Thursday, November 20, 2008

Six Thoughts on Duke vs Southern Illinois

Note: I watched the second half on mute while running on the treadmill in our apartment’s exercise room.

-Hustle play of the year
Singler dives out of bounds under the basket to save the ball, nearly throws it out again towards the Duke bench but Henderson dives out of bounds too. Henderson saves the ball a second time and by now Singler has hustled back into the lane and Singler deflects the ball to another Duke player who gets fouled. Folks, Coach K doesn’t just get good players, he gets good players to play hard. This is why I love college basketball.

-Taking flopping to a new level
Mullins of Southern Illinois drove the lane and passed to a big man and then ran out of bounds under the basket to avoid contact. One of the Duke players followed him out of bounds and tried to draw a charge 3 feet outside the out-of-bounds line. Who knew you could flop out of bounds?

-Wow does Gerald Henderson look ripped. If you ignored skill level and experience and just picked the out one guy on the floor who looks like he can physically dominate an opponent, that’s Gerald Henderson this year. And Paulus still looks like the walk-on.

-The game was basically over when Southern Illinois got called for an intentional foul on Singler in the second half. But they really got their money’s worth. Singler who was dunking was flipped 180 degrees and nearly landed on his head. Scary moment for Duke fans but he popped back up.

-Carlton Fay is just an unfortunate name. I mean besides all the obvious problems with the last name Fay, did his parents have to go and name him Carlton?

-Southern Illinois refused to give Duke any open looks, but eventually just fouled out of the game. I’ve seen this before. Sometimes a team just takes the mentality that they refuse to give any open looks and then they give away the game at the free throw line. I’m sure Duke haters will say the free throw disparity was unfair, but I’m pretty sure Southern earned that free throw disparity tonight.