Atta boy, Dino!

Way back in the infancy of this blog we wrote here about Dino Gaudio who had just taken over as head coach of the Wake Forest men’s hoops program from his friend and mentor, Skip Prosser who passed away after a morning jog in July. This was notable as Skip Prosser was a fellow alum from Seminary and we were friends with a fellow Seminarian who played for coach Prosser in high school.

We followed and rooted for Prosser’s teams at Xavier and Wake Forest as our love for college hoops was highlited by the fact that one of our guys, from an institution not known for much of anything in the way of athletics, was experiencing tremendous success against the highest levels of competition.

Anyway, we blanched a bit when in Coach Gaudio’s first press conference he likened the upcoming season to a “storybook season” and a “Shakespearean play”…. Wow. That’s good work if you can get it but the pre-ordaining seemed risky at best.

We mention all this because the Demon Deacons notched their first signature win of the season upending #2 Duke last night, 86-73 and putting the Dekes at 16-8 overall and 6-5 in the ACC. That win last night played Wake Forest onto the bubble for upcoming tournament consideration although ESPN’s Bracketologist, Joe Lunardi doesn’t have them “in”. Mock bracket, here.

Who do we like? If you stuck a gun to our head we’d put Memphis, Kansas, UNC and UCLA in the Final Four right now.

Memphis is insanely athletic but we don’t like the fact that they play in a very weak Conference USA. They escaped UAB Saturday night with a one-point win setting up a No. 1 v. No. 2 showdown against Tennessee this Saturday night in Memphis. We reserve the right to shake-up our Final Four predictions depending on the outcome of this game.

Kansas and UNC are probably the most balanced teams we’ve seen this year. Too much talent on both these squads and anything short of an Elite Eight appearance should be considered disappointing.

And for years of suffering through Jim Harrick and Steve Lavin-coached UCLA teams that though physically-gifted, always lacked focus and purpose, its so nice to see a Bruin team coached by Ben Howland that has a plan each and every offensive possession and one that plays perhaps the stickiest and most fundamentally sound man-to-man defense in the nation. Also, for not quite being old enough to recall Bill Walton's play at UCLA, its nice to be able to watch and enjoy freshman center Kevin Love do many of the same things we're told by those that did watch Walton.

And Duke? One might think we set up this entire post to rip Duke. That person would be wrong but also couldn’t be blamed for that sneaking suspicion because, in our alleged mind, Duke really is the Notre Dame of college hoops. Afterall, we thought that the Dookies #2 ranking before last night’s loss was a tad misleading because of, in part, the name on the front of the uniform.

It may seem ironic to state this but Duke doesn’t matchup athletically, 1 through 7 or 8 on the roster, very well against the aforementioned teams. For whatever reason, rigorous admission standards, being the excuse we hear the most, Duke’s offense the past 4-5 years has essentially been a spread-the-floor, drive, draw and kick-it-back-out for a 3-pointer system. A system that is employed, we believe, because the Dookies do not have the athletic swingman-type ballplayer that can create his own shot for open jumpers or take it strong to the tin for layups and dunks.

This system has been borne of necessity and refined by Coach K after spending time with Coach Mike D’antonio of the Phoenix Suns this past summer as an assistant on the Olympic team coaching staff and who himself brought it over from Europe in his days as a player there.

If the outside shot is falling, everything is peachy…. If its not then it could spell another early exit in the tourney. To wit, Duke was 8-28 from behind the arc last night for 29%.