I've Fallen . . . and I Can't Reach the Clapper!

I may not have a job or a girlfriend, but at least I have one thing – Duke and UCONN both suck and, judging from yesterday, they are going to suck for the foreseeable future. All I can say is wow. I knew these patients were sick but I got a glimpse behind the curtain yesterday and was shocked to see two programs that are playing in the abyss. Yeah Yeah Yeah, the cronies and apologists will tell you we are seeing a 100-year storm and things will return to normal next year, but based on recent evidence, I would suggest you might consider taking the other side of that bet.

So what’s going on here? Well, lets start up in Storrs where the short-term prognosis is probably more bleak. What you have at UCONN is a very young team that doesn’t shoot very well, doesn’t play defense too well and produces more turnovers in forty minutes than Sara Lee. How bad is it? Well, for every five assists, UCONN throws it away six times. The Huskies are now just 15-9 after starting the season with eleven straight wins, all of which came at home against woefully inferior competition. Since that streak ended on Dec. 30, the Huskies are just 4-9, with wins coming against South Florida, St. John’s, Rutgers and Syracuse. Those wins might have meant something had they come in 1985. But this is 2007 and in the present year, those four wins add up to giant turd.

I spent a little time yesterday watching the carnage and was appalled at what I saw. The Huskies went down to the Georgia Dome and got blasted by a mediocre Georgia Tech team, 65-52, in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the lopsided score indicates. Granted, the game was played in a Dome, but the Huskies shot just 31 percent from the field, 57 percent from the line and turned the ball over 16 times. What the hell is going on here? Sophomore Craig Austrie was 1-10. The highly touted and somewhat juvenile AJ Price got in for fourteen minutes and was able to go 1-4 with one assist. Based on what I saw, Price should probably keep his night job stealing stereo equipment.

The morale to the story is that UCONN has no players. Sure, they have eight freshman and four sophomores, but at the end of the day, these kids might not be any good. Talented yet inexperienced is one thing, but there is no sign that these kids are the former. Sure, Jeff Adrian looks like a player on one wing, but that’s about it. This is just a flat-out bad team and one that doesn’t stand to make much improvement without an infusion of talent. Now I heard Jim Calhoun on the radio last week express his confidence in this group, but you have to scratch your head and wonder what group he is watching. Hye, I’m not at practice everyday, but I have watched UCONN a few times this year and I don’t see any Ray Allen’s or Donyell Marshall’s or Caron Butler’s. Moreover, as I expected, Calhoun spent much of that interview making excuses, challenging anyone to find a program that could withstand the losses UCONN incurred after last season. Is he insane? Here is the answer Jim – the 2006 UNC Tar Heels. They lost four first round draft picks off their national Championship team and their seven top scorers. What happened to them the following year? Well, they competed for the ACC title and went into the tourney as a three seed. That is a far cry from where this Husky team is today.

Now we turn to Durham, where the situation turns darker by the day and the long-term prognosis is perhaps worse than it is in Storrs. Here is the Duke situation – after losing last night in College Park, the Devils are just 5-6 in the ACC, with road games looming at BC, UNC and Clemson. In order to get back to .500 in conference play, they will have to beat Georgia Tech and Maryland at home and win one of those road games. Ain’t going to happen! Not with this team. Thus, Duke is going to end the season with a sub-.500 conf record. Will that get them into the tourney? Will the mystique of Duke curry favor with the selection committee? Its possible that 7-9, coupled with a win in the ACC tourney might do the trick, but it will be close. And even if that does get them in, I am fairly confident that this club will end Duke’s 10-year streak of advancing to the regional. And if this club misses the tourney, how long before you see t-shirts saying “I paid 50K for this?”

So what is Duke’s problem? Well, its plain as day that this team doesn’t have any players. This can be a bit masked when they play at home, but on the road, this team is simply defenseless. They have no quickness on the perimeter, no inside game, and the bench is occupied by guys who probably belong at Hofstra. And things don’t figure to get much better. In fact, they figure to get much worse as its likely that Duke will lose its best player – Josh McRoberts – this year. That will leave K with a squad of returnees that should show up to Midnight Madness next year wearing shirts saying: “I play for Duke Univeristy – The Iona of the South.” Greg Paulus will be one of the returnees, but unfortunately for Duke, he plays an awful lot like one of the assistants on Duke’s bench and I’m not talking about Johnny Dawkins. Jon Scheyer will also be returning, but in the 6’5 white man category, Scheyer reminds me a whole lot more of UVA flameout Willie Dersch than he reminds me of JJ Redick.. Simply put, Coach K has no players. And whose fault is that but his own? He knew Reddick and Sheldon Williams were leaving – after all, they were seniors. He had time to prepare for those departures and all he could come up with was Jon Scheyer and Gerald Henderson. And just wait until next year. Help is coming in the form of 6’8 Kyle Singler, a recruit out of Oregon, but without McRoberts, this group will have to overachieve just to achieve mediocrity.

The funny thing about this is Coach K has basically escaped blame for the whole mess. His apologists at ESPN stress its just one year and not a disastrous year at that. Just a blip on the radar, says defense counsel Vitale. Blip? What team is he watching? Simply put, there are no guarantees in college sports anymore. Vitale can keep living in the past and assume his buddy will pull things together, but I have seen no evidence of late to support such a thesis. Things are bad in Durham. Real bad. French army bad. The way I see it, Duke could miss the tourney this year and be way down next year. Two bad years in a row and the next thing you know, kids are going to Virginia and NC State. Dickie V would never concede such a possibility, not while his buddy was manning the sideline. I’m not sure it will happen either and I wouldn’t bet against K pulling things together in 09, but the one thing clear to me at this point is Duke has fallen and there is no guarantee it will be getting up anytime soon. I may not have a job but at least I got that.