Bert sent us these pickup notes. Thanks Bert!!
I watched the team scrimage the other day. Cwell, James, Horvath, Buckner, Simpson vs Williams, Sanders, Langdon, Dunleavy, Caldbeck
Jason Williams is great! After 20 minutes of watching him play I was pretty sure he was the best offensive point guard ever to come to Duke. He can drive as well as will and pass as well as Hurley. He connected with Casey Sanders for several ally-oops. The only unanswered question was whether he can shoot outside. Basically he never shot outside, but then no one on his team did. They always got a layup. Williams would effortlessly lob and drill passes into the paint. Almost all resulted in layups. Sanders seemed to be his favorite target. While Williams looked great he was going up against JD Simpson, who may not defend as well as most starting ACC guards. Williams also displayed a lot of floor leadership. He was in constant communication with his entire team which helped them get so many easy baskets.
Chris Carrawell can still defend and now loves to score. Williams team won convincingly the first three games but in the last game Carrawell took all but one shot and led his team to victory. He was being guarded by Trajan. In that game he also blocked a Trajan three point attempt from NBA range.
Nate James totally shut down Mike Dunleavy, but I got the feel Dunleavy is a good player. Nate also hit a couple of threes.
Nick Horvath was totally unable to keep up with Casey Sanders going to down floor. Sanders scored a couple of baskets and was probably the games leading rebounder (shane wasn't there) but I never saw him shoot outside of about 2 feet. He has Jamison quickness though. Actually he reminds me a lot of Chris Burgess as a freshman. He may need to work on his defense though as horvath was able to score several baskets on him, including a three pointer.
Buckner was able to score a basket or two on fast breaks. He was guarding Caldbeck on defense who chose not to shoot, so I was unable to guage his talent.
Shane and Boozer didn't play.
Williams will be the floor leader this year but I still see Carawell providing another kind of leadership. He brings a die hard attitude to the team. A never say never. He displayed that in the final game where his team was able to win despite being out manned.