Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Building a House?
--"JT the Brick" lays a few bricks while analyzing the tournament for MSNBC. His writing parallels a seventh-grader's.--Mike DeCourcy guesses Duke will win the title. Mike's a great reporter -- his scoops are second only to Andy Katz' -- but his prognisticating is usually a bit off. As noted earlier, Arizona will defeat the Blue Devils if (and that's a huge if) the 'Cats come to play and Mississippi State star Lawrence Roberts is the perfect big man to get Shelden Williams into foul trouble. As goes Shelden, so goes Duke. This (at least) DeCourcy understands:
Williams' long arms and massive strength make him a terrifying interior defender, but he's of little concern sitting on the bench. Williams averaged 25.5 minutes and four fouls in Duke's four losses against ACC opponents. Sophomore Shavlik Randolph is a capable reserve, but he isn't as comfortable playing in place of Williams as when the two work together. In those four ACC losses, playing mostly as the sole big man, Randolph averaged 2.5 points and 2.0 rebounds in 14.8 minutes.
