WRAL Sports Fan

Duke

Duke faces a similar foe in Villanova

By Jake Lloyd

Mar 26, 2009

BOSTON — All season long, the Duke Blue Devils have faced teams with players they don’t necessarily match up with well.

They took on Florida State with its trio of starters 6-foot-9 or taller. Last weekend, they had to bang with Texas’ 298-pound center Dexter Pittman

The question has continually been asked: How will Duke match up with this team? How will it guard this player who is so different from anybody on the Devils’ roster?

Well, now that the second-seeded Devils (30-6) are in the Sweet 16, they are finally set to take on a team that, really, isn’t that different from them.

No, third-seeded Villanova (28-7) isn’t a mirror image of the Devils. But the Wildcats have a lot of similar parts.

For instance, Duke has 6-foot-8, 235-pound Kyle Singler — a versatile forward who tends to play a lot on the perimeter. Villanova counters with 6-8, 230-pound Dante Cunningham, who doesn’t shoot 3-pointers like Singler but isn’t your typical post-up player either.

Overall, Villanova’s starting lineup features five players between 6-2 Scottie Reynolds and the 6-8 Cunningham. Duke’s is a little bigger, ranging from the 6-4 Elliot Williams to the 6-8 Singler and Lance Thomas. But 6-2 Nolan Smith should see plenty of minutes off the bench.

David McClure, another mid-sized Duke player at 6-6, said the Devils will have to be careful to remember the Wildcats’ tendencies and not start thinking they’re going to do similar things to Duke’s players because of the size similarities.

“You have to remember who you’re on every time and it’s a little bit different because you might be guarding someone who on your team is a shoot-first player and on their team is a penetrator,” McClure said. “It’s a lot more concentration and definitely a lot more paying attention to the small details in preparations.”

But the Devils are excited about the challenge of facing such a similar team and getting a respite from facing bruising players such as Pittman.

“It’ll be good, it’ll be good,” Thomas said. “I had to make a huge adjustment in that game. … Now I have to go into this game with a different mindset where I’m playing a guy (Cunningham) with a similar build to mine, similar thickness.”

One of Duke’s biggest tasks will be containing Villanova’s trio of quick guards — starter Reynolds and bench players Corey Fisher and Corey Stokes. All three can get to the basket, but they also shoot at least 35 percent from 3-point range.

That’s not news to the Devils, however. In fact, Duke isn’t just similar to Villanova — its players are very familiar with the Wildcats and know their games.

Thomas played with Stokes and fellow Wildcat Frank Tchuisi at St. Benedict’s in New Jersey. Smith played AAU ball with Cunningham against Stokes and Fisher. And those are just a couple of the connections.

“Corey’s still a dead-eye shooter, Corey’s still a great player,” Thomas said of watching Stokes on film. “It’s just good to see him again. I haven’t seen him for years.”

The Devils will also look quite familiar to Villanova. After all, coach Jay Wright recruited Gerald Henderson (who played high school ball in Merion, Pa.), Smith, McClure and Brian Zoubek just a few years ago.

So there won’t be any big surprises when the teams take the court Thursday night at 9:57 p.m. on WRAL in what McClure believes will feel more like a conference game between familiar foes than an NCAA Tournament game between programs that haven’t played at all since 2000 and in the tournament since 1978.

“You go over scouting, but you know each other so well that it’s almost to refresh you on every little thing, every little detail,” McClure said. “So many of us have played high school ball with these players, AAU ball.”

There’s also an immediate Duke connection to the suburban Philadelphia school. After last season, freshman Taylor King transferred from Duke to Villanova. He has had to sit out this year and, Wright said, will try to get to the game on his own.

But once the field of 65 came out a week and a half ago, the inactive King didn’t hesitate to send Smith a text message.

“Before the tournament started he said, ‘We’re going to meet you guys in the Sweet 16,’” Smith said. “I said, ‘You right.’”

Now that’s become a reality, and neither team is downplaying its similarities to the other.

“They are very similar in that they can score from all their positions, they like to drive, they give their players the ability to make plays, Jay does that real well,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said.

Wright is looking forward to adding a true post presence next season, but for now he knows both teams are perimeter-oriented.

“I don’t think we planned it this way,” he said. “I think we’d love to have a major low-post presence and a shot blocker. But if you don’t, you’ve got to find a way to play.”

That’s what both teams have done to this point, and the Blue Devils are confident they’ll be able to beat the Wildcats at their own game to advance to their first Elite Eight since 2004.

“We match up very well with them at every position,” Thomas said. “My mindset going into it is it’s going to be a matter of who wants it more.”