Even though a lot of people think the Kentucky Wildcats are the favorite to win the college basketball national championship, there’s another team who’s equally strong. Could the Duke Blue Devils be the true favorite?
The month of February is almost over and we’re one step closer to the dream matchup we all want to see becoming a reality. The two best teams in college basketball are none other than the Kentucky Wildcats and the Duke Blue Devils.
If a Duke-Kentucky National Championship game came fruition, the Wildcats would likely be the favorites to win. In reality, the team that should be favored to win is Duke.
With all due to respect to the Kentucky Wildcats and the marvelous season that they are having, their team hasn’t lost yet because they haven’t played a number of great teams yet.
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The Duke Blue Devils aren’t anything like Columbia, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, and LSU, all of which are teams who Kentucky narrowly escaped defeat from.
Duke has everything on their roster, perimeter shooting, point guard play, defensive stoppers, solid post presence and, similar to Kentucky, they have no flaws on their team.
If these two teams play each other in the 2015 National Championship game, Duke should be the favorite.
Tyus Jones & Quinn Cook = Point Gods
This is the biggest advantage that Duke has over Kentucky, the point guard play. The Duke Blue Devils backcourt easily takes the cake and it’s not even close.
When playing the Kentucky Wildcats any team must value the basketball. Kentucky has great success when it comes to forcing their opponents to turnover the basketball and scoring nearly 20 points per game when they get turnovers, a mark good enough for a top ten ranking in the nation.
Despite being talented at getting their opponents to turn the basketball over, it’ll be a challenge for Kentucky to force Duke’s point guard to cough up the basketball. Point guards, Tyus Jones and Quinn Cook combine for 8.6 assists and only 3.3 turnovers a game.
Because Duke has a true point guard it makes the game much easier for their offense. Jones, the living Chris Paul clone, is the type of player who doesn’t need to score 25 points in a game to impact it, even though he can. In Jones’ last five games he has 44 assists, and only 16 turnovers.
On another note: It’ll be interesting to see the way that Kentucky’s point guard Tyler Ulis plays against Jones. Back in high school the two played at Peach Jam, a noteworthy AAU Tournament and Ulis rang up 22 points and 17 assists against Jones. However Jones got the win and still remained the No. 1 point guard in the country.
Jones would rather set up his teammates, and help them get hot in games. That’s the reason why Quinn Cook has been playing so well recently, because Jones makes it a routine to get him easy shots from the three-point line.
On the year Cook, the J.Cole doppleganger, is averaging 15.9 points, and he’s shooting 41 percent from the three-point line. When Cook’s not fighting with Jahlil Okafor, he’s figuratively cooking his opponents. In Cook’s last five games he’s averaging 23.6 points per game, and he nailed 21 three-pointers while doing it.
One of Kentucky’s biggest problems is stopping dribble penetration. With the two guards that Duke has, who each can get into the lane at will, it’ll be a surprise if they each don’t go off for big games.
Dribble penetration is the reason why Louisville’s Terry Rozier, Ole Miss’ Stefan Moody and Jarvis Summers, and Columbia’s Maodo Lo all had big games against Kentucky. Because of their ability to get into the lane and find teammates, they each were able to almost lead their respective teams to improbable upset victories.
The better question is who’s going to stop Duke’s guards, because it’s not Andrew Harrison.
Jah Bless, Jah Bless.
The Kentucky Wildcats might intimidate all of their opponents because of their size, but this Duke team is one they won’t have a big advantage against.
Kentucky might have six players on their roster than are 6’9 and over, but Duke has four. What Duke loses in quantity, they make up for in quality and there’s no player in college basketball better than Duke center Jahlil Okafor.
The second that Duke plays against Kentucky we’re all going to see Okafor play in his most difficult game of college basketball. Thankfully for someone as talented as Okafor, he plays better when the stage gets brighter.
Okafor looks poised to lead Duke to their 15th final four, and possibly their 11th National Championship game appearance and possibly win the 2015 National Player of the Year award. With Okafor in the paint, how can Duke not be considered the favorite in college basketball?
Okafor this season has done so much, and he’s only a freshman. This season he leads Duke in scoring (18.4 points), rebounds (9.4 rebounds) and field goal percentage (nearly 67 percent shooting). He is also well on his way to becoming the first freshman to lead Duke in all three categories.
Opponents are still trying to figure out a way to stop the freshman from Chicago, Illinois. Even while battling a bad left ankle injury, Okafor hung up a career-high 30 points against Virginia Tech, one of just five freshman to ever due so for Duke.
Jahlil Okafor is the 5th Duke freshman ever to score 30 points in a game, joining Johnny Dawkins, J.J. Redick, Kyrie Irving & Jabari Parker.
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) February 26, 2015
Okafor’s the type of player that if Duke needs a bucket they can throw him the basketball on the block. Needless to say, if Kentucky plays against Duke it’ll be safe to say that they need to bring a double team.
If Kentucky foolishly allows Okafor to play against single coverage, he will kill them inside of the paint.
Who’s going to stop Okafor from doing this? The frail Willie Cauley-Stein?
On the defensive side of the basketball, Duke won’t have to do much to guard Kentucky inside of the paint.
The only person that has back to the basket post moves on Kentucky’s roster is Karl-Anthony Towns. As talented as Towns is though, Okafor will give him trouble inside of the interior. Because Okafor is 6’11 270 pounds, he’ll have the matchup advantage over the thinner Towns.
Coach K vs. Coach Cal
There shouldn’t be another person besides John Calipari who should win the National Coach of the Year award. Coach Calipari has done an excellent job this season with his roster, and because of his hard work, Kentucky is well on its way to having an undefeated season entering the 2015 NCAA Tournament.
As great as coach Calipari is doing this season, Duke’s coach, Mike Krzyzewski is always going to have the upper hand.
There’s no better teacher than experience and there’s no active coach in college basketball that has accomplished more, or holds more experience than coach Krzyzewski in college basketball.
During coach Krzyzewski’s time at Duke, he’s managed to accomplish a lot of winning. Coach Krzyzewski has won four National Championships, and he has an incredible 82-26 record when he plays in the NCAA Tournament.
Additionally, not only has he been elected into the College Basketball, and Basketball Hall of Fame, he’s also worked with the United States Olympic team.
In a championship game, there’s not a person oustide of perhaps Kentucky who would pick against coach Krzyzewski.
These two teams are evenly matched and it’s like splitting hairs, and that’s why we need this game in the National Championship.
Can’t April 6th just hurry up and arrive?
Next: College Basketball Player Rankings: The Rise of Tyus Jones