Ethics

Duke and MSU

By Ed Brayton

Well, one of my teams is gone and one is still in. Duke, after barely escaping against Belmont, was sent packing by West Virginia. As I've said all year, this Duke team was overrated and was overachieving. They were a classic donut team with no credible inside threat and overloaded with perimeter players. The last couple years have been tough because they just haven't had any interior presence since Shelden Williams left.

He was the last in a long line of great Duke big men going back to Mike Gminski. After that it was Mark Alarie, Christian Laettner, Cherokee Parks, Elton Brand, Carlos Boozer and Williams. They always had at least one guy who could score in the post and force the defense to double team him. Now they don't and it shows. Now they're living by the three and dying by the three. They really need to step up the big man recruiting the next couple years to make sure they've always got one or two around or this is going to continue to happen.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on March 23, 2008 (boomark / email).