Ricky Price

[delfrio]

It may also be informative to point out Ricky's freestyle rapping skills. I would say they mimicked his on-court performance: quite agile with a loose handle.

[kexman]

My memory is a little foggy, but my recollection was that at times he was the most dominating player on the court. Henderson reminds me a little of ricky price in the sense that I think Henderson could get his shot almost anytime he wanted it.
I always thought that Price's problem was in his head and with focus. I don't remember which year or years, but he would have absolutely amazing halfs where he would score 20 points and than not score at all in the other half. He would also have games where he scored 2 points. He would have amazing stretches where you could see the dominant player that people thought he might/could be, but it was never consistant.

[BobbyFan]

Still remember freshman year, when Dickie V kept predicting the "next Grant Hill".

I remember this too and it was annoying. He certainly got off to a very good start (I believe he scored in double figures in his first 6 games or so, which had rarely been done at Duke). But the Hill comparisons were primarily based on their athleticism and not their actual games.

[miramar]

I went back to John Feinstein's "A March to Madness" (1998) and found the following:

"Krzyzewski was convinced [in 1996] that recruiting was the area in which the program had slipped the most since the back-to-back titles [in 1991 and 1992]. It wasn't that Duke had stopped recruiting highly touted players. Quite the contrary. Each Duke recruiting class had players ranked and lauded by all the recruiting gurus. The difference was that Krzyzewski hadn't had the time to get to know them as well as he had in the past. Then, he sometimes flew with a recruit back to his hometown after a campus visit so he would have extra time to talk to him alone, to get a feeling in his gut about him. But after '91 and '92, he had stopped doing that. There just wasn't time. If he had had the extra time he might have figured out that Greg Newton and Joey Beard were ill-suited for Duke academically and socially. He might have thought twice about Tony Moore's and Ricky Price's ability to handle the school's academic rigor.

Instead, he read the reports on them, saw them play a couple of times, and recognized that each had talent. The rest, he figured, would come. The players were eager to come to Duke, so they were signed. Then, the problems started" (72-73).

I went back and checked and it turns out that Tony Moore was ruled academically ineligible after the first semester of his senior year and ended up averaging 2.5 PPG over his career. I remember Dicky V saying that Joey Beard was the next superstar in the Ferry and Laettner mold, but he only played one full year and averaged 1.3 PPG before transferring to Boston University. Greg Newton had a lot of problems at Duke, but he stuck around for four years and averaged in double figures his last two years. It was really sad to see Ricky Price drop from 14.2 PPG his sophomore year to 2.7 PPG as a senior, so I have to believe that he would have been happier and more successful elsewhere. Since you can't get your undergraduate years back, that's a shame.

[hurleyfor3]

IMO, Ricky flashed great talent early on that was rather similar to G's early flashes.

Ricky singlehandedly caused a meltdown on IC? Wasn't aware of that.

[mkirsh]

"You're called the Wildcats? Well I'm about to get wild on you, cat"
-- Ricky Price to Villanova players, 1996 (unsubstantiated)

Ricky was my year at Duke as well, and it was frustrating to see him sit at the end of the bench his senior year. Much like we all call for Marty, Ricky was instant offense off the bench but was seldom used, and might have been valuable in a certain 31-13 run that ended that year's season (painful to even think about). I seem to recall his main issue of playing too fast - driving into the lane not under control and turning the ball over, and never really found a role on the '98 team with Avery's ability to penetrate. I think we've all seen Coach K over the years tighten his rotation as the season progresses, so I would imagine it's pretty hard to get minutes when you miss the first semester and minutes get harder to come by later in the year. At the time I always thought he should have red-shirted (not sure you can do that with an Academic suspension, but also not sure if it was a Duke or NCAA suspension, or if it even matters), but looking back I don't think he would have cracked the '99 line-up either.

[SharkD]

You might be interested in seeing these -- from the 1995-1996 Duke Basketball Interactive Yearbook CD-ROM.

Click the screencaps to see the interview (.mp4) and Quicktime VR dunks (.mov).

Attachment 270

Attachment 268

Attachment 269

[bjornolf]

I remember Ricky quite well. I also remember the cheating issue. I had a friend in that class, and I knew the TA. He (the TA) let it slip that people were copying off of Ricky, and I remember joking at the time that you'd have to be pretty desperate to copy off a basketball player. That was the great irony of the situation I thought, that he was the one SUPPLYING the information, NOT the other way around.

I also remember his INSANE athleticism. He was easily as athletic as Corey Maggette or Gerald Henderson. The talent was remarkable. He just couldn't ever seem to bring it all together. I've started to kind of see GH as starting to become what Corey and Ricky SHOULD have become. At least, I'm hoping so.

I also seem to recall him getting a LOT of those traveling calls that really quick guys get. His first step was SO fast that the refs just kind of assumed he walked and blew the whistle, but if you watched in slow motion, he didn't move the pivot foot until after he started dribbling. I seem to remember him getting at least one or two of those a game. DM and GH have gotten one or two of those this year. Ricky literally had the fastest first step I ever saw on a basketball court. He could be completely past a defender in the first step and a half of his move. I had never seen anything like it, and haven't since.