Tech

By antonio

March 5, 2007 12:31 PM | Link to this

this a great problem to have and what you need in this day and time with one and done freshman. critt and thad will be leaving after next year and you lose three to grad. although some may think only smith is a key loss. so pay everybody and hopefully that gives confidence. defense should not be a problem next year. but this year is still here and i like the play of this young jacket team going into the acc tourn. almost setting up to be a thriller next sunday.

By ga_tech_92

March 5, 2007 12:44 PM | Link to this

Great problem to have. Very hard to project how it will play out b/c of the NBA imo.

By Ole Gold Soul

March 5, 2007 2:16 PM | Link to this

Having talked to some scouts in the press box, Thad is pretty much out the door. Not sure if I agree with the decision, but NBA drafts potential… and all NBA scouts think he has huge potential. Javaris is 50/50 right now, but will probably stay because PG’s need at least 2 years to develop. If we lose Thad, then we only pick up one above this year’s total. Even without Thad, next year will be fun with Lawal and Storrs on top of Javaris and our seniors. Plus Aminu and Bell have been super studs off the bench. Only looks better next year!

By jackets fan

March 5, 2007 2:52 PM | Link to this

I love both Javaris and Thaddeus but honestly neither is NBA ready. They will be, but Young hasn’t done anything on a consistent basis to suggest he’s worthy of a 1st round pick in my opinion. The best comparison that can be made is Chris Bosh. Bosh was dominating in his freshman year, and that team was the precursor to the Final Four team. So if Bosh stood out on that team, then you know he was good, and he’s shown that in the NBA. However, Young has not stood out on a nightly basis on a lessor “team”.

Crittendon has been very consistent and productive, but he needs more time playing as a distributor instead of just a PG-scorer like in high school. His best comparison is Stephon Marbury, who came out as a freshman. Marbury was more spectacular, but as we’ve seen was lacking in the leadership department. I think Crittendon has more between his ears than Marbury, but he could still use the extra leadership experience to hone his skills (a la Jarrett Jack).

By gt aero

March 5, 2007 3:16 PM | Link to this

Alright here’s an even more fun idea just to toy around with. Late in a game, decent lead, and you want nothing but an endgame defense, who gets put on the court? Sheehan, Dickey, Smith, Peacock, and Faye (since someone has to be a faux-guard). Not necessarily the fastest 5 available, wouldn’t put up that many points, but that’d throw a lot of pressure on the other team.

By GT80

March 5, 2007 4:27 PM | Link to this

Love to see both the kids stay another year, but if I have to pick one, I’d prefer it be Critt. PG is the key to everything (even in the NBA, just ask the Hawks). Something about this year and this conversation reminds me of ‘03-04, when I thougth going into the year that we would be Top 25 material and next year we would be Top 10 with everyone coming back. Guess what, we went to the Final 4 a year earlier that I imagined (unfortunately we didn’t do so well the next year). Could this year end up the same?

And on another subject, I watched the end of the Duke/UNC game yesterday and saw the hatchett job on Hansborough by Gerald Henderson and today started wondering was this the same kid who had the classless hard foul on Critt at the end of our win against Duke? Checked it out and YEP, Henderson is who crashed Critt to the floor with 7 seconds left on a breakaway. If you remember Critt had to leave the game at the time. Can’t believe such a classy program as Duke would have such a punk on the floor.

By GT

March 5, 2007 5:14 PM | Link to this

I think Duke is very much like the Bobby Knight story. The press takes a winner and turns it into apple-pie when your eyes are seeing Jessie James. That announcer for CBS kept trying to tell the audience what they didn’t see, that the foul was a clean one. Long before the ref stepped in I was screaming at the television that it was a dirty shot taken by a jealous player at the end of a game. They kept replaying it and every time a loud excited Billy P would proclaim he saw nothing when I was watching an avenger mad because Carolina had left their best player in during garbage time try to knock the nose off the man’s face. I notice they have taken less camera angles of the bench when Duke plays this year. I think that is premeditated. Could that be because they were continently showing a whining coach stepping way out on the court during play to berate the ref? Would it spin better if they left the cameras off a grown man acting like he was 12. FSU use to get away with cheap shots on the quarterback. The press made Bowden out to be a saint sort of like K. They both like to win to the point it is a mental disorder, just like Knight. I don’t mind the violence as much as I mind the lying mentors that sponsor it.

