MOTM: Duke vs. Army (Nov 11, 2018)

[JBDuke]

Who was Man of the Match in Duke's win over Army this afternoon?

[LasVegas]

Zion. Easy pick. Enough said.

[proelitedota]

Anyone not picking Zion should be treated as a deserter.

[devildeac]

Close the poll. Unanimous. :rolleyes:;)

[Native]

Zion.

Honorable mention to Bolden, who I thought had some nice flashes on defense today.

[AGDukesky]

Zion easily

[jipops]

Zion is so good that even with Cam setting a freshman record for 3’s made in a game... I gotta pick Zion.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Zion is so good that even with Cam setting a freshman record for 3’s made in a game... I gotta pick Zion.

...he's simply creating a new paradigm....

[MCFinARL]

Zion is off to a great start and surely deserves to be the MOTM. If he can learn to tip his blocked shots to teammates instead of out of bounds, he will be even better.

[MChambers]

Zion is off to a great start and surely deserves to be the MOTM. If he can learn to tip his blocked shots to teammates instead of out of bounds, he will be even better.

You mean when he doesn’t simply engulf them?

[MCFinARL]

You mean when he doesn’t simply engulf them?

Yes, that's a fair qualification of my statement. :)

[LasVegas]

Anxiously watching this poll.....

[kAzE]

devilseven with the Jack White vote :D

If THIS game wasn't unanimous, it will never happen.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

devilseven with the Jack White vote :D

If THIS game wasn't unanimous, it will never happen.

When it's 51-0, it's okay to give Jack a vote....kind of like honorable mention.

[Ggallagher]

I'm not sure that it makes any sense to say something like, "To truly appreciate Zion..." He's just so far off the charts that's he's nearly impossible to describe.

But for the fun of it, if you want to truly appreciate what he does try watching a few of his plays in stop action. There were two that I wanted to see again after the game so I watched them kind of frame by frame.

At about 7;30 left in the first half, Zion dunked the ball on a lob pass. He jumped from about halfway down from the foul line. He was still rising right as he dunked it.

Then there was that monster block-swat with around 8:30 left in the second half. It looked like he just exploded off the floor when he decided to go for the block. By the time the Army guy got into form for his shot, Zion's waist was at the same height as the Army's player's head.

Fortunately no one was in the line of fire for that block. It was kind of a lethal swat. That guy is just amazing.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Zion. Monster first half carried the team scoring wise, and his rebounding and shot blocking in the second half sealed the deal! :cool:

Loved his rebound and drive the full length of the court lay up! Reminded me of when Brian Zoubek did it! :rolleyes:

[subzero02]

Cam scored 22 points against Kentucky... he scored 25 points against Army on 7 of 13 shooting from 3... over the 2 games he has received a combined 3 votes for MOTM. Hopefully he begins to fly above the radar nationally and maybe one day he'll break the double digit barrier in terms of MOTM votes.

[KenTankerous]

Cam scored 22 points against Kentucky... he scored 25 points against Army on 7 of 13 shooting from 3... over the 2 games he has received a combined 3 votes for MOTM. Hopefully he begins to fly above the radar nationally and maybe one day he'll break the double digit barrier in terms of MOTM votes.

We soooo spoiled.

Our second and third best MOTM, out-score, out-rebound, out-assisted the opposing top three players in the arena

Shut Up and enjoy what is happening in Cameron.

It's beautiful.

[elvis14]

Cam scored 22 points against Kentucky... he scored 25 points against Army on 7 of 13 shooting from 3... over the 2 games he has received a combined 3 votes for MOTM. Hopefully he begins to fly above the radar nationally and maybe one day he'll break the double digit barrier in terms of MOTM votes.

It's not that we don't appreciate Cam, it's that after a game we do a "Man Of The Match" poll not a "Man Who Did Really Well But Not As Well As A Teammate" poll. Cam's played 2 great games and has been outplayed by Zanos in both, by RJ (and perhaps Jack and Tre) in the first. Cam's day will come, in the mean time, he's playing well and we all hope that continues.

[budwom]

Weird dynamic here where we have to, by definition, pick one guy, thereby leaving everyone else open to underappreciation. So I'm not picking anyone, I like all these guys.
Some have better games than some other guys.

[jv001]

The best player on the court diving for the ball. The player that's 6'7" and weighs around 275 lbs. I liked what one of the announcers said, something like, Zion has the fire that Barret and Reddish doesn't have yet.

My vote was for Zion. GoDuke!

[flyingdutchdevil]

The best player on the court diving for the ball. The player that's 6'7" and weighs around 275 lbs. I liked what one of the announcers said, something like, Zion has the fire that Barret and Reddish doesn't have yet.

