1. Washington Post: Maryland’s Alex Len has had a breakout sophomore campaign, averaging nearly 15 points and nine rebounds per game so far this season. The Ukrainian has been so impressive that many are now speculating about his draft stock. While it is far from certain that Len will leave school after this year, he is currently seventh on NBADraft.net‘s mock draft for next season and looks likely as a lottery pick if he elects to declare for the pros. Even if Len only stays in college a few more months, if he continues to play this well, Maryland is going to be a very tough out in March. While Len may not eclipse Mason Plumlee’s on-court numbers this year, if he decides to declare next spring he may very well end up going higher in the draft than the early NPOY candidate.
2. Point guard Jontel Evans is slowly working his way back into suddenly surging Virginia‘s lineup. After struggling (largely without Evans) in losses to George Mason and Delaware earlier this season, Virginia emerged victorious from Wisconsin’s Kohl Center in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, which is always a feather in the cap even if the Badgers are a little bit down this year. Evans played a season-high 23 minutes in last weekend’s victory over Wisconsin-Green Bay where he tallied seven assists. Both Evans and head coach Tony Bennett are excited at how quickly Evans has recovered from his foot surgery, and the team’s fortunes should only improve as Evans becomes even more ingrained in the Virginia rotation.
3. Georgia Tech finally returns back to the renovated McCamish Pavilion after a long road trip, which featured a third-place finish at the DirecTV Classic in Anaheim and a competitive loss to Maui Invitational champions Illinois at Assembly Hall.  The Yellow Jackets will begin a seven-game home stand by hosting in-state rival Georgia tonight, a Bulldogs team that was highly competitive with both Indiana and UCLA earlier this season but is still only 2-5 overall. This game should be a litmus test to evaluate just where the Yellow Jackets are at this point in the season; a win certainly shows that the team is going in the right direction, whereas a loss would definitely be cause for great concern in Atlanta.
4. Duke Chronicle: Tom Gieryn’s article discusses how Duke basketball’s focus on “Togetherness” thus far this season has definitely paid dividends for the Blue Devils. Last season, Coach Mike Krzyzewski talked of his team, saying, “It’s like a surprise gift. You open it up, and for the most part, it’s been a nice surprise, but I never have any idea what’s in there.” This year, the legendary coach said about his team, “They’re good guys—like, they hang together,” Krzyzewski said after Duke’s championship victory in the Battle 4 Atlantis. “They laugh at each other’s jokes. I don’t laugh at most of them. I don’t get most of them. The bottom line is they’re good guys and they like one another.” This sentiment was definitely not always apparent on last year’s squad. Even if Duke slips a bit from its extremely high level of play thus far, the team’s chemistry should help it recover a lot more quickly than last season where the slightest bit of adversity seemed to negatively impact a more fragile team. Also, Duke’s defense has benefited, at least in part, to this improved chemistry (though replacing Austin Rivers with Rasheed Sulaimon and Ryan Kelly’s defensive improvement have also played a huge role).
5. Keeping it Heel: Matt Hamm suggests that head coach Roy Williams may not be managing his rotation in the most efficient way. Hamm’s major issue is that Desmond Hubert and Jackson Simmons are playing too much, at the expense of freshman Brice Johnson, and that PJ Hairston, who seems like the player most capable of creating his own shot, is averaging less than 20 minutes a game. This year has presented a bit of a challenge for the Tar Heels, as they lack a truly elite point guard or pure post player, both of which have been emblematic of Williams’ best teams at North Carolina. While making these changes may help, North Carolina will still need to continue to adjust its offense and be more flexible with lineups, something that Roy Williams has not exactly been known for in his tenure in Chapel Hill.

EMann (30 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2012 at 6:01 am by EMann and is filed under acc, microsites, morning 5. Tagged: alex len, duke, georgia tech, jontel evans, maryland, mike krzyzewski, north carolina, roy williams, virginia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.