By Caulton Tudor
Raleigh News and Observer
Recruit quickness, as quickly as possible.
In a sentence, that’s the lesson Atlantic Coast Conference basketball coaches should be learning from this basketball season.
With only a handful of games left on the regular-season schedule, it’s obvious that the teams with two or three exceptionally quick players ó regardless of their size and perceived talent ó have a decent chance to win any given game.
Nothing more complicated than a lack of speed is beginning to undermine Duke’s once promising season, has completely nullified Georgia Tech’s hopes for an NCAA bid and has turned Maryland into a homecourt-only entity.
The dynamic of recruiting has changed to the extent that it almost has become a waste of time for coaches to pursue the best high school big men. The majority of those guys are about as interested in college basketball as most of us are in curling. They’re looking for a one-year port in the storm.
If the all-ACC first-team had to be selected today, it’s doubtful that more than one player taller than 6 feet 6 or 6-7 would land a berth.
North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough probably would win a spot. So might Trevor Booker of Clemson, Kyle Singler of Duke and N.C. State’s Brandon Costner, who is closing fast. But other than Hansbrough, the ACC, like most other leagues, gradually has had no alternative except to de-emphasize size.
More likely, the voting would be dominated by guards Ty Lawson (UNC), Jack McClinton (Miami), Tyrese Rice (Boston College) and Jeff Teague (Wake Forest). Those four players, plus Ish Smith of Wake and Malcolm Delaney of Virginia Tech, likely rate as the league’s quickest.
College ball has become small ball, which is just another way of saying “quick ball.”
If you’re quick, you’ve got a chance to win. If you’re not, you spend a lot time of each game at the mercy of the opposition.
To an extent, it’s nothing all that new. Not that long ago, the NBA shunned drafting tall, raw prospects ó the thinking being that such players would benefit more and develop better by going through the collegiate process.
These days, the NBA draft philosophy has changed completely. The pro league prefers to take the talented bigs as early as possible and let those players learn by watching and practicing.
What the NBA has left behind is a universe of small, quick, inventive players. The best of those ó in their second, third and fourth college seasons ó become nightmares for opposing defenses. They paralyze younger, less experienced players off the dribble, sink 3-pointers, streak through transition coverage and easily penetrate the interior against 6-6, 6-7 and 6-8 defenders.
Barry Switzer, then the football coach at Oklahoma, said in 1980, “Quickness is (dang) near undefeated.”
Different sport, different time, different elements. But the observation hasn’t changed a great deal.