Staff photo by Chuck Liddy
BOSTON — If nothing else, Wednesday's media session reinforced the notion of Duke's ability to wrestle top players throughout the nation away from their home-state schools in recruiting.
The four teams in the East regional held interviews and open practices in preparation for Thursday's Sweet 16 games. Duke meets Villanova, whose coach, Jay Wright, spoke fondly of Gerald Henderson.
When Henderson was 9 or 10 years old, his father introduced him to Wright and told him that some day Wright would coach Gerald at Hofstra. Wright's children went to high school at the Episcopal Academy near Philadelphia with Henderson, and Henderson's sister attended Villanova.
"Duke just ended up being the right place," Henderson said Wednesday. "Coach (Mike) Krzyzewski and his vision for me as a player was something that was really intriguing to me."
Guard Jon Scheyer grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and was coached at Glenbrook North High by Dave Weber – the brother of Illinois coach Bruce Weber. Scheyer said he felt a lot of pressure at home once Krzyzewski started recruiting him.
He had always liked Duke, and grew up idolizing former Glenbrook North standout Chris Collins – who played at Duke and recruited Scheyer as an assistant for the Blue Devils.
"Obviously my coach being the brother, that was something where there's really a unique situation," Scheyer said. "But luckily my high school coach was a great guy, he was really understanding and just wanted to do what was best for me. And so in the end I was going to Duke."
Throw in the fact that forward Kyle Singler's father and mother played football and basketball, respectively, at Oregon State, and Krzyzewski broke a lot of significant ties to land the three best players on this team.
"Because we're a national school, our school plucks good people in different parts of the country," Krzyzewski said. "It's what a national school does."
Comments
recruiting
Wed, 03/25/2009 - 23:05 — george32of course duke-and carolina-recruit nationally in basketball as well as academically. what is newsworthy about that? ifdavis or cutliffe expect to ever achieve anthing in football, they will have to do the same. nc is a medium sized state after all.
Jealousy
Wed, 03/25/2009 - 22:52 — mule10Leave it to the Boo Birds to comment about Duke. Coach K is a West Point grad and served our country as an army officer. He grew up in a modest surrounding in Chicago. He has given so much back to the Durham community (ie) the Emily Kryzewski Recreation Center. He cleaned up the mess Larry Brown (one of the Boo Birds' favorites) had made of US Basketball to win the Gold Medal in the recent Olympic Games and was hand picked to lead US Basketball. He has won 3 NCAA Championships, taken Duke to 10 out of the past 12 sweet sixteens and won 8 out of 11 ACC Championships (the ACC Tourney winner is the Champion of the ACC). He graduates his players and his players and former players don't have all of the criminal activity that seems to reside 8 miles away. He guides Duke to do it the right way. Not perfect but he strives for winning the right way. Is he competitive? Absolutely. And the Boo Birds are jealous or they wouldn't comment on Duke articles. I wouldn't think of wasting my time commenting on a Tar Hole article.
Jealous??
Thu, 03/26/2009 - 10:16 — gvillegatrwhen you are on the side of UNC basketball, you are jealous of no one. I cannot put it any plainer than that!
my comment was more of a slight to myself than to the Rat. If you can't make fun of yourself, who can you make fun of?
BS
Thu, 03/26/2009 - 06:13 — Trimman77First of all "he didn't clean up the mess left by Larry Brown". The US Olympic Basketball Assoc. realized that in order to be competitive they had to change their procedure to get players to learn to play like a team, so they mandated 3 year commitments. He had 3 years to work with the team instead of 3 months, wake up. Second, check the statistics, UNC has a better graduation rate than Duke, even the majority of their players who go pro, return for their degrees. Finally, why just go back 10-12 years, who has won more ACC tournament titles and more NCAA games, then check and see what Shushefski's record is against UNC and determine where the real jealousy for the most successful program lies!
The Rat
Wed, 03/25/2009 - 20:38 — gvillegatr""Because we're a national school, our school plucks good people in different parts of the country," Krzyzewski said. "It's what a national school does.""
While Coach Williams might say what Rat did in the first sentence, he would never validate it with "It's what a national school does."
thats so elitist and snobish.
then again, some would say thats what I do on here. oh well. it is what it is!