It was only one point.
For those of you who watched the Duke-Stanford game, you all know what I'm referring to. For 35 minutes the No. 1 team in the country made the No. 3 team in the country look like a high school team and then in the last five minutes they collapsed.
I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier, and I won't be when it happens later-in the NCAA tournament.
At the beginning of the year, most sources ranked Duke at No. 2 for two reasons. (Mind you these are the same guys who put No. 21 Arizona at No. 1)
However, we were there, as opposed to No. 1, because Boozer wasn't supposed to be in shape and Williams was expected to keep turning the ball over. For those of you who haven't noticed, Williams is playing better than anyone in the country and Boozer has gone games where he hasn't missed a shot.
Countering those anticipated shortcomings and keeping us as high as No. 2 was our depth. Casey Sanders, Nick Horvath, Andre Sweet and Matt Christensen. Heck, we go 10 deep, something we definitely didn't do last year. That, coupled with six of the finest players in the country, and we were back to being legitimate national championship contenders.
They got those two reversed, and now we have problems.
Nevermind the fact Casey Jacobsen hit a great shot or Mike Dunleavy tanked two free throws at the end. It shouldn't have come to that.
It wouldn't have, except for one problem.
Depth.
Or lack thereof I should say. The fact that Duke couldn't hit the ocean shooting from a boat in the waning minutes of the game-shooting 29.4 percent in the second half-can be attributed to the fact coach Mike Krzyzewski only plays six people.
What, only six people! But the numbers clearly show that Shane Battier, who sees the most action, tops the team off at 31.3 minutes per game, a far improvement from Chris Carrawell's 35 last year. Plus, Sanders is averaging 8.8, Christensen 10.0, Horvath 9.0 and Sweet 11.3 minutes per game so obviously the Blue Devils have to be 10 deep just like the experts said.
Now if you look at the Illinois game, those four combined for 10 minutes total, in the first Temple game they topped at seven and against Stanford they totaled eight minutes. The first two were won by a point each and the last one lost by one, and those are the only close games we've had all year.
So the padded stats? Junk minutes from eating cupcakes like Army, Davidson and North Carolina A&T.
Duke may pretend to go 10 deep but it only goes six, and those six are mortals. Thus, they get tired and they shoot lousy and they get into foul trouble and it brings us to the question of the game.
Why, when Boozer fouls out does Battier move over to play center as opposed to Sanders?
It happened with over four minutes left in the game and the natural power forward Battier, who was undermatched by five inches and already had four fouls, took over Boozer's job. As the team leader, he didn't want to foul out that early so he couldn't play tight defense, leaving Stanford center Jason Collins to shoot over Battier like it was practice. And the lead slowly disappeared.
Meanwhile Duhon, the smallish 6-foot-2 freshman, is in, while the 6-11 and 6-10 upperclassmen centers, Christensen and Sanders sit on the bench. I think Duhon is a great player, but where is the logic in that? Why do experienced centers sit on the bench against a team whose smallest frontcourt player is 6-6. Couldn't they at least come throw their weight around against Collins and not let him shoot like it was his birthday.
We have the depth, remember. Or at least we do in small games, when it comes to the big ones we go six deep. Same as a couple years ago and we remember that great team....
So can we ever expect to see Sanders and Horvath in big games-games after the first weekend of the NCAA tournament? They sure haven't been in this year, and if they don't get to play when it matters how can they or their coach ever get confidence in them?
The national championship could be only one point.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.