My pick, as always, is the Duke Blue Devils. The defending National Champions blew out a very good North Carolina team in the ACC Championship Game on Sunday and have a legitimate shot at repeating. Sure, they lost Jon Scheyer, Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas to graduation since last year's championship. But Scheyer frankly isn't as athletic as the players that have replaced him -- Seth Curry and Andre Dawkins; and Zoubek and Thomas, while serviceable big men and tougher defensively than what we have now, weren't as good offensively as Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly. And, of course, we returned our best two players, senior stars Nolan Smith (the ACC Player of the Year) and Kyle Singler (last year's Final Four MVP).
If freshman sensation Kyrie Irving can come back from being hurt in time to make a contribution in the tournament, Duke will be a very difficult team to beat. And Irving supposedly was practicing on court at the ACC tournament. So it's a distinct possibility that he could see some time this weekend, and be ready to go full bore by the regionals.
No comments:
Post a Comment