Originally Posted by
Billy Dat
I attended that last Duke/Zag game and, at the end of that season, despite beating higher ranked teams, I felt like it was the high water mark of the season.
It's hard to get a read on the Zags. The won Maui with a big comeback against Cincinnati, handled Wisconsin easily in the same tournament, and the loss to Wake is kind of tough to read because their 3rd leading scorer, Elias Harris, got thrown out in the 1st half for throwing a forearm into Chas MacFarland's neck (come on, who hasn't wanted to do that?)
The Scheyer/Bouldin match-up should be great to watch, similar in size, both leaders of their teams, seniors, etc.
It's really a match-up of tall backcourts, Gonzaga goes 6'5", 6'5" with their starters, we match-up roughly the same. They are getting 30 of their 80PPG out of their backcourt (Bouldin and Gray).
Back to Harris - he's their best pro prospect and is shedding those freshman cobwebs to start surging. He had a big 27pt game against Davidson in their last game and was described and Chad Ford has an ESPN Insider piece up today that talks about how he's leapt up NBA draft boards with his play.
I am thinking that Singler draws that assignment.
This is a tough one to call. You'd think the balance tips in Duke's favor because of the familiarity with MSG and the "home" crowd, but this Zag team has a pretty high upside and seem to have strength where we have strength.