TWO DUKIES PICK THE ACC
Volume XIII, Episode 1
November 13, 2009
FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH EDITION

Matt’s comments in blue.
duhomme's comments in red. 

NORTH CAROLINA-GREENSBORO (0-0, 0-0 Southern North) v. #8 DUKE (0-0, 0-0)

Hello again, folks, and welcome to the thirteenth season of Two Dukies Pick the ACC.  And yes, that name will continue this season, although we’ll be redirecting our focus to the Duke Blue Devils in a way that will enable us to make you laugh (or grunt detachedly, as applicable) even harder (or less, as applicable) and keep you well-informed, provided that you set aside the time to visit a few other websites in the bargain.  With those preliminaries out of the way, let’s get ready to rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrumble, or ssssssssssssssssomething . . . .

Nolan Smith’s situation is, as I mentioned last week, annoying, and now we have the Duke Foot Injury Bug both striking quite early and nefariously relocating itself to the upper extremities, in this case the left wrist of Mason Plumlee.  (The Cameron floor: still culpable!)  This bums me out, as I wanted to see Mason play very much - - it promised to be one of the most exciting aspects of the early season.  Well, Duke is making Hoodichickian noises about Mason’s downtime, and it now appears that we might possibly see him return anywhere from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  So think of him as Yuletide shopping, if you were planning to go about looking for the services of a 6-10 center.  My guess is that we’ll see him back for Wisconsin, since the Sports Information guys/gals are overselling things by talking about possibly seeing him in uniform in New York.  Of course, that’s if Duke can get by the Chanticleers of Coastal Carolina and, likely, the Charlotte 49ers.  Probable, but leave us not take anything for granted in this extremely young season.         

Remember, we use the real poll here in our rankings that you see in the header - - not the Teenage Sons of the Athletics Directors’ Poll, in which no actual coach has cast a ballot since 1994. 

Now that I’ve at least mentioned Duke, it’s time for a few rants that have been festering over the last couple of months, since it became clear that our latest round of venture capital fundraising would enable us to continue into the new decade.  (And please, no debate about whether the decade ends at the close of 2009 or 2010 - - back to your scrutiny of the Maya calendar.  Shoo fly!)  The best part of the tour was duhomme making it rain in a “club” in West Memphis, Arkansas - - apparently, you’ve got to spend money to make money, and honestly, it is good to have Rick Pitino on board as a donor.  Adding Larry Eustachy to the board of directors was questionable, but could reap future dividends with the younger set. 

I digress.  Anyway, I just wanted to tell ABC that I don’t appreciate it dumbing down science fiction.  Searching for a successor to “Lost,” which will wind up its six-season run in May, the Disney-run network slapped together a television adaptation of “Flash Forward,” a relatively well-known genre novel, and decided unnecessarily to reinvent “V,” an absolutely classic miniseries from the Reagan years, when escape via the television was absolutely essential for those of us kids just coming to understand how scary the world really was.  Ahhhhhhhh, an alien invasion - - cool.  Anyway, “Flash Forward” is mediocre and uneven, and “V” is absolutely terrible.  I thought science fiction might enjoy a bit of a renaissance, and I guess it’s nice to get shows from that genre on the small screen at all, but honestly, this isn’t helping.  “Flash Forward” at least has potential, although if the showrunners have any idea where they’re going after this season winds up, I’d be surprised, and they might also want to take the advisable route of having more than one interesting sequence, lasting three to five minutes at maximum, per episode.  As for “V,” it’s as horrible as the new 90210, and therefore pretty much irredeemable at this point.  The special effects are atrocious, the new “plot twists” they added to the old show make little sense, much of the acting is terrible, and the show’s version of the FBI is run with all the grace and charm of a middle school.  Ugh.  I think I’m done with this one. 

I’ll keep the final diatribe short.  Please, Anglophone writers of the known universe, stop beginning sentences with “that.”  It sounds stupid, it looks stupid, it’s unwieldy, it’s technically incorrect, leaving the money adjective until the end of the sentence is syntactically irritating, and it just isn’t cool, hip, or trendy.  It also doesn’t save any real space that justifies the asinine inverted structure.  EXAMPLE: 

That Matt began the Two Dukies material by blathering about TV and grammar wasn’t surprising.    (93 characters)

It wasn’t surprising that Matt began the Two Dukies material by blathering about TV and grammar.    (96 characters)  

Matt began the Two Dukies material by blathering about TV and grammar, which wasn’t surprising.   (95 characters)          

Just.  Stop.  Now.  And I’m talking to everyone from the writers of Rotoworld to Ian McEwan here - - the contagion must be contained. 

