts and go-to guy.
And they're going to be better this year.
Feeling woozy yet? There's plenty more.
Any coach will tell you that backcourts win championships, and Duke has the nation's best. While point guard Jason Williams could be dropping 15-20 points a night in the NBA right now, he opted to score 20-25 points a game in the ACC instead. He's simply the best, most fearless player in the nation.
Williams alone would put Duke in the top 10. His supporting cast makes the Blue Devils No. 1. Shooting guard Chris Duhon pairs a 2.85-to-1 turnover/assist ratio with deadly shooting accuracy. Forward Mike Dunleavy is one of the nation's smartest players, best passers and clutch shooters.
Dunleavy carried Duke in the national championship game against Arizona with four 3-pointers in the second half and 21 total points.
Carlos Boozer and newcomer Dahntay Jones round out the starting five. Jones, a transfer from Rutgers, won't make people forget about Battier (they play the same position), but he may be Duke's most athletic player, and he's not your typical transfer.
Over the summer, Jones traveled to Japan and played alongside such college stars as Troy Bell, Nick Collison, Jason Kapono and Reggie Evans and delivered a gold medal for the U.S. in the World Championships for Young Men.
How the Blue Devils can lose a a cerebral player like Battier and gain an athletic monster like Jones the very next year is one more reason why the Duke dynasty can induce ... well, it can make you sick.
Duke led the nation with 1,057 3-point attempts last year, 209 more than the next closest team (UNC-Charlotte). They're not quite Loyola-Marymount circa 1989, but figuring the Blue Devils made 39 percent of their attempts, it's not difficult to see how they win so many games.
Duke will employ the same system this year. The Blue Devils will look much the same, only more athletic with Jones on the wing. They'll hoist threes. They'll harass on defense. They'll win 30 games.
The good news for the rest of the nation is that it is nearly impossible to repeat as national champions. In fact, only one team has won back-to-back titles since 1973.
Of course, that one team is Duke.
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Starting over
Love him or love to hate him, Bobby Knight returns to college basketball with a rebuilding project at Texas Tech. His presence alone will stiffen an already tough Big 12, though his Red Raiders will struggle this year as just four players return from last year's 9-19 team (3-13 in the Big 12).
Don't expect Knight to be a changed man. Sooner or later, he'll explode. He always does. The question is, what will his old buddy, Tech athletic director Gerald Myers do about it?
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Picking up the pieces
Everything changed for the Oklahoma State basketball program on the night of Jan. 27. After playing Colorado in Boulder, the team was to fly through a snowstorm back to Stillwater on three planes -- two private jets and a prop plane. Horrifically, the latter crashed and killed all 10 aboard, including players Nate Fleming and Dan Lawson and Cowboys staffers Will Hancock, Pat Noyes, Brian Luinstra, Jared Weiberg, Kendall Durfey and broadcaster Bill Teegins.
The Cowboys went 7-5 after the crash and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to USC.
Nothing will erase the memory of that tragic night. But led by the complete game of senior guard Maurice Baker (19.8 ppg., 6.7 rpg., 4.2 apg.), OSU will contend with Kansas and Missouri for the Big 12 title.
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Here's your change
In the only major rule change for this year, technical fouls will now constitute two shots instead of one -- but there will be no change of possession. This could become crucial late in games, as free-throw shooting will be even more important.
The NCAA will also experiment with bringing back the jump ball and losing alternating possessions. You'll see this in non-conference play only this season.
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DUNK: St. Joesph's
Guards Marvin O'Connor and Jameer Nelson can compete with any backcourt tandem in the nation. Their big splash in last year's NCAA tourney propelled Hawks into the many Top 10s.
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AIR BALL: Five/Eight Scholarship Rule
Meant to keep coaches from running players off, the obscure rule penalizes teams that lose players to NBA. Thankfully, the NCAA put a moratorium on the rule this year and added one scholarship.
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DUNK: John Calipari
In two short seasons, the Memphis coach is on his way to turning around the Tigers' program. Calipari's project received a boost when he landed prized recruit Dajuan Wagner.
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AIR BALL: Cory Bradford
Illinois senior guard enters the season as one of the nation's most one-dimensional and overrated players. Set NCAA record of 88 straight games with at least one 3-pointer with many 1-of-8 and 2-of-10 nights.
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DUNK: TCU
The always high-scoring Horned Frogs are the favorites for the "All-Name Team" with guys like Nucleus Smith, Bingo Merriex and Rebel Paulk.
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AIR BALL: Herb Sendek
N.C. State coach's seat is so hot, he may spend the whole season standing. The Wolfpack haven't qualified for the NCAA tournament since 1991. Sendek's sixth year will be his last if this doesn't change.
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Coaches vs. Cancer Ikon Classic (New York)
Arizona-Maryland and Florida-Temple, Thursday-Friday, ESPN2
Welcome back, college hoops! What a treat. Arizona-Maryland is the 2001 national championship game if Duke doesn't come back from 22 down to beat the Terps in the semifinal game. And how will Florida's gunners deal with Temple's fierce match-up zone?
Here's the bonus: Played at Madison Square Garden, all four teams play Thursday, then the winners and losers play Friday, so we're guaranteed four great matchups.
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"As a group, I wouldn't trade mine with any team in the ACC."
-- Clemson coach Larry Shyatt prior to the season. |
"I don't think I've ever been out of control,"
-- Bobby Knight to CNN's Larry King in a live interview. |
"Duke right now is starting to parallel what [John] Wooden did at UCLA years ago."
-- Louisville coach Rick Pitino on Mike Krzyzewski's dynasty. |
"I think with my skills, the tools I have, I think I can be better than Michael Jordan."
-- Kansas junior forward Drew Gooden prior to last year's Big 12 tournament.
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Coaching changes in Division I basketball this season, including seven in the Atlantic 10 conference alone. |
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Don't just sit there. Get in the game. Each week we'll ask for your thoughts on a specific topic and publish a sample of those opinions the following week. We started the season by asking you who are the most overrated and underrated teams. Here's what you said:
Iowa is underrated. With a healthy Luke Recker and the "man-child" Reggie Evans, we will be great. That is not even mentioning fabulous freshmen Pierre Pierce.
Nate Phipps, Wayne, Neb.
St. Joseph's as a Top-10 team? Please. Because they got hot for two games now they are supposed to be in the Top 10 according to all these experts? I'm not saying they aren't good, but Top 10?
Jon D., California
All Tulsa does is win 20-25 games every year, make some noise in the tournament, crank out head coaches for the rest of the nation and graduate its players. And every year it gets no respect.
Mike Bilbow, Tulsa, Okla.
Georgetown is always, always, always overrated. When the toughest team on their non-conference schedule is Stony Brook -- the women's team -- you know they play a soft schedule. And since the girls could beat them handily ... well, you do the math.
Dennis Papenmeier, Indianapolis |
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| This week's topic: Who has the toughest schedule in the nation?
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Mark Button covers college basketball for CNNSI.com. "Week at a Glance" appears each Monday during the season.
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