Originally Posted by
gumbomoop
A few comments on SilkyJ's question - which we've been discussing off and on all season - re who will guard a Barnes-type SF.
First, it's a good thing there aren't many such SF's; but sure enough, UK has the wonderful Gilchrist, and tOSU has Buford. Then there's Barnes. Maybe there are another 5-10 superb SFs, but I doubt it.
IMO, an opinion I offered in the UNC pre-game thread, Autin Rivers is our best bet. I wouldn't count on him for 35 minutes in such a role, and am glad K rotated many guys on Barnes in the second half.
But Rivers is quick, smart, court-aware, spirited, enthusiastic about being counted on both to score and defend. Austin is having a lot of fun right now, and that's among the reasons he hit the shot. But it's also why he had fun when matched with Barnes off and on in the first half. Perhaps many of you have noticed just how much Austin has improved, since China, on D, but I've noticed only in the last couple of weeks.
For this specific question, I offer Austin as a significant part of the answer. I am aware that, were Austin to be asked to fill this role for 35 minutes, game after game, we'd worry that his O would suffer from exhaustion. But Austin, easily more than any other player [only Miles, maybe, compares], is physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually equipped to run all game long, or close to it. And he's easily the player who, even running all game long, is least likely to be ineffective on O.
In one obvious sense, what I'm claiming here is hardly surprising, for Austin has the top mpg average on the team, 2 mpg more than anyone else. He doesn't seem to get exhausted. His O is way ahead of his D, but his D is now pretty decent.
He's not "the answer" to the SF-problem, just a part of it. There's no good answer, so K simply has to manufacture a plausible-least-bad answer, as he did against UNC. I don't know that K has much choice but to rotate guys when Duke plays Barnes, Gilchrist, Buford, whoever else. But I saw nothing Wed eve that leads me to believe that Austin would be outmatched more than other options. And while UNC had other, non-Barnes, options when faced with the the reverse-task of guarding Duke's sort-of-SF [Bullock, Zeller....], maybe some teams wouldn't have so many stellar options themselves.