Unless LeBron James and Dwyane Wade attend a game like they did last February, it’s probable that no better basketball player will walk through the BankUnited Center doors this season than Duke’s Jabari Parker.
With the Blue Devils in town Wednesday night (7:30 p.m., ESPN2) and Parker on the short list of potential No. 1 NBA draft picks should he decide to declare, this might be South Florida’s only chance to see one of the nation’s premier players in college.
“They have a player who the NBA scouts are drooling over,” Miami coach Jim Larranaga said.
Parker, a 6-foot-8, 235-pound freshman forward from Chicago, started the season by posting more than 20 points in his first seven games and 10 of his first 12. He scored in every way imaginable and drew raves for his intelligence and athleticism. His best performance was a 27-point, nine-rebound game in a Nov. 12 loss to then-No. 5 Kansas.
But Parker and the Blue Devils cooled off once ACC play came around. Parker went a combined 14-for-46 (30.4 percent) from the field and averaged 10.5 points in wins over Georgia Tech and Virginia and losses to Notre Dame and Clemson. He was criticized for being too passive, and the numbers showed it: just 12 free throws attempted in those games.
Meanwhile, Duke slipped from a legitimate national title contender ranked No. 4 in the nation to a program in a midseason mini-crisis. The Blue Devils entered last weekend ranked No. 23 in the Associated Press poll, the first time they had fallen out of the top 20 since 2007.
The Blue Devils (14-4, 3-2 ACC) responded by beating North Carolina State 95-60 on Saturday and climbing back to No. 18 in Monday’s poll. Parker (23 points, seven rebounds) cracked the 20-point mark for the first time in an ACC game but more importantly got to the rim, earning 10 trips to the line and dunking four times.
Parker (19.1 points, 7.3 rebounds per game) is hardly coach Mike Krzyzewski’s only weapon. Sophomore wing Rodney Hood, who averaged 22 points during Parker’s four-game slump, is averaging 17.9. Junior point guard Quinn Cook (5.7 assists) is a skilled distributor. Sophomore shooting guard Rasheed Sulaimon is a quick scorer who Monday was named ACC player of the week for his role in last week’s victories over Virginia and N.C. State.
“It’s a great challenge for us and our program to play against them,” Larranaga said. “But I will say this: We’re in the same league. We’re in the ACC. It’s not like we’re intimidated or in awe of anybody that we might play, because we’ve been playing at the highest level. These kids have faced major challenges before.”
Miami (10-7, 2-3 ACC) has held its last 11 opponents to fewer than 70 points, and five of its last six opponents to fewer than 60. Duke, with the nation’s second-best offense according to the KenPom.com ratings kept by statistician and blogger Ken Pomeroy, has scored more than 70 in 15 of its 18 games, though its own defensive efforts have varied.
Larranaga has defeated the Blue Devils in two of three meetings as Miami’s coach, including a 90-63 win last January. That game was memorable in several ways for Hurricanes fans, some of whom waited 24 hours outside for the arena doors to open. It was Miami’s first win over a No. 1 team and Duke’s worst loss in five years.
Dick Vitale returns to Coral Gables to call the game — on ESPN2, alongside Bob Wischusen — but the on-court personnel will be different. Duke has little interior presence and a heavy guard rotation, while UM lost the top six scorers from its ACC championship team. UM plays at a crawling pace and has changed its man-to-man defense to zone.
New faces and new styles on the court, but with Coach K on the sideline, Larranaga expects the same old Duke.
“There’s some coaches that have a lot of variety to their game play,” Larranaga said. “That’s not Duke. Duke is, what you might describe as, the best plain vanilla, that every high school coach would like to teach his kids.”
