Chronicle
| Army Â
| ESPN |Goduke.com | N&O
Everyone is predicting a Duke victory, and Duke should win, but we don't like
to tempt fate, so we asked an Army fan for his opinion of Army. Here's what he
had to say, and here's the
Army Web site for further information. We should also take a minute to say
that while Duke is expected to beat Army soundly, Army isn't about athletics,
it's about War. We're very fortunate to live in a country which is
powerful and fairly secure, but people have made great sacrifices to make that
possible. So after the game it'd be nice to give the Cadets a round of applause.
*****
Part of our ongoing problem (since some guy named Krzyzewski went south to
coach some other team :-) ) has been that we've had coaches who haven't really
known what kind of *student* athletes we need at West Point. We often had
players named to the Patriot League all-freshman team (and before that, the MAAC
all-freshman team), but they couldn't/wouldn't stay at West
Point for various reasons. Coach Harris (USMA '79) has changed that, he
certainly knows what kind of people are best suited to playing well *and*
sticking around for four years. Regardless, the team is very much a work
in progress.
We're still a year away from competing in the Patriot League, and that should
tell you a lot. We were a unanimous pick for 7th (last) in the preseason
polls of both the Patriot League coaches and SIDs. I have yet to see a
preseason mag which doesn't agree with those polls.
Strengths:
tenaciousness (would you expect any less from a team coached by a guy who played
the point for Coach K?)
familiarity with each other despite the youth (the environment at West Point
really makes our sports teams close knit groups)
this is Coach Harris' third year, so the team is almost entirely made up of guys
*he* recruited, IMHO, that's a big plus (and one we obviously didn't have in his
first two seasons); he didn't recruit the two juniors, but they've been with him
for two years, so they must be guys he wants
Weaknesses:
inexperience in the backcourt (all four lettermen we lost to graduation were
guards; starting point will be soph. Chris Spatola, starting shooting guard will
be jr. Joe Clark, who missed most of his sophomore year after ankle surgery)
not only are we young, we're short (tallest guy is starting C Matt Rutledge,
6-9; backup C is freshman Adam Glosier, 6-7; only one other guy is over 6-6 --
6-7 F Jonte Harrell)