| Friday, January 28
By Bill Doherty
Special to ESPN.com |
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This was supposed to be the year for somebody to knock Duke from its comfortable perch atop the ACC men's basketball standings. When the season opened, there appeared to be more parity in the league, and Duke was even picked second in the media poll.
Now, it looks like the Blue Devils, winners of 15 straight games after season-opening losses to Stanford and UConn, could be No.1 in the entire country by the time March Madness rolls around.
|  | | Duke's Jason Williams has been on top of things all season long. |
Of course, Duke has gotten superb play and leadership from senior Chris Carrawell and junior Shane Battier. That's been well-documented. But the other key component that has kept the Blue Devils on top of the ACC heap -- and near the top of the national charts -- is the inspired play of its freshmen. Right now, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski's rotation goes six-deep and three of those six guys are still taking intro-to-everything classes: freshman point guard Jason Williams, freshman big man Carlos Boozer and freshman swingman Mike Dunleavy Jr.
Williams has successfully filled the big void left at point guard when William Avery departed after his sophomore season for NBA riches. For last season's powerful NCAA tourney finalist, Avery averaged 14.9 points, 5.0 assists and 2.6 turnovers. Williams has contributed nearly identical numbers (14.8 ppg, 5.4 apg), except for his turnovers (4.4 per game).
"Jason has really played well, especially when you consider that he has no real backup and he was thrown out there against a rugged non-league schedule," said Krzyzewski.
Coach K believes that having two former Duke point guards, Johnny Dawkins and Steve Wojciechowski, on his staff has helped accelerate Williams' learning curve.
"Having Johnny Dawkins as a coach gives Jason tremendous insight, because Johnny was a scoring point guard for us and in the pros," said Krzyzewski. "And that's the type of game that Jason possesses, that of a scoring point guard. Plus, Johnny was also a great defensive player and he has helped Jason grow in that regard.
"Wojo has helped Jason in terms of ballhandling and leadership. Jason has the best of both worlds here in Johnny and Wojo, and he's comfortable talking with both of them. And to Jason's credit, he's an easy kid to talk to and coach."
Ditto Boozer. The 6-foot-9, 260-pound freshman has surprised the Blue Devils not only with his performance but in his ability to come back from a broken foot suffered in the preseason. Duke insiders earlier had rejected comparisons to Brand, the 1999 ACC Player of the Year, but they no longer appear to be far-fetched. Boozer not only has a physique that resembles Brand's, but his soft hands and establish low-post position and scoring are very Brand-like. He's averaging 13.2 points and 6.3 boards per contest.
"Carlos suffered the same injury as Elton did a couple years ago and he has been able to come back from that and perform at an extremely high level," said Krzyzewski. "He's a reliable inside scorer and is getting better and better in all phases of the game every time he steps on to the court."
Dunleavy (9.9 ppg, 4.5 apg) has helped ease the loss of Corey Maggette to the NBA and has also proven quite coachable, too. That isn't surprising considering that from the time he was about knee-high to a backboard, Dunleavy tagged along behind his father, Mike, a former NBA player and current coach of the Portland Trail Blazers.
Little Mike was a ball boy for the Milwaukee Bucks. He also got to hang around the Los Angeles Lakers. As he got bigger, he started playing with the pros, going one-on-one against Magic Johnson and James Worthy. And last summer, Dunleavy competed in Portland pickup games with stalwarts such as Damon Stoudamire and Rasheed Wallace.
That partly explains why Dunleavy looks so poised playing for Duke, why he glides through games with neither smile nor smirk, regardless how the ball bounces.
"I'm pretty comfortable," says Dunleavy, a lean, rangy 6-7 wing player who has grown two inches since Duke recruited him. "I've gone to practices with my Dad since I was 7 or 8. I've played with the NBA guys.
"I don't see any reason to get nervous."
That is, unless you're an ACC coach who has to go up against Williams, Boozer and Dunleavy for the next couple years.
