Coaches vs. Cancer Recap

Attending the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic at Madison Square Garden in recent years has been an easy sell given the teams involved and the location. This year was no different as Duke, UCLA, Michigan, and Southern Illinois comprised the field. Duke faced off against So. Illinois in the first game on Thursday night, while Michigan took down UCLA in the second game. Unfortunately Friday’s finale didn’t provide the top 10 showdown I was looking for between Duke and UCLA, but at least it wasn’t Duke who went home packing.

Duke

Duke brings most of its talent back from last year. Generally I’m as hard on Duke as any person out there, but that’s because I expect greatness. This year shows me the continued lack of recruiting elite interior athletes, but we’ll get to that in a minute. We start at the PG position where Nolan Smith has taken over for Greg Paulus, who moved to the bench for the good of the team. Smith is able to push the offense better than Paulus because of his speed and athleticism. We won’t know about his clutch decision-making until he’s down three points at Chapel Hill with 3 minutes to go against the Tar Heels. John Scheyer is the same player as last year. One can only hope he becomes a little more consistent. Gerald Henderson is a monster athlete, but unlike contributor Ravi Singh, I don’t believe he has a good enough jump shot to make it a consistent threat. One has to wonder if he’s ever recovered from his hand troubles during his freshman season.

The key to the team lies with Kyle Singler. He’ll need to raise his level to that of All-American if Duke is going to make the Final Four. He’s got a well rounded offensive game and has put on some muscle. He also drives the ball to the basket more than he did last year. Brian Zoubek has some decent post moves, but he’s still a little soft. Lance Thomas is a complete stiff. And here lies the problem… Duke can still get owned in the paint like it did last year. The incoming freshman consist of Elliot Williams, a flashy SG who isn’t getting enough playing time, Oleg Czyz, a SF who might not see much of the floor, and Miles Plumlee, a C who Coach K talked up before the season and isn’t playing as much now. I don’t think they have enough of an inside presence to deal with better teams. It’s the same issues they’ve had since Carlos Boozer graduated many moons ago. I’ve already spent two paragraphs on this team and I know I will talk about them much more this season, so I’ll spare the rest. They were good enough to pull away in both games while not looking overly dominant.

UCLA

The Bruins were a major disappointment at the Garden. It’s hard to imagine they were projected as the #4 team before the season after losing Kevin Love, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, and Russell Westbrook. Their great recruiting class carried the ranking seemingly. If the recruiting class doesn’t play, the team can’t be as impacted, right? Jrue Holliday is going to be a good player, maybe even later this season, but he’s not there yet. He’s got all the tools and he’ll need to become UCLA’s dominant scorer for them to go anywhere. Darren Collison needs to be much more aggressive for this team to be effective. Josh Shipp isn’t as good as he was three years ago. James Keefe and Alfred Aboya are decent role players, but UCLA is back to the guard team without a post presence. The bench has decent depth with Michael Roll and freshman Malcolm Lee. J’Mison Morgan was supposed to be the answer, but the freshman barely played in NYC. This could be a down year for the Pac Ten.

Michigan

Coach Beilein is in his second year at Michigan and is starting to round his team into form. It didn’t seem as if the Wolverines were completely set up in the typical Beilein offense, but they were able to defeat UCLA with the help of a last minute back-door play that resulted in a layup. Sophomore wing player Manny Harris seems to be the most skilled on the Michigan roster, showing offensive versatility on the drive and from the outside. He is a little slender for his height, so he might get beat up by older, stronger players. Stu Douglass is a fan favorite and showed a well rounded game against UCLA. He was completely neutralized by Duke, who put Kyle Singler on him for most of the championship game. There’s not much on the interior to speak of. Junior Deshawn Sims provides some energy, but limited skill as Michigan’s most effective post player. I’ll skip the rest of the supporting cast because no one stood out enough to be mentioned. Michigan will be more competitive and they definitely took advantage of an overhyped UCLA team. After watching Duke trounce them in the final, however, I can’t give them too strong of an endorsement. We’ll see how they handle the Big Ten schedule.

Southern Illinois also partook, but I was more focused on Duke and other than Carlton Fay, who still missed too many shots, no one was memorable. I wouldn’t expect Southern Illinois to do much damage in the MVC this year.