In this most unusual season of constant interruptions, empty arenas and teams playing fast shooting due to something most literally never heard of a year ago (contact detection), it’s fitting that millions of people watch the unusual Duke North Carolina game in decades will watch on Saturday.
May the better OK team win.
“We have some wounds,” UNC coach Roy Williams said on Thursday. And while he did not necessarily speak for both his Tar Heels and Mike Krzyzewski’s Blue Devils, if you had followed this season, you know he could have done very well.
No team was good.
No team can make it to the NCAA Tournament.
If you look at a Top 25 college basketball scoreboard and browse Saturday, you see Iowa State-Oklahoma, Alabama-Missouri, Virginia Tech-Miami, Kansas-West Virginia, Florida-LSU, Drake-Valparaiso, Wisconsin-Illinois . , Our Lady of the Lake-Houston, Texas-Oklahoma State, Texas Tech-Kansas State, Pitt-Virginia, Northwest Purdue, Creighton-Marquette, Tennessee-Kentucky and UCLA-USC. Add that up, and there are 15 games with at least one ranked team scheduled to play on Saturday. But North Carolina Duke, widely regarded as the biggest rival in the sport, will not be one of them because the Tar Heels and Blue Devils are not classified.
This is a rare event.
The last time this happened was on February 27, 1960. Mike Krzyzewski was 13. Roy Williams was 9. North Carolina won the game 75-50. The Super Bowl does not exist.
So the obvious question is … why?
Why are Duke and UNC, who were both in the top 20 of the AP Top 25 poll before the season, lower in the same season for the first time in more than 60 years in the same season? Answer: COVID-19.
Due to the pandemic, most freshmen from coast to coast did not arrive on campus as early as usual, and none of them received as many foreign instructions as usual. There were no investigations or exhibitions to improve the development. Schedules are summarized. It should therefore not be too surprising that teams that rely heavily on freshmen had a rougher thing than teams that relied on players who were in the pre-pandemic.
That brings me back to Duke and UNC.
Three of Duke’s top four scorers are freshmen – DJ Steward, Jalen Johnson and Jeremy Roach. And four of North Carolina’s top six scorers are freshmen – Caleb Love, Day’Ron Sharpe, RJ Davis and Kerwin Walton. Now compare that to the country’s two best teams, Gonzaga and Baylor. Six of Gonzaga’s top seven scorers are not freshmen, four of whom were in the program last season. And each of Baylor’s top seven scorers are not freshmen who were in the program last season.
It is no coincidence.
Teams with experienced talent (like Gonzaga and Baylor) are doing well this season, while those who are heavily dependent on first-year players (like Duke and North Carolina, not to mention Kentucky) are struggling greatly, and the way the pandemic is developing affected. is the biggest reason why.
“There’s no doubt about it,” LaPhonso Ellis, ESPN college basketball analyst, told me Thursday. “They did not have the summer to practice together, to build chemistry with each other. So teams that … rely heavily on newcomers were brought about by COVID and the inability to have summer, autumn and then exhibitions teaches how to playing with each other, to a built-in continuity … And I think that’s why we saw … those guys are really struggling, because they did not get the chance to gel.
Given the theory, this may be exactly what Duke and North Carolina currently need, that is, a game against another struggling team that is heavily dependent on poorly equipped freshmen. Because that’s exactly what Duke and North Carolina are now – struggling teams that are heavily dependent on poorly equipped freshmen.
Either way, let’s go!
It will be North Carolina on Saturday against Duke who is not ranked.
May the better OK team win.