Another Minnesota North Star
Boston College freshman phenom Troy Bell was left off virtually every recruiting expert's list of the top 100 senior basketball prospects last season. Heck, Bell was so underrated that four members of his AAU team were invited to the Nike All-American Camp over him.
Now, the 6-1, 169-pound Bell is having the last laugh. Entering February, Bell is second in the Big East Conference in scoring (18.8 ppg) and is the odds-on favorite to win Big East Rookie of the Year honors. And Bell continues a recent trend of players from Minnesota coming East to star in the Big East. Three years ago, UConn's Jim Calhoun plucked McDonald's All-American point guard Khalid El-Amin out of Minneapolis. And two years ago, Seton Hall's Tommy Amaker recruited Darius Lane out of the North Star State.
El-Amin, of course, was the Big East Rookie of the Year in 1997-98. Bell is the frontrunner this year with some of his stiffest competition coming from Lane, who sat out last season as an academic casualty.
Blessed with a quick-as-a-hiccup first step and a sweet 3-point shot, Bell should win the top rookie hardware, though. While many folks are surprised by Bell's explosion this year, BC coach Al Skinner isn't one of them. Skinner is quick to point out that Bell has never needed a compass to find the hoop. After all, Bell scored a whopping 2,491 career points at Minneapolis' Academy of Holy Angels.
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ON THE RECRUITING TRAIL
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Shieka Kabba, a 6-2 New York City combo guard, verbally committed to Providence College earlier this week. Kabba selected the Friars over Rutgers, Miami (Fla.) and Pittsburgh. Kabba, who played at Redemption Christian Academy in Troy, N.Y. last year, is completing his studies at Bronx Regional High in New York. He said he has a qualifying score on his SAT and needs to do well in two classes this semester to meet NCAA freshman eligibility standards. Kabba is out of high school eligibility and is not playing this season.
Kabba committed to the Friars without the benefit of first seeing the PC campus. Kabba is scheduled to make an official visit to Providence the weekend of Feb. 5 when the Friars host Syracuse. According to sources, Providence may receive more good news from the recruiting front within the next few days. Donell Allick, a gifted 6-4 shooting guard at the Winchendon School in Massachusetts, reportedly is leaning very strongly towards PC and may offer Friars coach Tim Welsh a commitment shortly.
In addition to Kabba, the Friars also have a commitment from 6-10 Marcus Douthit of Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass.
Speaking of recruiting, it doesn't happen often, but Duke actually lost a recruit to the WAC this past week when SMU received an oral commitment from Robert Swain, a 6-4 guard from Tri-Cities High School in East Point, Ga. Swain, who averaged 27 points, eight rebounds and six assists last season, also was recruited by Duke, Alabama and DePaul but committed to SMU after his visit over the weekend. He saw the Mustangs beat Fresno State, 85-78, last Saturday. Oral commitments, of course, are non-binding, so Swain could change his mind between now and the next period to sign a national letter of intent (April 12-May 15).
Syracuse's nationally televised blowout of Connecticut not only made a large impression on the college basketball world, but it also intrigued two potential recruits. High school juniors Mark Kornecny and Lucky Williams were impressed with their Monday night visit to the Carrier Dome.
Kornecny, a 6-foot-10, 220-pound power forward from Waterbury, Conn., is also considering UConn, North Carolina, Cincinnati, Duke and UCLA. "I was impressed with the amount of people here and it's a good school. I got a chance to go around a little bit," Kornecny said. "Syracuse is definitely in the top five."
Williams, a 6-foot-6 shooting guard, attends Redemption Christian Academy in Troy, N.Y. Williams originally hails from Lagos, Nigeria, where he played basketball with current Louisville players Mahammed Lasege and Benjamin Eze. Williams averages 19 points per game and eight rebounds in his first year of U.S. high school competition. Williams is also considering North Carolina, Kentucky, Clemson, UCLA and Notre Dame, but he said Syracuse is in the lead after the UConn game.
-- Bill Doherty
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"In all honesty, I don't pay much attention to the ranking of high school players, but I'm not even sure some coaches realized how good he was until after he made a commitment to us," said Skinner. "The only thing I'm surprised about is the confidence he's maintained since the first time he stepped on the floor for us."
