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| The ref signaled right when we snapped! | Duhon waiting for the ball. |
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| Scoreboard Check! | Chris Knows Exactly How Much Time He Has... |
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| Not Afraid To Get After It... | Still A Tight Game Early... |
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| The Great Ones Can Stay Tranquil In Spite Of Stress... | Ready For Some D! |
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| Millbrook Player, Who Almost Fell On Us | First Quarter Is Almost Over |
We got to go to see a bit of the Glaxo Tourney here in Raleigh Monday, and caught Andre Barrett and Duke's sole recruit (so far anyway) for next year, Chris Duhon. We have to
tell you, he's as good as advertised. He is exceedingly quick, and has superb
range. He also can get off the ground pretty well - we saw him fly in at one
point and block a layup, and he had some serious air on that attempt. On a
couple of other plays, he was the oop-ee on alley-oops, which speaks well of
his hops. He shot 11-16 (though WRAL said 17) including about a half-dozen
three pointers. At one point, he hit about 14 straight points. He
also whipped out some phenomenal passes, too many of which were dropped.
He
reminds us a great deal of Johnny Dawkins - slender, but deceptively strong,
very quick as we said, excellent range, and pretty fearless. Milbrook,
of Raleigh, hung close for a time and was bigger than Salmen,
but when Duhon erupted, they couldn't contain him, though they did put their
6-7 conference player of the year (last year) Jonathon Moore on him. He
played good defense considering how much shorter Duhon was, but it didn't
matter much.
Tomorrow Duhon's Salmen takes on Andre Barrett's Rice.Â
That's going to be a great matchup, and Rice, being much bigger and deeper,
will likely win.
Barrett is a great player. You have to have a great
spatial awareness to go inside when you are 5-8, which he seemed to have in
abundance. He had followups, and layups, and more or less played with the big
guys. He's going to be a superb floor leader at Seton Hall. He's a pure,
natural point, and when Rice lets him control the ball, he controls the game.
He's got two things going for him - a general sense for the position, and the
savvy that comes from the city. That's saying a lot. Lots of point guards
come out of NYC with reps, but few live up to them.
In both Duhon's case and
also Barrett's, each would have had more assists had their teammates not
dropped so many passes. When they get to the next level you have to think
they'll have better hands on the other end of their passes.
Also on Rice
was former UVa target Kyle Cuffe, if we have his name right, who is big, but
for being as big as he is, he seems pretty timid We weren't particularly
impressed with him.
If we were betting tomorrow, we'd bet on Rice, because
they have a great deal more depth. Once you get past Duhon, Salmen isn't
particularly talented.
We had to leave when DeMatha
took the floor. Man, do they look like, in every sense, a college
team. Just watching them warm up was a great privilege, as they took it
seriously. Just as a trivial note, Morgan Wooten was the only high school coach
to defeat Lew Alcindor, and only Guy Lewis did it in college.
No Kareem's in
this tourney, but Duhon is very gifted, as is Barrett, and they'll both make
their school's fans very happy.
We'll have photos to put up for a few days,
so check back. The good news - digital photos let us update quickly and
cheaply. The bad news - they don't always take great photos. But
some of them are pretty ok.