By mountain_jim

March 5, 2007 6:18 PM | Link to this

The Sports Guy at ESPN has something to say about Packer:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/blog/index?name=simmons

1. I don’t mean to pile on Billy Packer here — OK, maybe I do — but when you’re already considered to be one of the biggest apologists on the planet for Duke basketball, is it really a good idea to keep making excuses for a Duke player after he just threw a malicious elbow at Carolina’s best player with 15 seconds remaining in an 12-point game? That was one of the strangest sequences I’ve ever watched in a televised basketball game. Here’s a rough transcript (I’m doing it from memory):

(We see a replay of Gerald Henderson measuring Hansbrough, flying over from six feet away, then delivering a Macho Man Savage-type elbow into Hansbrough’s face one second after Hansbrough had already been stripped of the ball.)

Packer: “Yeah, he was going for the ball … that was NOT intentional.”

(We see another replay of the same thing from a different angle — this time, it looks like Henderson could potentially be arrested for what just happened.)

Packer: “See, from that replay, there’s NO QUESTION that Henderson was going for the ball … that was definitely an accident.)

(Jim Nantz thinks about mentioning that Hansbrough had already been stripped of the ball before Henderson even raises his elbow, realizes that he has to announce games with Packer for the next four weeks, doesn’t want it to be awkward, decides against saying anything at all, starts day-dreaming about the Masters.)

Packer: “Nope … no way. He was going for the ball.”

(Cut to a replay of Hansbrough walking off the court with his face broken in half.)

Packer: “Jim, if anything, that was probably Hansbrough’s fault for going after Henderson’s elbow with his face …”

You get the idea. We have media criticism rules at ESPN, so I have to tread carefully here … but have you noticed that Packer somehow turns himself into a major story before EVERY NCAA TOURNAMENT? As I wrote a couple of years ago, I was watching an Indiana State Final Four game from the ‘79 tournament and they made a big deal before the game about how Packer had publicly attacked Indy State’s credentials for the entire tournament, and now they were in the Final Four and he was eating a little crow — they even showed an awkward interview with him and Larry Bird after the game. This was 28 years ago!!!!!! What chain of events needs to happen for CBS to replace him with a more palatable, more enjoyable, agenda-less lead analyst? Does 100 percent of the country have to band together and say, “We’re tired of this guy?” Or are we good at the current number of 97 percent?

(Note: After this column was posted, I received a flood of e-mails from Duke fans saying that Packer is NOT a Duke apologist — in fact, he’s considered to be anti-Duke and anti-UNC because he’s a Wake Forest alum. I always thought he cowtowed to Coach K over the years, but I’ll defer to the masses on this one. Maybe he’s just a curmudgeon.)

1. Two other notes from the UNC-Duke game:

A. You can’t exaggerate the whupping that Hansbrough delivered to Josh McRoberts during this game. I don’t see either of these guys becoming NBA starters — Hansbrough isn’t a good enough athlete, and McRoberts is too soft — but at least Hansbrough should evolve into a more polished version of a Madsen/Scalabrine-type bench player, one of those tough cookies who knows his limitations and doesn’t do anything he can’t do. McRoberts? Not a chance. He’s like a homeless man’s Darko Milicic. And that’s not a compliment.

B. Congrats to Coach K for questioning why Hansbrough was still in the game and inadvertently using Isiah Thomas’ “he was asking for it” defense. And the Duke fans wonder why everyone hates Duke. If the roles were reversed, and this had happened to McRoberts, Coach K would have shown up for the news conference covered in McRoberts’s blood, fighting back tears, urging for the offending UNC player to be suspended for the entire ACC tournament and basically looking like Jackie Kennedy in Dallas after the JFK shooting. God, I hate Duke.

By Techster

March 5, 2007 6:21 PM | Link to this

I think Thad will probably go after this year. The comparison to Bosh is a good one, except that I don’t remember Bosh dominating anyone. I remember him being just like Thad - he had some good games, a couple great ones, and then other times sort of disappeared. There was ZERO doubt in my mind that Bosh was not NBA ready, and he wasn’t. But the potential was there, just like Thad, and he did develop into a great player after a few years. No way Thad is NBA ready right now either, but if he can sit on a bench and log a few minutes a game for 6 months out of the year, not have to worry about going to class or taking tests, and get paid 3-5 million a year to do that while developing a game, he will probably do it. I hope he stays, but I doubt it….the NBA pays huge bucks these days for potential, you don’t have to have proven anything yet to cash in.