And we’re back to Duke.  So, as you may have heard, the team is TALL this season - - it’s “Mike Krzyzewski’s biggest ever.”  Leaving aside the inherent hilarity of that phrase (I wonder if it gives Coach K a chuckle), I actually have to wonder how people arrived at this.  I mean, I assume someone went and averaged everyone’s heights on the roster and came up with a valid figure, but I hope that the media drumbeat isn’t the result of simple guesswork, you know, like “hey, I suppose Saddam has WMDs, right?  I mean, he HAS to.”  Anyhoo, one of the welcome consequences of the team’s new skyscraperhood is that MEDIOTS WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO TALK ABOUT HOW SMALL DUKE IS, EVEN WHEN DUKE ISN’T SMALL.  You’re tired of this too, no?  I sure am.  And, if one takes the leap of faith that Duke will be a solid-boarding squad this year as a result of all this surplus tallness, then one imagines the Doyels of the world just staring at a blank computer screen as they try to fit this Blue Devil edition into their crumbling memes.  Sad image, really. 

Now, of course, the counterbalance to this is that Duke has very few guards.  I even read previews that suggested that Duke had just Scheyer, Smith, and Dawkins, backed by Jordan Davidson (and, if the preview auteur really knew what s/he was talking about, Casey Peters).  Dude!  (a) It was announced about five minutes after Williams left that Singler would play in the backcourt; (b) Coach K doesn’t have positions - - which is tiresome, I know, but run with anything you can when countering mediocy; and (c) has anyone out there but me ever watched Kyle Singler play??  The young man adores the wing game.  Telling us that KS will be newly roaming the perimeter is like informing us that Grievous Azzkiz intends to start playing dirty, or that Zoubeard has announced plans to be called for traveling.  This is not new information. 

I’m also tired of the trope that Duke has no point guard.  While it is true that Nolan Smith is a shooting guard, the team won 10 of 11 last season after Scheyer moved to the playmaking role, and the loss to Vanillanova had nothing to do with any lack of a lead guard, but rather the frightening shower of masonry emanating from those wearing white uniforms.  So let’s put that one away too. 

What I’ll be looking for this season is as follows: (a) interior passing; (b) second-chance opportunities; (c) blocked shots and other sensible post defense stratagems; and (d) open shots.  Oh, and a little zone here and there against teams that can’t shoot from outside (LIKE NORTH CAROLINA-CHAPEL HILL HINT HINT HINTY HINT).  And I love the idea of Lance Thomas playing the on-ball wing defender - - I can’t wait to see this in action.        

The Spartans of the State of North Carolina’s directional school, Greensboro branch, arrive in Durham tonight to begin their ninth campaign (over two terms) under Mike Dement, who was one of K’s early assistants waaaaaaaay back in 1982-1983.  UNC-G won a scant five games last season, including one outside of the SoCon, and was dealt an unexpected blow in the offseason when promising freshman Damian Eargle left the team for family reasons.  There’s no one over 6-8, and the team will rely on three players - - 6-4 senior Mikko Koivisto (12.4 ppg), 6-5 senior Ben Stywall (11.7 ppg) and hot-shooting 6-2 freshman Kyle Randall.  The Spartans will need to shoot 50% or better from beyond the arc, making ten or more, to stay in this one, as Duke’s SIZE will be the difference.  I don’t look for this one to be close, even with the personnel cramp on the Blue Devil bench. 

It’s good to be back.  Go Blue Devils!    

Duke 90, North Carolina-Greensboro 60.    


Welcome back everyone! I hope the periodic reviews of modern marketing techniques and other preposterous media offerings kept you modestly amused during the off-season. Or at least gave you the opportunity to blow off work for a few minutes as you shook your head and thought, “I certainly hope no one pays him to do this.” Or sent emails asking when this stopped being a basketball analysis website, to which I would respond, when was it? But, hey, the alternative was to select some pro baseball team and write predictions of all 568 of their games, which is one of those ideas that sounds really good until you start doing it. Sort of like deciding to write up all of UNC-CH’s games before looking at the schedule and finding there will be a four-games-in-five days stretch in freaking November. And a game on New Year’s Eve. Matt is probably sick of me bringing up the subject, but it is just as much my fault for not doing some due diligence before firing off that “Awesome idea! I love it!” email.

By the way, speaking only for myself, this is usually the hardest edition of the season to write. I haven’t seen the team play, and the stats against exhibition opponents have little value in determining individual players’ future impact, especially the freshmen (see Randolph, Shavlik).

Yes, you have a question?

“Are saying this edition is harder than writing about eight games in two days during the first rounds of the ACC tournament?”

Point taken. However, we’re still going to work in generalities here.

