Amazing to me that no one is mentioning Barrett, who was outstanding yesterday. I get all the buzz about Williamson. All he has to do is walk onto the floor and he's impressive, and I was impressed with him yesterday, but I was also impressed with Barrett and his ability to get to the basket whenever he wanted and finish. He made some very nice passes in traffic and managed to knock down 3 out of 7 from the three. This is not to downplay Williamson or Reddish, both of whom were impressive.
Kentucky looked unprepared for what they were about to run into. One bright spot might be Keldon Johnson who was Kentucky's only offense for while. Nick Richards needs to go back to the drawing board. Herro struggled, but Duke had something to do with that. I thought Montgomery looked good, but overall, Kentucky will be licking their wounds for a while. That was a no contest.
Barrett ended up with 33 pt's on 13 of 26 shooting while going 3 of 7 from beyond the arc. He added 4 boards, and 6 assists. Barrett is a very good passer, actually better than I expected. While the stats are impressive, what was more impressive to me was the way he played the game. Never forced anything and just picked his spots. Of course it helps if your as talented as he is.
By the same token, just about everything Williamson does seems spectacular. He has a flair for the dramatic, but as they say, if you can walk the walk etc. I'm not sure how to describe Zion. He is legitimately a freak of nature. But aside from that, he's also a very good basketball player. He has good handles and proved, at least for one game, that he's a good shooter as well. Very impressive. Reddish looks like a ready made NBA SF. If he hadn't been surrounded by Barrett and Williamson, he would have been the main topic of conversation at Duke today. He also was very impressive.
Also watched the Mich St./Kansas game. Personally, I thought the polls had Kansas ranked a bit too high. I thought they were overestimating, but, it Grimes can play like that consistently, then I think they're spot on. Grimes was very impressive scoring 21 pt's on 7 of 14 shooting while going 6 of 10 from the three. He also added 4 assists and one steal. Kansas won in what ended up being a close game, and in my opinion, Mich. St. didn't player particularly well. If they had, I think they beat Kansas.
Speaking of Michigan St. Langford was excellent, and he may be one of the best shooters in college. The question I would have is why don't they get him more shots? He scored 18 pt's on 5 of 11 shooting while going 4 of 6 from the three. He added 4 boards as well. Then you have Winston, who I'm not a fan of going 3 of 10 overall. Give Winston's shots to Langford.
Villanova looked very good and Paschall stepped up and looked like he might be one of the leaders of the team with 26 pt's, 7 boards, and 2 steals. Villanova is going to need that from him on a nightly basis. Booth did what was expected with 17 pt's, but the nice surprise was the freshman SF, Saddiq Bey, who contributed 16 pt's off the bench on 5 of 8 shooting while going 3 of 5 from the three. While the competition wasn't that great, Villanova looked like Villanova. Jay Wright is just a terrific coach. This will be a tough year for him, losing as many good players as he did, a couple unexpected. But anyone can, he can.
. There are some generalizations about lefties having funky form but pretty results and Norvell is that to a t.
