It's a different game since 2001 b/c all the best players have to come school for at least 1 year (soon to be 2). It's an athlete's game, and I think that's obvious. UCLA was a slightly better Duke on the West coast. They had 1 maybe 2 athletes tops. And when you don't have a knock down 3 point shooter, this game is no surprise.
It has and will continue to be an athlete's game. As great as Duke 2001 was (one of the most underrated college teams of all time), it really only had 1 superior athlete. I'm not sure you'll see that much more.
Obviously you didn't read my post. Duke 2001 is arguably the most underrated college basketball champion of all time. They won every tourney game by double digits. However, you can't say that Boozer, Battier, Dun, and Duhon were great athletes.
2001 is a long time ago. Derrick Rose wouldn't be in this game 3 years ago. Think he made a difference? You need athletes. UCLA was the best team in the best conference, and they got run out of the freaking gym by a conference USA team. Why? B/c Memphis was by far the more athletic team.
Jason Williams. Come on guys. Take a chill pill will ya? Duke 2001 was freaking great. Freaking great. But they weren't amazing athletes, they were great basketball players. But remember the Derrick Roses and Kobe Bryants didn't go to college in 2001. Now they have to, and it matters.
It's a different game from just 7 years ago. You're seeing the impact of kids having to go to school for at least 1 year. And when the rule goes to 2 years, athleticism will be at even more of a premium.
C'mon, Love is a fabulous athle...whoops, he's land bound. Scratch that...
obviously i did read your post -- which was why i responded to it. do you mean that rose wouldn't have been in the 2005 ff like marvin williams wasn't in it?
being the best team in the best conference hardly means that you are the best team in the country. unc was the best team in the best conference last year and they didn't even get to the ff.
i'm not sure what game you were watching but love, collison, westbrook and ship all are incredible athletes. they were plenty athletic enough to have won if they would have let love touch the ball on offense within 25 feet of the basket after memphis's bigs had 3 fouls each.
i do agree with your basic assertion that duke needs to upgrade its talent level if it wants to get back in the ff mix but you really cloud it with absurd statements (eg, that the 2001 is arguably the most under-rated champion -- whatever that is supposed to mean -- and that boozer, battier and duhon aren't great athletes).
you're not paying attention if you thought battier and williams were not great atheletes.
i remember when battier graduated and before the draft, he was attending all the camps along with that "fabulous high school athelete, KWAME BROWN (#1 pick).
they were in atlanta and the team had them running drills...one of the drills was to stand under the basket and dunk the ball repeatedly until they missed or just got too tired to dunk it..
kwame was on one end of the court, battier was on the other end. Brown could not get above the rim on dunk # 57. battier missed his 129th.
he turned to the teams trainers and said. "i guess i'm in better shape than you thought"
..can be defined in various different ways, and we have hashed it over hundreds of times on DBR. But I have always had a hard time with "athletic" being synomous with running and jumping exclusively.
Anyway, it sure didn't seem to me that "athleticism" so defined was the reason for the teams demise this year...
if that's all it took to be a great basketball player, then carl lewis would have been on the dream team. there's a A LOT more to the game than speed and jumping. btw, boozer was incredibly strong in college and i assume that strength is part of this definition of "athlete."
I think you underestimate Battier's athleticism. In the pre-draft workouts in 2001, in the Superman drills, considered to be one of the better evaluators of athleticism, I know for sure Battier out-performed Jason Richardson (super-athletic himself), and I'm pretty sure had the best performance of anyone in the draft. Shane was not necessarily explosive, but he was incredibly athletic - the backhanded tip in the finals, the block of Dixon in the Gone in 54 Seconds game, running down Forte like a Gazelle at Chapel Hill, etc.
Just be you. You is enough. - K, 4/5/10, 0:13.8 to play, 60-59 Duke.
You're all jealous hypocrites. - Titus on Laettner
You see those guys? Animals. They're animals. - SIU Coach Chris Lowery, on Duke
Maryland 2002 had Chris Wilcox and no other big time athlete.
Is Derrick Rose as a freshman that much more superior as an athlete than Gilbert Arenas as a sophomore? Is Chris Douglas Roberts more athletic than Richard Jefferson?
Maybe that 2001 team faced a couple of athletes of the caliber that Memphis put on the floor tonight.
to 2 years in college before going to the league, I think it will help Duke recruiting. Right now the struggle is do you use a lot of effort for a guy that will stay for only one year or do you go after 3-4 year players. If everyone has to stay for 2 years I expect that the effort is worth going after every top recruit.