To me, Andre always seemed to be a player that was caught in the wrong system. He was the closest thing I have seen the last couple of years at Tech to a Duke player, the possessor of skills very similar to those of Chris Carrawell and Nate James. He sure wasn t used the same way, however, and that, to me, is a real shame. The sort of up-tempo style that maximizes athletic ability and is run by Duke and now Virginia in the ACC, and in the Big East by Connecticut, which has used it to become the dominant Big East program for the last decade or so, is taking over.
Teams move quickly down the floor and into their offense.
Players are in constant motion, moving all over the court, hopefully quicker than defenders can react, and the result is often a lay-up or wide open jumper. In the Big East, the old Georgetown physical bump and grind that marked the conference s first decade of existence has been largely abandoned as even the Hoyas discovered that it is a lot easier to run a half-court and inside oriented offense built around centers like Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning when Ewing and Mourning still have eligibility and are actually on the floor. John Thompson was no fool. Most everybody in the BE is scrambling to emulate the style Jim Calhoun runs at UConn, much as most of the ACC is instituting offensive packages quite similar to what Mike Kzryzewski has at Duke. Ricky Stokes is no fool, either.