But first! I would not be fulfilling my contractual obligations as Dukies.com Washington Bureau Chief if I didn’t comment a bit on the recent elections. Many commentators view the Republican sweep in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races as signs of a resurgence of the party and a repudiation of President Obama. As for the second point, eh, maybe a little, probably a somewhat less energized democratic base, as some folks are iffy on the whole “public option” business in the health care reform bill, while others are upset he doesn’t talk about it 15 hours a day. However, the notion that this election is a sign Republicans are back, we’ll have to wait until next year to find out. These two races tell us nothing. In Virginia, Bob McDonnell walloped Creigh (pronounced “Cree”, I kid you not) deeds, in a contest featuring a candidate straight from central casting vs. a candidate so failed it’s hard to figure out how he’s ever been elected to anything. Not just the body language (hunched over, twitchy – and stick around to the 1:45 mark for the “I think I made myself clear, young lady” moment), but in a year when everyone else is talking jobs and the economy, he went immediately negative over social issues. Folks, when a campaign’s ad-buys are negative from the beginning, look for vultures circling overhead. Plus, by spending all his dough on attack ads, he never defined himself, giving the other side an opportunity to do it for him, on their terms. What a colossal disaster.

In the garden state, voters didn’t so much elect Chris Christie and his running mate Duran Duran, so much as the un-elected Jon Corzine, who went into cycle with Rick Santorum-esque horrific approval numbers. Oh, and one more thing you may have been hearing from the know-it-alls who nominate cable channels and political blogs. All that chin-dropping about how the health care bill only passed by two votes? Folks, once the leadership knows they have enough votes to pass a bill like that, they allow members with tough races to vote against it. It’s called releasing the votes.

Speaking of know-it-alls, here I am with Matt to write about yet another season of Duke basketball, which, if you are stuck in the same media market with a certain Washington, D.C.-based NFL team, is a most welcome development. Any news in the young season so far? Well, yes indeed. Nolan Smith will be watching from the bench (or the stands? How does that work?) while serving out a two-game suspension for not having his permission slip to play in a summer league signed. This being the confluence of NCAA bureaucracy and player-who-should-know-better.  Anyone else whose services Duke is going to be without tonight? Yep, Plumlee 2.0 (Mason) who went and broke his wrist. The good news is that surgery was not required, and since it is not a foot, ankle or other lower extremity problem, he can stay in condition while he heals. On the other hand, for someone who probably could use some extra upper-body bulk, he won’t be going to the weight room anytime soon.

Clearly Nolan is the bigger loss in the short term. While you could argue all day about Mason’s ranking in Duke’s gang of big men, that fact is there are other ones beside him. In the backcourt, you’ve got Scheyer, Dawkins and, well, Singler, as the only available bodies. Look for Scheyer to log pretty close to 40 minutes per game for the first two contests, which could be ugly during the upcoming Monday-Tuesday double-header (although Smith will be eligible to play on Tuesday, assuming he hasn’t forgotten anything else important).

In the front-court, until Plumlee 2.0 gets better, we’ll probably see more of Brain Zoubek, center/Ent, whose new facial hair is taking the whole Treebeard from Lord of the Rings look-alike thing way too far. (Okay. Before all of you LOTR geeks, losers who live with their parents at age 35, respected experts start emailing “DUDE, THAT IS TOTALLY NOT ‘TREEBEARD’ IN THAT IMAGE, IT’S ‘QUICKBEAM’,” let me just say the sight of the guy actually “shepherding the rock” en route to opening up a can of whoop-ass on Isengard was too much to pass up. Although, since he is clearly travelling and no one in charge is doing anything about it, we should probably call him “Hansbeard.”)

It also means Singler, Thomas and Kelly, who were supposed to supplement the backcourt deficit, may have to spend more time nearer to the basket. Once Smith comes back, not that big a deal. Until then, these first two games won’t be over at half-time, as you might normally expect.

But don’t worry too much about sweating it out (except for you, Gary!) over UNC-Greensboro. Even with a whopping 17 players on the roster, Coach Mike Dement doesn’t have a single body who stands taller than 6-8. Bad news for them, even with Duke minus one Plumlee. I imagine it is also bad news for any player on the team who is told he has to room with guard Sean Spooner on road trips.

On a personal note, UNC-Greensboro is directly responsible for my presence here on this planet. See, back in the day, it was a “women’s college,” where young ladies would get associate degrees to allow them to get jobs as secretaries, teachers, etc. Yes, I know that doesn’t sound politically correct, but it’s a fact. Momma duhomme, who grew up in Appalachia, and didn’t have indoor plumbing until she was in high school, attended the institution, getting a degree that helped her attain employment in the billing department of the Ashville, N.C. office of the power company, whose mascot was Reddy Kilowatt (I used to own one of these). The office was across the street from the federal building, which featured both a cafeteria open to the public and a young Father duhomme who worked for the National Climatic Data Center located there. And that cafeteria is where the two met. Neat, huh?

Getting back to the game at hand, this one will probably be close at the half, as Duke adjusts to the absence of two players. After intermission, the size and talent differential should be enough to create a double-digit lead the team can hang on to.

Duke 87, North Carolina-Greensboro 70.


Last Season:
Matt 112-45
duhomme 108-49
Guests 19-13