N-R
| N&O
| Charlotte
| Charlotte
|
H-S | Fayetteville
| W-S
| Richmond
| Roanoke
| Richmond
| Roanoke
| Boxscore
| Photos
|
"It's great to have [Redick and Williams], "but we have to develop
other guys to that level. Sean is right there. He's just got to start taking his
open shots."
Dave Leitao was certainly impressed with Redick's performance.
"What he is doing this season, I think all of us _ players, coaches and
media _ should really savor," Leitao told the media after the game.
"He's having a season for the ages. ... We all need to sit back and admire
it because it won't happen for a long time after this."
That's probably a pretty concise analysis of Redick's year. At the
beginning of the year, there was still some lingering question about his
standing at Duke. Now, the questions are about his standing in the ACC and
recent college basketball. He has gone from being a kid with a wildly deep
range but a somewhat puffy body to a guy who is as fit as a marathoner and who
has basketball skills all over the court.
More importantly, for Duke, he has re-wired the devotion between the fans and
the great four-year player. Nothing against the guys who left early, but,
well, they left early. Luol Deng was a wonderful player and a tremendous
person, but we barely got to know him.
In Redick's case, we got to know him like in the old days, slowly, over a
four-year period, and saw him grow from a high school grad into a very
remarkable young man. If you're tempted to say he's just a basketball
player, well, yeah, he is, but he's shown enormous heart and character in how he
has developed his game, and that speaks volumes about his life and his parents
as well.
We're just glad he picked Duke in 1992. If you haven't heard the story,
he saw Laettner's Shot, woke up his parents, and said he was playing basketball
at Duke.
We knew an awful lot of people watched that shot, but it never occurred to us
that somehwere out there was a kid who would use it to fire his imagination to
this extent. What an amazing break for Duke, and for all of us who have been
lucky enough to watch him.