assuming it still happens...fingers crossed.
EDIT: Mods, please change title from (Ed 11/25) to (Wed 11/25)
Friends, family, and fanatics, there will (hopefully, thankfully) be basketball THIS WEEK!
The 2020-21 iteration of Duke men's basketball will begin a very unusual season against the Gardner-Webb Running Bulldogs. G-W will be playing their 19th season and 9th under head coach Tim Craft. The Running Bulldogs, from the Charlotte area, have played in the NCAA Tournament once in their history and lost as a 16 seed in the 2018-19 NCAA Tournament to eventual National Champion Virginia. Coincidently, G-W led that game at halftime 36-30 before Cavaliers put their 1-v-16 seed ghosts behind them. They have played twice at Cameron Indoor Stadium, most recently in December 2013 and hold an 0-2 record against the Duke Blue Devils. Last season, G-W put together a 16-16 record but were 11-7 in the Big South, good for 3rd in the conference. Their season ended in a loss on March 6th in the Big South tournament to Winthrop.
KenPom and T-Rank project Gardner-Webb to be a middle-of-the-pack group in the Big South for this upcoming season. Last season, G-W was a pretty good 3-point shooting team thanks to the combination of 6'0" G Jaheam Cornwall and 6'3" G Nate Johnson. Johnson transferred to Xavier during the offseason while Cornwall is set to return for the Running Bulldogs this year.
In the frontcourt, G-W will return a pair of tall but thin forwards in 6'9" Queens, NY native Kareem Reid and 6'8" Martinque native Ludovic Dufeal. Reed is more of the interior player and rim protector while Dufeal is more likely to take a jumper and has a decent 3-point shot. Neither is very beefy and should present a decent matchup for Duke's projected frontline of Matthew Hurt and Jalen Johnson.
Duke should have a fairly easy go of it on Wednesday to kick off the season. I expect the team to be chomping at the bit to someone, anyone else besides intra-squad scrimmages. Gardner-Webb played a fairly slow tempo, so getting out in transition, getting into the passing lanes, and forcing turnover should be an easy formula for Duke in this match. I'm excited to see the team in action for the first time. Let's go Duke!
Last edited by Bob Green; 11-22-2020 at 04:04 PM.
assuming it still happens...fingers crossed.
April 1
Wow. Here we go, I guess.
I feel like I'm really disconnected from this year's team and league.
I had no idea the season was (theoretically) this close. I guess I should get out from under the couch more.
So I have comcast. That means I can't see this game without paying $30 to $80 a month for, e.g., YouTubeTV or Sling or Hulu, etc., is that correct?
There's usually a YouTube TV free trial offer of a week or two...or it appears that there's currently a promotion if you're a Verizon customer for one free month:
https://www.verizon.com/solutions-an...ps/youtube-tv/
I wish I could be more excited for this...I'm super excited to see these guys play, but with the pandemic raging and NC spiking it's highest number of new cases EVER yesterday (around 4,500), I just don't feel like this is going to go well. Both teams are in large cities in NC, and the governor has ordered a limit of 10 people or less in indoor spaces. So how do we have basketball games? I'm fully prepared for this game to be cancelled/postponed at some point before tipoff, but we shall see.
Like several other posters here, I too am having trouble getting real exited about bb starting this week. Maybe after actually watching the game, I might feel different. I hope I do. What I do know is it's going to be very different without fans there. If they don't end up cancelling the season, maybe we'll all get kind of used to it.
As I understand it, it's not available on ESPN3 unless (a) you have a cable company that carries ACCN (i.e., NOT Comcast); or (b) you have one of Hulu, YouTubeTV, FuboTV, AT&T TV, Vidgo, or Sling (with a special package, not part of main bundle). And if you're already paying for cable, the "b" options are prohibitively expensive.
And personally, I'm terrible about canceling free trials. Plus, almost all the non-conference games are ACCN this year, meaning a one-week trial won't really solve my problem. I can't tell from the GoDuke schedule, but I bet a bunch of the league games will also be ACCN. So basically, the feud between ACCN and Comcast will keep me from following Duke basketball at the level to which I've become accustomed. Vintage 2020.
It looks like you'll have to pay an extra $10/mo for the "Sports Extra Package": https://www.sling.com/programming/sp...ast-conference