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It might not look like it, but Blue Devils have athletes

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Jeff Goodman

Jeff Goodman is a senior college basketball writer for FOXSports.com. Check out his Yardbarker blog. MORE>>
 
Updated Nov 30, 2009 12:13 PM ET
     
 

NEW YORK

Jon Scheyer hears it, just as Duke assistant coach Chris Collins did back when he played for the Blue Devils nearly two decades ago. Duke is unathletic. That's what happens when you toss out a lineup with Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Miles Plumlee — three white players — on the floor at the same time for much of the game. No one may want to admit it, but that's the reality. "Yeah," Scheyer said when asked if the team has been labeled as non-athletic because of its abundance of white players. "It definitely could be." "It's a little frustrating," Scheyer added. "It gives you an edge," Collins said. "You want to prove to people they are wrong." But this so-called unathletic Duke club, one that shot under 29 percent from the field and got just 6 points from their top player, Singler, still cruised to a 68-59 victory against No. 13 Connecticut in Madison Square Garden to win the NIT Season Tip-Off. Scheyer is the first to admit he's not a blazing athlete, but he did manage to force ultra-athletic Huskies guard Jerome Dyson into a night in which he needed 19 field goal attempts and nine free throws just to score 15 points. Singler grabbed eight rebounds while a far more athletic Stanley Robinson managed just four. The Blue Devils, as a team, out-rebounded a Huskies team that is one of the most athletic in the nation, 56-43. "They're not very athletic," Robinson admitted. "We're more athletic, but they were smarter than us." "We're pretty athletic," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "Just not as athletic as UConn." Singler is an above-average athlete. Ditto for both Miles and Mason Plumlee. Nolan Smith, Lance Thomas and freshman Andre Dawkins can hold their own athletically against most opponents. "Miles and Mason are really athletic," Scheyer said. "Whoever says our big guys aren't athletic are crazy." Or maybe they're busy staring at 7-foot-1 plodder Brian Zoubek. "Athletically, we can hang with anybody in the country," Smith said. But it doesn't matter. Duke doesn't pass the look test. The game was billed as the first time that a pair of coaches who have won at least 800 wins went toe-to-toe. Krzyzewski vs. Jim Calhoun. A pair of Hall of Famers. The two teams had played just eight times previously, with UConn leaving with bragging rights the last four occasions. All four games were decided by five points or less. But this UConn squad, one that lost Hasheem Thabeet, A.J. Price and Jeff Adrien off last year's Final Four team, wasn't up to the task. They struggled to score in the halfcourt and were unable to make shots from the perimeter. Duke held the Huskies without a 3-pointer, the first time the Blue Devils blanked a team from beyond the arc in nearly four years. The Blue Devils shot a pitiful 29 percent and won, marking the first time that Duke has come out on top while shooting less than 30 percent in the Coach K Era.
"It was a very unusual game," Krzyzewski said. Coach K and No. 7 Duke will head back to Durham with a signature win, but I'm still not ready to proclaim Duke as a Final Four team. It was a watered-down version, in terms of talent, from the last time the two teams met — in the 2004 national semifinal game. That day, the court was loaded with NBA guys — Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva, Hilton Armstrong and Rashad Anderson on one side and Luol Deng, Shelden Williams, J.J. Redick and Chris Duhon on the other. When I asked one NBA general manager how many were on the court this time around, his answer was simple: "I don't know, but zero really good ones." In all fairness, both teams were missing arguably their most talented players. UConn won't have Ater Majok, who will move right into the starting lineup, until Dec. 20. Duke is hoping to get the younger Plumlee, Mason, back sometime in the next week or two from a broken wrist. "Then we'll be even more athletic than people don't think we are," Smith said. With a straight face.

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