Best Effort Of Year

The Battling Bishops of North Carolina Wesleyan desperate for a conference win as of now outside looking in on the upcoming tournament got a triple double from junior Adrian Moore 14points, 11 rebounds and 11 assistants was not the whole story tonight.

Freshman center AJ Frye scored almost at will even though guarded by a man three inches taller led the Bishops with 26. Chris Braswell helped open up the middle for Frye rattling home 6 threes ending up with 20 points.

Even with the Bishops humming on offense the Monarchs of Methodist hung tough trailing by  no more than 12 finally falling to the Bishops 79-74.

The Bishops go to 9-8  and 2-4 in conference USS South.  The Monarchs fall to 11-8 and 5-3.

NC State's comeback win at Duke Monday was a major shock to both the Blue Devil and Wolfpack Nations.  Duke's big win Saturday with the return of Jefferson seemed to solidify Duke and N C State has floundered losing to the bottom level teams.

Hillsbough Street had to be closed in Raleigh as students went to the Bell Tower to celebrate the Pack's win.  Is it the turn around point for the Pack?  They have a game in Louisville Saturday.  Beating Duke will not mean a thing if they turn around and lose at Louisville.  I kind of feel like it is an indictment on Duke more than improvement by the Pack.

All of the so called All American high school players in the freshman class for Duke don't seem to know about defense.  The Pack showed when they have the want to on they can beat anybody.  If Duke doesn't improve their defense they will finish in the second division which has not happened since 1995.

Funny isn't it that 1995 was the last time Duke lost to N C State in Durham and coach K was out with a hip replacement back then.  He's out this year too.  One other oddity was Jeff Capel was the guard at Duke in 1995 and now he is acting head coach.

We are halfway through with the high school basketball conference play and Friday night marks two weeks to go in the season.  Northern Nash leads the way in the boys side of the ledger with a 5-0 mark.  Nash Central is second at 4-1 while Fike finishes the top division at 3-2.  Rocky Mount stands 4th at 2-3, Hunt fourth at 1-4 and Southern Nash  sits last 0-5

The halfway point finds Rocky Mount girls 5-0  followed by Nash Central 4-1 and round out the top of the standings is Fike 3-2.  Hunt suffering a three game losing streak is 4th at 2-3 followed by Northern Nash 1-4 and Southern girls conference losing streak has extended to more than two and a half years is 0-5.