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Devil of a selection Duke's Carrawell leads All-ACC team
Posted: Tuesday March 07, 2000 02:30 PM
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Duke's Chris Carrawell, who made the smooth transition from role player to leading scorer on a team that lost four first-round draft choices, was a unanimous pick to The Associated Press all-ACC team released Tuesday. The 6-foot-6 senior from St. Louis was the only player to receive all 103 first-team votes cast by members of the Atlantic Coast Sports Writers Association after making the third team a season ago. Carrawell doubled his scoring average over last season to 18.0 -- third in the ACC -- while finishing in the top 10 in field goal and free throw percentage, assists, blocks and minutes played. He has a streak of 20 straight games scoring in double figures heading into Thursday night's conference tournament game against Clemson. "You have to give that young man a lot of credit," Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins said. "He hung in there. With all those great players around him, he never thought about transferring and he never got down. He just kept on playing.
"For things to work out the way they did, it's a tribute to the Duke staff and especially that young man." Carrawell was joined on the first team by teammate Shane Battier, Maryland's Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter, and Clemson's Will Solomon. Carrawell, Battier and Dixon also were named to the ACC's all-defensive team. The 6-8 Battier is fourth in the ACC in scoring (17.1) and is in the top five in six other statistical categories, including a league-leading 82.7 percent from the foul line. Battier has been particularly effective as of late, averaging 23.4 points over his last five games, including 30 in the regular-season finale against North Carolina. Dixon, Baxter and Solomon are all sophomores. The 6-3, 150-pound Dixon averaged 7.4 points last season as a freshman and didn't start a game, but became Maryland's leading scorer this season at 18.1 points a game. "When you look at him he doesn't look like the prototype two-guard that you need to win in the ACC," Maryland coach Gary Williams said of the skinny Dixon. "He gets out of whack out there sometimes in terms of trying so hard to win games, but if you are going to have a problem that's a good problem to have," Williams added. "You can never take away his heart and that's what Juan gives you and that gets through to the other players on the team. His personality is as important as his scoring to us because we've got some guys who are pretty laid back and Juan seems to get them playing hard." The 6-8 Baxter developed into one of the ACC's best inside players this season, averaging 15.5 points and 8.8 rebounds. He has scored in double figures in all but three of Maryland's 30 games and his 53.6 percent shooting is second in the ACC. Solomon is the ACC's leading scorer at 21.1 points a game, scoring at least 25 points 12 times this season. He had games of 43 against Virginia on Jan. 15 and 37 against Penn State on Dec. 3. "What he has done for Clemson simply would compound anything I can think of on any team in the country," Clemson coach Larry Shyatt said. "What he has done up to this point has been amazing in one short year." Battier was the only player named on this year's preseason all-ACC first team to make the end of the year first squad. Maryland's Terence Morris, the preseason player of the year, headed the second team and was joined by Ed Cota and Joseph Forte of North Carolina, Donald Hand and Chris Williams of Virginia, and Jason Collier of Georgia Tech. Forte, a freshman, and Williams, a sophomore, tied for the final spot on the second team with 137 points. The third team consisted of Jason Williams of Duke, Darius Songaila of Wake Forest, Brendan Haywood of North Carolina, and Ron Hale and Damous Anderson of Florida State.
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