By Navigator

March 5, 2007 6:24 PM | Link to this

The bad foul in the Duke-NC game was correctly called. Packer saw the angle that looked like the Duke kid was going for the ball. However, another angle was shown on ESPN today, and it was obvious that the ball wasn’t in the picture. The Duke player made an aggressive jab at the face of the NC player. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Coach K gave orders to stop any dunks by NC, any way they could. The NC coach was wrong to leave the starters in with game won, and only a few seconds left. If the ACC doesn’t take steps to punish this kind of play, then this series could get bloody.

By Najeh Davenpoop

March 5, 2007 7:16 PM | Link to this

I don’t think comparing Young to Bosh is accurate, because they translate to different NBA positions and require different skills. Bosh had a pretty good inside-outside game in college (and still does in the NBA) but there was no question that with his height and length, he projected as an NBA power forward. The rule differences between college and NBA make it harder for post players to touch the ball consistently in college than in the NBA — combine that with his rail-thin frame, and it’s not surprising that he seemed to disappear sometimes as a freshman. But watching him in college, there was no question he had the skills to dominate in the post in the NBA, even if it took him a couple of years. Young, on the other hand, projects as a small forward based on his height. He already has an NBA body, and he has good court vision and a decent outside shot, but his ball-handling is far below average for an NBA small forward, and he doesn’t have a refined enough post game to make up for it. With ball-handling skills that poor and a post game that raw, there’s no way he puts up the numbers Bosh did as a rookie, unless he somehow slips to Phoenix in the draft. Regardless, there’s no guarantee he’ll ever develop his ball-handling skills to the point where he’ll fulfill his star potential. I’d say Young’s a much bigger question mark at this point in his basketball career than Bosh was. If his ball-handling vastly improves and his post game becomes more polished, Young will probably play like a more athletic Al Harrington, but it’s far from a sure thing.

By ben

March 5, 2007 10:17 PM | Link to this

After watching Livingston of the Clippers tear up his knee, you have to reason that it’s O.K. if Thad and Crit go pro. I mean, if they tore up that knee in college, they don’t ever get paid. I don’t think either one of them is ready, but this is a new era. An era that has diminished the quality of the college game and the pro game. I don’t like having to watch an all freshman team and I don’t like having to watch the likes of Sebastian Telfair blindly feel his way around the NBA.

By WFC

March 6, 2007 8:34 AM | Link to this

The quality of play in the NBA has declined considerably in the last 20 years. There is no way an NBA team can practice the way a college team can because of the sheer number of games and the extensive travel. Few players without finely honed skills will develop them sitting on an NBA bench and walking through airports all the time. Neither Crit nor Thad is anywhere near ready to be a contributor on a decent NBA team but it’s hard to turn down the money if you have never had any. Oh well. I think that Coach K is well ahead of most coaches in dealing with the “one-and-done” situation. Duke is a little (by Duke standards) down this year but I’ll bet that his guys will all be there as juniors and seniors and the Blue Devils will be cutting down the nets again in the NCAA’s.

By GT80

March 6, 2007 9:43 AM | Link to this

If Thad and Critt can get the money, more power to them. All you have to do is remember James Forrest.

By Joe Morgan

March 6, 2007 9:28 PM | Link to this

are you kidding me? is this a GT blog or a Duke/ UNC blog?!

By jackie

March 7, 2007 10:06 AM | Link to this

To WFC Both Young and Critt have very good potential for the NBA. When it’s time for them to enter the league, they’ll go because it’s their time, not because they need money. You shouldn’t be concerned about what that’ve never had, just because you were probably born with a silver spoon in your mouth. When it’s all said and done, they both will have more than you ever will.

By T-Bone

March 7, 2007 11:02 AM | Link to this

Please stop comparing Thaddeus Young to Chris Bosh because there is no comparison (except for the left-handed thing). They play two completely different positions, and Thaddeus is nowhere near ready to jet. Another thing that no one takes into account is his character. This guy is a very good student with a good head on his shoulders. He doesn’t have the entourage around him, he doesn’t have an inflated ego, and he seems to really want to improve. If those things are true, I don’t see him leaving after this year. I think we’ll see a huge improvement in his game next season, and then he and CrittenTon (not CrittenDon)will both bolt. Next year should be one of Tech’s best ever.