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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!duke!mcnc!unc!bch
From: bch@unc.UUCP (Byron Howes )
Newsgroups: net.sport.hoops
Subject: Observations the last week
Message-ID: <6603@unc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Jan-84 13:03:26 EST
Article-I.D.: unc.6603
Posted: Mon Jan 16 13:03:26 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Jan-84 01:08:22 EST
Organization: University of North Carolina Comp. Center
Lines: 70

Since there hasn't been much traffic on this group beyond a somewhat
out-of-date netnews poll, it's time to stir up folks again with some
comments on recent events.

While I am certainly biased, it seems to me that North Carolina has
proven it deserves a #1 ranking (despite Kentucky's having been blown
all the way back to Rupp Arena by Auburn) by virtue of back-to-back
wins over the #5 and #12 teams in the country on *their* home courts.
Sam Perkins is making a strong bid to replace teammate Michael Jordan
as player of the year in anybody's poll.  Still, expect Carolina to go
through its annual mid-season slump sometime in the next month.  I
can't believe that any team is going to make it through the season
unbeaten.

DePaul's rout of Ala-Birmingham insures they'll be ranked #2, though
they are a hard team to evaluate.  From what I've seen of them they are
a typical DePaul team:  excellent shooters and garbage players (that's
a compliment) but somewhat slack on defense and discipline.  Of course,
Ray Meyers is everybody's sentimental favorite in his last year.

Georgetown got hit by Villanova in 2 OT.  The Big East conference,
while not the overall power conference that it was last year seems
still to be playing quality ball.  Considering that John Pinon has gone
on to better things, one would have thought that Pat Ewing would have
had a field day on the front line.  Not so.  Villanova is a well
disciplined club and Fred Brown is still looking for members of the
opposing team to pass the ball to.

I can't take Houston seriously.  (I'm certain I'll live to eat those
words.)  They seem to have gotten over team dissention and defections,
but with all the talent they have they ought to be rolling over the
teams they're playing.  Guy Lewis gets my vote for greatest non-coach
of the year, though N.C. State's Jim Valvano is in close contention!
(Are these the same two coaches who were in the NCAA finals last year?)

Up from the ranks of the non-coaches is Lefty Dreisel.  Maryland has an
excellent team but lacks depth.  Lefty has been doing a more than
adequate job of coaching, probably because for the first time in as
long as I can remember he has a team that can *be* coached.  (Everyone
seems to forget that Dreisel has the second highest winning percentage
in the ACC.)

UTEP is a completely unknown quantity to me.  I haven't seen them play
at all, but by all reports they are quite good.  Has anybody seen them?

UNLV needs to get into another conference.  They may be good, but they
can't prove it with the schedule they play.  I've only seen them play
once and they look like a typical Tarkanian team (second cousin to a
typical Ray Meyers team.)  I realize that bump-run-and-shoot basketball
is a popular style, but it tends to fold up and go home in the face of
intense and skilled defense.

Finally, (and this more for the local area) N.C. State is in *big
trouble.*  All of the basic skills which held them in good standing in
the pre-season seem to have disappeared.  They don't have that much
less talent than the rest of the ACC and there isn't any reason they
should be 0-5 in the conference, save that they're doing weird things.
My own guess is lack of coaching.  Why is Lorenzo Charles wandering out
somewhere around mid-court when he is most effective underneath?  Why
isn't anyone setting screens for Terry Gannon?  Where is the control
and patience that marked this team the end of last season and the
beginning of this one?  Anyone have an answer?


				Flame away,  I love it
-- 

					Byron Howes
					UNC - Chapel Hill
					(decvax!duke!unc!bch)