Powell’s Point No. 15

March 10, 2000

That wasn’t the way we would have liked to finish the season last night. You must give Duke credit though, they are a very good team and have a great chance at winning not only the ACC, but the national championship.

First of all they have so many weapons. You can choose to try and stop one of them, but then you are leaving the others open. For example, last night we choose to only help off of Nate James. In this we are saying that when the other guys get the ball, the only defender that can help is the one guarding James. Nate James is a great player for sure, but when we had to choose between Battier, Carrawell, Williams, who are all great shooters, we choose Nate to help off of. Well then Nate James goes for 13 points in the first half, including 3-4 from the three point line.

Then there is Mike Dunleavy, who I think is going to be a great player. He was coming off of mononucleosis, but you would have never of known. He had one of the better games I had seen him play all year. So there were just to many people to stop. I didn’t think that they would even win the ACC Tournament going in, but now I think they will be tough to stop. The only teams that I feel have a chance of stopping Duke are Maryland and Virginia. Another advantage for Duke though is that Virginia and Maryland are in the same bracket, so one will eliminate the other.

I would like to see Virginia win the tournament. I love their intensity and their youthful energy. I think that their depth could also cause some problems for Maryland and Duke if they were to meet later in the tournament, but remember that Duke has today off. I am going to pick Duke over Virginia in the finals.