Not that he's a finished product yet. Among the things that Bell needs to work on is his upper-body strength and his assist-to-turnover ratio (37 assists, 71 turnovers through BC's first 18 games).
"I think he can be a whole lot better, there's no question about that," says Skinner. "Troy's an extension of the coach, so the better he understands what I'm thinking, the more effective he will be."
Around the East
When it comes to shooting, George Washington freshman SirValiant Brown isn't shy. Entering this week's action, Brown, who leads the country in scoring, had taken 403 shots from the field, or 35 percent of GW's shots. To put this in perspective, that is more shots than four Atlantic 10 teams had made -- St. Bonaventure (372), St. Joseph's (398), La Salle (394), and Temple (388) -- entering this week's action.
Lots of folks along Tobacco Road are buying futures in the University of Virginia program. No wonder. Virginia sits at 14-5 overall and 4-2 in ACC play after its most recent win over Florida State. The Cavaliers' fourth ACC win equals their entire league win total of last year. Right now, Pete Gillen's team looks like an NCAA tourney lock this March and for the next two or three springs to come. The reason? The Cavaliers' top six scorers are all underclassmen: junior Donald Hand (16.3 ppg), sophomore Chris Williams (14.9 ppg), freshman Travis Watson (11.4 ppg), sophomore Adam Hall (9.9 ppg), freshman Roger Mason (7.4 ppg) and freshman Majestic Mapp (5.6 ppg).
Duke's Krzyzewski said earlier this week that the university is studying the possibility of expanding the 60-year-old Cameron Indoor Stadium beyond its current capacity of 9,314 -- and possibly adding luxury suites. Cameron was last expanded in 1988, when 750 seats were added to the student section.
"I'd like to see us look at the seating to see if that's possible," Krzyzewski said. "But not to hurt or change the way the students are seated. They should always get those (courtside) seats. Maybe there's one side of Cameron, the ticket-office side (behind one basket), that could be pushed back a little and more seats could be added there. And we have to look (at the) possibility of putting in luxury boxes in different areas of Cameron."
However, Krzyzewski fears that Cameron, the ACC's oldest arena which opened in 1940 and has sold out every game this decade, could lose its identity.
"It's a place that has a soul, and I don't want to mess with that," Krzyzewski said. "It's an amazing place, but we have to take good care of it. I think we can take better care of it than we have. There are plans being made now as to how we might be able to do that, and funds are being raised to allow us to do it."
When St. Joseph's (Pa.) hosted UMass earlier this month, one Boston-area scribe joked that UMass coach Bruiser Flint's job security was on a "possession-by-possession" basis. He was only half-kidding. If the Minutemen (who are currently 10-8) finish above .500, that would give Flint two NCAA Tournaments (both first-round losses) and one NIT in four years.
For most programs, that's not only not bad. But UMass, where John Calipari averaged 29.2 wins in the five seasons before Flint took over, is not like most programs -- and last week exposed what may be Flint's biggest obstacle at the moment. It's not basketball, which is at least somewhat in his control, but economics, which is not. Against Dayton, UMass drew 4,835 fans, a record low at Mullins Center. The Rhode Island game drew 5,050, mostly due to the fact that Rhody brought a few fans. But 4,500 empty seats, with tickets $20 each, represent a theoretical loss (affected by student tickets and other variables) of $90,000 per game. Season ticket sales also dropped by a reported 1,200 customers this year.
For a school without Division I-A football for revenue, that's a killer. If donors and fans want Flint out, it may be economically difficult to keep him, even if there is a late winning streak. There are five home games left. The next two, vs. A-10 archrival Temple and Chris Mihm-led Texas should draw well, and George Washington normally does, too. But unless UMass gets very, very hot, there's not much time to reverse the perception that this team is not worth watching, even if it is.
Bill Doherty, a freelance writer from Bethlehem, Pa., is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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West: California dreamin'
