From: gary@ccs.northeastern.edu (Gary Duhaney)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.college
Subject: Re: Necessity of a Big Man
Date: 14 Sep 92 15:48:50 GMT
Organization: Comp. Sci. @ NU

In article <5282@news.duke.edu> trradrx@canctr.mc.duke.edu writes:
>In article <1992Sep11.203326.19976@random.ccs.northeastern.edu>, gary@ccs.northeastern.edu (Gary Duhaney) writes:
>[about Grant Hill]
>>I did.  Heck he was wide open and is an excellent player.  I've always
>>credited him as the major difference that made Duke that good a team.
>>The guy does what the team needs.  If it's scoring, rebounding, tip-ins,
>>blocked shots, defense or playing the point, he seems to always come up
>>with it.  Too bad he's on Duke, more people would realize how good he is.
>
>Grant Hill is certainly an excellent player with unlimited potential.  
>However, I truly think that he has yet to truly tap that potential.  His

Same here.

>outside shooting is not the equal of Laettner's, and he must develop his
>post game a bit more.  Most of all, he sometimes shows a lack of aggression
>on the court, a "killer instinct", if you will.  To some degree, he may have
>been deferring to other players on that team, but sometimes he actually seems

He needs a Chuck Person blood infusion.  I do think he leaves the scoring
to Laettner and Hurley.  Whether its K's design or not, beats me.

>timid on the court.  Next year, he will be expected to be the leading scorer
>on the team, and he will need to become the kind of clutch shooter that
>Laettner was.  He will also need to stay healthy.  Hill has missed seven 
>games so far in his career, and been ineffective due to injury in several
>others.  Laettner only missed one game in his entire career.  Hill may go
>on to eclipse Laettner's feats at Duke and in the pros, but Laettner was the
							 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>big reason Duke went back to back.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Gotta disagree with you on that one.  Hill provides better defense and he
does score when needed.  It was he who gave Augmon fits in the game against
UNLV, and he was still fast enough to help out on D.  In that game coach K
had Laettner sticking closer to UNLV's center Ackles so that he'd never get
into foul trouble.  I'll give that Laettner was more of a force here than
Grant, but without Grant I don't think that Duke would be been able to
pull what they did.  (Note, I'm not saying that Duke would loose, so lets
not argue a moot point).

I still say LJ must have hid Koubek's lunch (reference to Fox's Parker
Lewis Can't Loose's Larry Koubiak).

Had it not been for Hurley and Hill Duke would have lost in the Semis.
Hurley provided the scoring and Grant provided D, and rebounding.  He had
a few tip-ins that really helped Duke.

As for the final game, Duke would not have beat Michigan had it not
been for Grant Hill.  No one else on that team did all that much.  Take
away Grant Hill's 25pts and Duke looses.  Take away Laettners 21 pts
and Duke wins.  Add whatever would have resulted from him playing defense
and not turning the ball over 7 times from shear stupidity (they were all
unforced turnovers where he was extremely careless) in the first half and
Duke wins big time.  (Coach K must have reminded about the draft).

I remember that at one time Michigan finally started to make a run, they
were tearing aparts Dukes defense with passes, and just when they thought
they had an easy basket, Grant Hill toses some players shot.  The guy
was wide open.  That ended that run.

In the second half, it seems to me that he did defer quite a bit of the
scoring to Laettner and Hurley.  And that's all the media reported.
How Laettner lead Duke to the championship by coming alive in the second
half.  Hell he almost threw the game away in the first.  This is why I
say that he wont get the credit on Duke for all he does.

Now, I'll give you that Laettner provided a good share of team leadership
and points, but in the final 2 games last year he was nowhere to be found
except for the second half stint after Michigan had already collapsed.

>
>Robert Clough, DUMC (though certainly not speaking for them)
>     "In the future, there will be fewer, but better, Russians"--J. Stalin