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Pastimes : Duke Basketball -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Puck who wrote (76)	3/27/2000 8:29:00 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 79

UNC is a very talented team, and thus they were ranked #1 in the nation in many preseason magazines. The way Gut reduced these expectations by the end of the season to simply "hopefully we can make the tournament", and then beat those expectations, would make a modern-day CEO proud. Tom

To: Puck who wrote (76)	3/29/2000 10:56:00 AM
From: tarheel4life	Respond to of 79

Thanks Puck, I would like to say that I predicted the Heels to go this far in the Tournament, but that would be a blatant untruth. After the way they played in the ACC Tournament, I was ready to just get the basketball season over. I must admit, I am a little ashamed of myself. Even, though, I wasnt on the Guthridge bashing bandwagen like some, I was critical of a lot of things he was doing, and he HAS totally vindicated himself. Ironically, there are a lot of similarities between the first couple of years of Dean's tenure, and this year with Gut. I still have to say that Michigan St. is the team to beat. I picked them from the start, and they are my only Final 4 pick left. However, I wouldnt be surprised at all if Wisconsin upset them. They are so well coached, but I think in the long run, the athletes of Michigan St. will be too much. When I start looking at picking winners in the NCAA tournament, I always start with teams who have veteran leadership at the point guard. They always seem to go the farthest in the tournament, and there has been little exception to that this year. I think what hurt Duke was the combination of inexperience at the point guard, (not taking away anything from Jason Williams, who had a tremendous freshman season), and relying so much on 3point shots, due to only having one really physical guy in Boozer on the inside. Florida was able to take away both aspects of that in their win. Plus, they wore Duke down, by throwing waves of players at them, which Kansas was almost able to do. Dare I say, Duke will be EVEN BETTER next year, with Battier, Boozer, Williams, and Dunleavy to build around. Sounds like another #1 seed for them next year. Carolina will totally have to control the tempo against Florida, to have a prayer. And they MUST play defense from the get-go against them. If they can get Florida into a bad shooting night, they wont be able to set that trapping press against the Heels, and Cota should be able to get it into a halfcourt game. Otherwise, it could be a big blowout in Florida's favor. But, no matter what happens from this point, what an unlikely run it has been, and it is a feather in the cap of the ACC, which I think will be a STRONG conference next year.