***Official ACC basketball thread***

[Assani Fisher]

I think you guys may be underrating Gerald Henderson a bit. To give you an idea of his potential, nbadraft.net has him going in the top 10 of the 2009 NBA Draft(btw they have Singler going #8).

89,969 and counting

[Assani Fisher]

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Maryland just hasn't been the same since winning the national title, what, six years ago? Not sure what it is ... I do think winning that title changed Gary Williams, though, I just don't get the sense he's as motivated or driven now as he was before. But I could be way off.

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No.you're not way off at all. I love Gary, as he pulled this program from NCAA sanctions and the absolute dumps, got mediocre recruits, and turned them into national champions. But it's widely known around this area that Keith Booth and Chuck Driesell do most of the recruiting visits, rather than Gary. He's just not an X's and O's coach, which has been killing us with these lackluster recruits.

I'm not going to completely bag on him for recruiting, as he did pick up some solid ones (going into college) like Mike Jones, Ekene Ibekwe, etc but he has yet to really land a huge recruit which is an ABOMINATION considering the talent that grows up in-county. In last years McD AA game alone there were 4 players that grew up in this county ALONE. Austin Freeman (now at Gtown), went to school less than 10 minutes down the road from UMD, Chris Wright (Gtown) and Nolan Smith (Duke) played together for a year at St. John's which is in DC before switching schools. Beasley went to Riverdale Baptist for several years (teamed up with Nolan Smith for a year too). Add on the fact that Donte Green (Syracuse) is from right up the road in Baltimore and you have 5 impact recruits from the immediate area.

Looking at 2006, you have another 2 IMPACT players from the same county: Ty Lawson and KEVIN DURANT, who both played right in the area (though Lawson went to Oak Hill later in his HS career). For 2005 graduates, there are a number of players dotting starting lineups all over the ACC that are from either in-county or otherwise extremely close: Marcus Ginyard (UNC), Mamadi Diane (UVA), Nigel Munson (Va Tech,etc. From 2004, UMD thought it had Rudy Gay signed sealed and delivered, but then he went to UConn and starred for them. Who else did they miss out from the 2004 class? Oh thats right Roy Hibbert AND Jeff Green.

Do I expect them to pick up every premier player from this area? No of course not, not even close to that. But that's a HUGE number of OUTSTANDING talents to completely swing and miss on. And the fact that so many of em grew up in the same county, where UMD is the biggest college bball program around, is inexcusable. They were known commodities way before their late years in HS, Gary should have been on em hard. I've heard other reports that Durant wanted to come to UMD but for whatever reason received not much interest from the staff. Maybe Gary doesn't like the idea of recruiting one and dones, which I can understand, but at some point you have to take a look around at the changing landscape of college basketball and get with the times, man.


Ok,so here's the final tally of players from 2004 and later that grew up and lived in Prince George's County:

-Austin Freeman
-Nolan Smith
-Chris Wright
-Mike Beasley
-Ty Lawson
-Kevin Durant
-Roy Hibbert
-Jeff Green

And other players who are either not as huge recruits, or are from Baltimore or NoVa:

-Mamadi Diane
-Nigel Munson
-Marcus Ginyard
-Rudy Gay
-Carmelo Anthony

There are plenty other not as huge recruits, but very solid ones, it's just that Diane and Munson came to mind immediately because they also went to HS with Freeman

This is so frustrating. Instead of Rudy Gay we get Will Bowers (both from Archbishop Spaulding) and instead of Kevin Durant we get Greivis Vasquez (both from Montrose Christian)

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Trust me, I totally understand what you're saying. But has Maryland ever really gotten huge recruits? I mean, I always thought their strategy was more to get the 2nd tier guys who will stick around for 4 years rather than go for the top 10 type of guys. Hell, Mike Jones was probably a bigger recruit than Blake/Dixon/Wilcox, no? I guess Steve Francis might count, but he was a JUCO transfer IIRC.


Now I don't know why Maryland does this...is it because they can't land the top recruits or is it truly their philosophy? It is puzzling to see all of the local talent go elsewhere and to see other close schools like Georgetown land so many top recruits while Maryland settles for second tier guys time and time again.

As for the past few years, if Gilchrist stays 4 years and Mike Jones had turned into a superstar like he was supposed to then things may have been a lot different.



P.S. As you can tell, I'm not certain about my statements about Dixon/Blake/Wilcox etc. not being top recruits...can you inform me more on that(as well as some of the other Maryland players)?

89,961 and counting

[RunDownHouse]

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this Kyle Singler kid is ice cold

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He's also as cringe-worthy as UCLA's Mata. They'd both better pray for pro basketball checks.

[tarheeljks]

singler could be a solid nba player if krzyzewski doesn't ruin him

[jthegreat]

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then that is a worthless claim; i claim that our towel boy is better than yours; too bad yours needs to play and ours doesn't b/c we have other good players. do you see where i'm going w/this? at any rate i still don't think your claim is true; you are confusing quality and quantity. just b/c duke plays 6 guard/wings does not necessarily make them better than unc's; duke is doing it for lack of a better option. your case for duke's stronger guard/wing play is not depth, it is kyle singler. singler is better than our best wing, but unc's remaining guards/wings > duke's.

