Duke rebounding from adversity...
A lady at a grocery store was hagging me about my Duke T-Shirt. She loudly proclaimed "You need to be a Carolina Fan, everybody loves UNC". I responded, "Yes, your are right, there are more UNC fans but Duke fans are like the MARINES...The Few and The Proud" and we support our teams with honor and true integrity unlike UNC and their multitude of "bandwagon fans".
Anyway, we lost out on HB but keeping up with the theme of the Marines, Duke will adjust and adapt to the current situation. We've responded well from adversity before and will continue to do so.
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced" - James Baldwin
quick tangent on the center position
I think Miles fits the bill pretty darn well. I love having him at the five. He'll probably be 6-10, 240-odd for the next 3 years, which is certainly big enough for a center, but IMO he plays even bigger than that due to his extremely quick jumping ability and affinity for physical contact. I'm doing my best not to get excited until we play some real teams with big guys that are his size, but it's nice to finally have a "beast" under the basket. I loved when the UNC-G big guy tried to get tough and back him down on an iso, and Miles just stood him up, cuffed his shot and threw it back down into his face.
If he can learn to a) avoid picking up body-contact fouls on defense and b) learn some power post moves like a drop step that would make use of his explosiveness around the rim, I really think he'll develop into a huge presence down low. He'll probably never be a polished, HansWow-type 20 ppg scorer, but it just helps everything else so much when you have an agile, mobile and hostile big guy holding down the fort inside.
I wouldn't necessarily have been scared of a Shavlik Randolph or Josh McRoberts if I was an opponent, or really even Shelden Williams. However, I just wouldn't really want to mix it up with Miles... he's the kind of athlete that can just embarrass you.
Just looking at uncommitted prospects...
What the heck happened to Kendall Williams? I remember he was a 5 star prospect who committed to UCLA real early. I can't find why but does anybody know why he's no longer committed there?