My vote was for Zion. GoDuke!

I disagree with Barrett. Barrett has plenty of fire; he just used it in the wrong way on Sunday. By "wrong way", I mean he made plenty of mistakes and didn't look for teammates much, if at all.

[MCFinARL]

I disagree with Barrett. Barrett has plenty of fire; he just used it in the wrong way on Sunday. By "wrong way", I mean he made plenty of mistakes and didn't look for teammates much, if at all.

I agree that Barrett has plenty of fire--and to be completely fair, he scrambled for some loose balls himself on Sunday. Just about everyone on this team seems like they are willing to hustle, which is great.

[Newton_14]

Easy choice for this game. Zion is one of those players (and person for that matter) that only comes around once in a lifetime. Everyone should recognize and appreciate that and squeeze as much enjoyment as humanly possible out of every second he is on the floor this season. We may live the rest of our lives and not see another player with a skill set like Zion's. His size, athletic ability, agility, strength, touch around the basket, timing, hand to eye coordination, to go with his motor, effort, and desire to beat the opponent on both ends of the court is all off the charts and unlike anything I have ever seen in a player save for Michael Jordan. Zion wants to win every single little competition on the floor whether on offense or defense, and he gets extremely pissed when he loses even the least important of those battles.

He is just a very very unique player. He was dominant on both ends of the floor yesterday.

Runner-up for me goes to Cam Reddish. Cam so far flies under the radar in our games because the announcers spend so much time talking about RJ and Zion. Yet you look up with 7 minutes to go in a game and Cam has like 22-25 points and 5 assists or something.

Speaking of announcers, these guys from almost any announcing crew continue to get worse and worse about not following the action on the court and talking about anything and everything except the action on the floor. That is beyond annoying. We are almost to the point where there is no longer value in having announcers for games. They do nothing to add value or assist the audience in understanding what is going on out there on the court. I miss the announcers from back in the day more and more as each season passes.

[MCFinARL]

Speaking of announcers, these guys from almost any announcing crew continue to get worse and worse about not following the action on the court and talking about anything and everything except the action on the floor. That is beyond annoying. We are almost to the point where there is no longer value in having announcers for games. They do nothing to add value or assist the audience in understanding what is going on out there on the court. I miss the announcers from back in the day more and more as each season passes.

Have to agree with this. As great as Zion is, I was dismayed to hear the announcers go on and on--and on--about him and the other Duke frosh while only occasionally bothering to mention the action on the floor and the very capable, gritty game played by the Army team.

[kAzE]

Easy choice for this game. Zion is one of those players (and person for that matter) that only comes around once in a lifetime. Everyone should recognize and appreciate that and squeeze as much enjoyment as humanly possible out of every second he is on the floor this season. We may live the rest of our lives and not see another player with a skill set like Zion's. His size, athletic ability, agility, strength, touch around the basket, timing, hand to eye coordination, to go with his motor, effort, and desire to beat the opponent on both ends of the court is all off the charts and unlike anything I have ever seen in a player save for Michael Jordan. Zion wants to win every single little competition on the floor whether on offense or defense, and he gets extremely pissed when he loses even the least important of those battles.

He is just a very very unique player. He was dominant on both ends of the floor yesterday.

You are probably right that we will never see another copy of Zion, but I think he's on a similar tier to a guy like LeBron in terms of the size/athleticism/skill combo.

These guys come along about once every 15 years, so something like once per generation. First it was Shaq, then LeBron, and now Zion. If (HUGE if) he has a pro career even close to those other 2 guys, there's a chance he could go down as the greatest Duke player of all time.

There will be another. Not exactly like Zion, but we'll get another one of these in the next 15 years hopefully.

[Devilwin]

I don't think we were near as sharp against Army as we were against UK, that is for Zion. Maybe a bit of a hangover type deal I am guessing..

[Newton_14]

I don't think we were near as sharp against Army as we were against UK, that is for Zion. Maybe a bit of a hangover type deal I am guessing..

Agree. I mean if you think about it they had no where to go but down after the UK game. I read an article a few years back that opined that with college teams they play about 5 games a year at or near their ceiling, 5 games where they lay an egg, and the other 20 is a better read on who they really are. I think that is a sound analysis based on what we see each season.

[Indoor66]

Agree. I mean if you think about it they had no where to go but down after the UK game. I read an article a few years back that opined that with college teams they play about 5 games a year at or near their ceiling, 5 games where they lay an egg, and the other 20 is a better read on who they really are. I think that is a sound analysis based on what we see each season.

Or what some might call a glittering generality.