Duke Looked Average Sunday

The world is almost over.  Duke basketball has loss four games on the season and have not played Carolina once yet this year.  The last time they had four losses before the Carolina game Coach K took the rest of the season off to have his back operated on and that season they finished with 14 losses but they were 9-3 when coach K hit the sidelines.

Duke has a problem all teams have that don't have a point guard to get the ball to the right player at the right time.  Yes, they have a couple that can score twenty giving the ball to themselves but it takes more than 20 to win ACC games.  When you compound the fact that those guards that can get points for themselves can't stop the other teams guard with any defense at all Duke has major problems.  The best thing they have going is a coach that can find a way most nights to hide his deficiencies.

Duke is famous for their chest to chest defense 35 feet from the basket but this team can't do that.  So when you have guards penetrating to the basket Duke does not have a defensive stopper  standing five feet from the basket to stop that drive.  Duke could lose eight to ten games by Tournament time unless coach K find a miracle in his bag of tricks.

I tell you this before I speak I am not an Eli Manning fan  but he have to give him his due he came up big when it was needed in the Super Bowl..  Not only is Eli a Manning but he plays in New York so everything is magnified as to how great he is over reality.  Only twice in his eight year career has he had a quarter back rating over 90 and he had a 92 plus this year. His Career he is at 82 which is the NFL average.

This year everyone talked of poor year that Philip Rivers had and yet he finished with an 88 rating  which is the second worse of his career.  His 95.5 is the fourth best of all time in qb ratings.  Eli had a good year this year but he needs to come back and stay in the 90's for the rest of his career if he wants to be thought of as an elite.  Eli probably had his best year ever this year.  Let's see it again next year.

Monday night the Gryphon basketball teams were in Durham to watch the slaughter of Duke's victory over Carolina in Womens basketball  by 40 points.  Tonight their mind needs to be on Southern Nash as it is senior night.