UNC
won their first game of the season, and their first game in the new unis,
and Joe Forte had a great debut against USC, scoring 24. Maryland
shot down Fairly Ridiculous after running out to a 25-1 lead and just
thrashing them. Wake also won, beating
Navy pretty firmly.
For a long time USC has been an afterthought, but this team is pretty sound
from what we saw of the game (we taped it and will watch it later). We
were particularly impressed with a Wes Unseld-like outlet pass from Brendan
Haywood in the first half. The fact that the pass was intercepted doesn't
diminish the fact that a) he made it, and b) his teammate expected it. If
Haywood starts doing that on a regular basis he's very dangerous. For those of
you who don't know, Wes Unseld was the second best ever at an outlet pass. The
best was Bill Russell, who perfected the art of turning a rebound into an outlet
pass before he hit the floor. Not bad.
We were fairly impressed with USC's athleticism, and for those who don't
know, Henry Bibby is one of the few who played on a college and NBA champion -
college titles won at UCLA, and the NBA title with Dr. J in Philadelphia,
meaning that he tutored under John Wooden and Billy Cunningham, which is a nice
blend of philosophies. They aren't going to be an easy game for Duke,
bringing up echos of the notorious game in the Foster era where the Pac 10
commish apologized for the officiating. That was a rare case where we'll say the
officiating without question altered the outcome of a game.
In other ACC news, here's
a follow up on the Torbush retention. Baddour now says that he has
"full confidence" in Torbush. That's kind of hard to believe
considering what has been said recently, though not by Baddour directly.Â
But whatever. We'll see what else comes out in the wash.Â