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You still don't understand. You can't play 3 guys for 40 minutes each. You have to sub them out. Duke's subs are much better than UNC's subs. Scheyer was an every-game STARTER last year and is one of Duke's leading scorers from off the bench!

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but lawson and ellington are better than paulus and nelson or henderson.

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Depends on how you mean "better". Ellington certainly scores more (4ppg more than Nelson), but Nelson has way more rebounds and more assists than Ellington. Lawson outscores Paulus, but has more turnovers and shoots 25% from 3-point range to Paulus' 40%.

The comparison is a whole hell of a lot closer than you make it out to be. And Duke's played against much better opposition than UNC has so far this year.

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singler could be a solid nba player if krzyzewski doesn't ruin him

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LOL yeah, because there certainly aren't any successful Duke graduates in the NBA.

[ligastar]

This UNC vs Duke talk is getting old. We could go on forever about this rivalry. We'll let the games decide who the better team is this season. Keep the focus in this thread on the ACC as the ACC is more than 2 teams.

[DCWildcat]

I counted 4 uncalled offensive fouls on Dook last night. Jay Bilas even pointed a hook out, called it a hook...then used it as an example of Nelson's spectacular athleticism...wtf?

[vhawk01]

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then that is a worthless claim; i claim that our towel boy is better than yours; too bad yours needs to play and ours doesn't b/c we have other good players. do you see where i'm going w/this? at any rate i still don't think your claim is true; you are confusing quality and quantity. just b/c duke plays 6 guard/wings does not necessarily make them better than unc's; duke is doing it for lack of a better option. your case for duke's stronger guard/wing play is not depth, it is kyle singler. singler is better than our best wing, but unc's remaining guards/wings > duke's.

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You still don't understand. You can't play 3 guys for 40 minutes each. You have to sub them out. Duke's subs are much better than UNC's subs. Scheyer was an every-game STARTER last year and is one of Duke's leading scorers from off the bench!

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but lawson and ellington are better than paulus and nelson or henderson.

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Depends on how you mean "better". Ellington certainly scores more (4ppg more than Nelson), but Nelson has way more rebounds and more assists than Ellington. Lawson outscores Paulus, but has more turnovers and shoots 25% from 3-point range to Paulus' 40%.

The comparison is a whole hell of a lot closer than you make it out to be. And Duke's played against much better opposition than UNC has so far this year.

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singler could be a solid nba player if krzyzewski doesn't ruin him

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LOL yeah, because there certainly aren't any successful Duke graduates in the NBA.

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So you are weighting based on how many minutes they will likely play this season when you say "duke's 6>UNC's 6" right? Or is your point that if all 6 get equal minutes on both teams, Duke is ahead? Because thats pretty useless.

[MuresanForMVP]

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Osby needs to learn to hold onto the ball/finish and the Terps will be a lot better.

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Hands: you either have em, or you don't. He don't. I'm struggling to see anything positive about Osby's game. He's THAT bad.

[MuresanForMVP]

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P.S. As you can tell, I'm not certain about my statements about Dixon/Blake/Wilcox etc. not being top recruits...can you inform me more on that(as well as some of the other Maryland players)?

89,961 and counting

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I totally see what you're saying to, but UMD recruited 2nd tier, 4 year guys because that's pretty much all the pull they had. If you win the national championship it's time to immediately hit the recruiting trail and pick up some impact players. I dont understand why someone would consciously make the decision to recruit less talented players. Actually, that's wrong I can see why,I just disagree.

Mike Jones was rated the #2 shooting guard in the country behind Lebron James, Ibekwe and Hassan Fofana were both highly regarded as well. That recruiting class was rated highly, but they didn't quite pan out like they were supposed to, I still give Gary credit for getting them though. As for Blake,Dixon,Wilcox, et al Blake was considered a solid recruit, and was pretty well known given that he played at Oak Hill. Dixon was a rail-thin nobody from St. John's Prospect Hall who got virtually zero attention as a potential major college bball player. Wilcox for whatever reason wasn't highly scouted out of highschool either. He grew up in NC and got no attention from any of those state ACC schools. These guys just developed, which is a huge credit to Gary, but you can't expect 2nd tier recruits to just blossom into national championship caliber players.

Terrence Morris, Byron Mouton, Drew Nicholas, Lonny Baxter, etc were all 2nd and even 3rd tier recruits. No players from the 2002,2001 teams were considered "big-time players" out of HS. But man did they turn into em', I'm just kinda droning on now, have a Happy Thanksgiving.


-Juan Dixon is by far my favorite basketball player of all time, that guy was just...[censored] epic. Juan always had an answer in the big games. Dixon yo' mouth