GREENVILLE, S.C. — If Mike Krzyzewski’s closing Duke workforce doesn't win the nationwide title, faculty basketball followers will shortly establish the explanation why. They'll say this was a basic case of youth being wasted on the younger.
Humorous the way it’s all labored out. Coach Ok is getting out of the sport as a result of he's 75 years outdated, and able to embrace the conventional life-style of a grandfather, and but his Blue Devils are thought of weak as a result of, you recognize, youngsters shall be youngsters. Freshmen shall be freshmen.
Youngsters shall be youngsters.
“I feel some issues that we will exploit, simply our maturity,” mentioned Damari Milstead of Cal State Fullerton, the long-shot college going through Duke on Friday evening. “Duke is an excellent, tremendous proficient group, however they’re inexperienced. … I feel our maturity and poise and simply our togetherness as a program and the way lengthy we’ve been collectively are some issues we will actually exploit.”
Exploit? Did an older, extra mature fifteenth seed truly counsel for the document that its second-seeded opponent — the signature faculty basketball program in America — is simply sitting there able to be uncovered?
Hey, Saint Peter’s simply beat Kentucky, proper?
Fact is, Milstead was saying solely what lots of people are pondering. Duke has no NCAA Event expertise — outdoors of Krzyzewski’s earlier 35 journeys to The Dance, after all. So one thing has to vary for the Blue Devils to win the entire thing. Particularly, they must develop outdated collectively and quick.
Greater than 4 months in the past, I sat inside Madison Sq. Backyard as Duke fully outplayed Kentucky, and appeared very very like the nation’s greatest workforce. No person was speaking a lot in regards to the Blue Devils’ youth that evening, or the evening they beat Gonzaga for his or her seventh straight victory.
However they haven’t been the identical since their two-week holiday-time COVID break, finally shedding three dwelling video games to ACC groups with lesser capacity (Miami, Virginia and North Carolina). The crushing Carolina loss was comprehensible, provided that Duke’s gamers confronted as a lot strain to provide Coach Ok his correct Cameron Indoor Stadium sendoff as any faculty basketball workforce has ever confronted in a regular-season sport.
And but as soon as they had been liberated from Cameron, the Blue Devils nonetheless couldn’t win three straight video games in Brooklyn. They had been badly outplayed by a Virginia Tech workforce with a roster that, pound for pound, can’t contact Duke’s.
Freshmen Paolo Banchero and AJ Griffin are sure to be top-10 picks in June’s NBA draft. Classmate Trevor Keels and sophomore Mark Williams are additionally anticipated to go within the first spherical. Wendell Moore Jr. nonetheless has a shot to make it a first-round Fab 5.
Pairing that sort of firepower with arguably the best faculty basketball coach of all time ought to produce a deadly nationwide championship menace. And but lots of people who care about such issues didn’t assume Duke even deserved a two-seed on this match. These folks have watched the Blue Devils sufficient to know that they haven’t impressed the sort of religion impressed by Krzyzewski’s 5 title groups.
So sure, one thing to vary this weekend right here in Greenville. For one, Duke has to start out taking part in higher protection, one thing that was a focus throughout some spirited pre-tournament practices. “This week was extra of reaffirming our good habits,” Krzyzewski mentioned Thursday.
For 2, Banchero must be ultra-aggressive 24/7, and keep away from the 10- and 15-minute disappearing acts that popped up right here and there within the common season.
For 3, Griffin, the previous five-star prospect from Archbishop Stepinac in White Plains, additionally must assault the second with a ferocity that defines the participant he has lengthy emulated — Jimmy Butler. At 6-foot-6 and 222 kilos, Griffin is a lights-out perimeter shooter with a 7-foot wingspan, bouncy athleticism, and a poise not often present in an 18-year-old on the sport’s largest stage.
“He’s by no means nervous,” Krzyzewski has mentioned of him.
Griffin overcame a preseason knee damage to kind of honor his advance billing, scoring 27 at North Carolina and clearing 20 in highway victories over Wake Forest, Louisville and Syracuse, after which dropping 21 on Miami within the ACC Event semis. Griffin shot 46.7 p.c from 3-point vary for the 12 months.
The negatives? Griffin has taken solely 45 free throws in 34 video games, and at instances wants to search out alternative ways to impression the sport.
That’s OK. His highschool coach, Pat Massaroni, nonetheless hears commonly from NBA groups involved in doing as a lot homework on Griffin as they will.
“I can see AJ being among the finest shooters we’ve seen in a very long time within the NBA,” Massaroni mentioned. “His sport will proceed to evolve. … I don’t assume AJ absolutely understands but simply how good he might be.”
Griffin wants to know that proper now, together with Banchero and the remainder of the Blue Devils. Duke watched what occurred to Kentucky on Thursday evening. It was simply one other reminder that March waits for no one.
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