Thoughts on Duke & Wake

We missed the first half, but caught all of the second half of last night's Duke-Wake Forest tilt that saw Wake score at the buzzer to win, 70-68. Some quickies:

Wake is frigging tough! They have good guard play (though star Jeff Teague had an off night), size, athleticism and a solid bench.

Give us more Al-Faroug Aminu! The Future Pro logged 15 and 10, along with 2 blocks. His athleticism makes him NBA ready right now.

No one will say this for fear of being racist, but Duke has no athletes! Other than Gerald Henderson, they get out-quicked and out-jumped at every position on a constant basis. Coach K is still burning mad from having William Avery and Corey Maggette jump to the NBA against his advice. As a result, he no longer goes for the one-and-done high school phenoms. Congrats, coach. Now all your kids stay. And none of them (save Henderson) are NBA prospects.

That fact not withstanding, Duke forward Kyle Singler is a very nice player! He tallied 22 and 12 last night. The problem is that when the immortal Jon Scheyer struggles (1-7 on threes), Duke has trouble getting points from anyone not named Singler or Henderson.

Dick Vitale has long been criticized for being a Duke apologist. And when Duke made its late game comeback last night (coming back from 13 down), he couldn't stop saying how tough and gritty the Duke kids were. Yet, when Wake scored at the buzzer, he was strangely silent. For over 20 seconds, he said N-O-T-H-I-N-G! In fact, we thought maybe he had made his way onto the court for a post game interview. But no, he was still sitting court side with partner Mike Patrick. When Vitale finally did speak, it was, of course, to commend the Dukies on their comeback.