When it comes to the sport of college basketball, undoubtedly one of the first programs that come to mind is the polarizing Duke Blue Devils, led of course by legendary head coach Mike Krzyzewski. And when you think of the Blue Devils, a plethora of great names immediately come to mind, and one of those names is Grant Hill.
Hill played for Coach K and the Blue Devils in the early 1990s as the program was really coming into national prominence, helping the team win back-to-back national championships in 1991 and 1992. In 1994, he earned himself First Team All-American and ACC Player of the Year honors to put the proper cap on his illustrious career in Durham, which included scoring 1,924 points.
He was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.
Nowadays, with the long NBA career that he enjoyed following his time at Duke behind him, Hill does television work for both the NBA and college basketball, mainly during the NCAA Tournament in the spring when it comes to the latter. That being the case, one of the greatest college basketball players of all-time keeps a close eye on the landscape of the sport to this day.
With the 2016-17 college basketball season nearly a month old at this point, Hill was nice enough to sit down and talk with us about a number of topics, including his beloved Blue Devils.
Jack Jorgensen: Grant, first of all thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to sit down and talk some college basketball with us today.
It’s fitting that we’re talking now, because your Duke Blue Devils just pretty easily took care of the No. 21 Florida Gators in the Jimmy V Classic on Tuesday night. Coming into this season when people were talking about the Blue Devils, of course the focus was on the stud freshmen — Harry Giles, Jayson Tatum and Marques Bolden. But from what we’ve seen early, it’s been sophomore Luke Kennard who’s stepped up; he was 11-of-16 from field goal range against Florida with 29 points. How big has his presence been for this Duke team and their 9-1 start?
Grant Hill: Yeah, I mean Luke has been great. And the freshmen have been dealing with some injuries and some weird stuff; Jayson Tatum had a minor foot injury and of course Giles has been out for a while but I hear he’s getting healthy. But when healthy, this team is loaded and has a chance to be really special.
In the interim, though, while those guys are out , I figure if anything came from it it’s the emergence of a Luke Kennard. Luke is a guy who is playing with great confidence. I thought he had a really good freshman year last season, is a great shooter with good size — I mean, he’s a pro. He is an NBA player, and I know NBA teams like him. But you see now that it’s coming together for him, so that’s been really good, and obviously so for the team. It’s also good for his confidence.
You know, as Tatum starts to get his legs and his rhythm and acclimate himself, and Bolden gets back, and hopefully Giles can return, it’ll be fun to watch this Duke team and see if they can realize their potential and go down in Duke history as another champion.
There’s a real possibility, you know? Grayson Allen, Luke Kennard, and you have the freshman group with Tatum and Bolden and if Giles can get back — and of course you have Coach K. You know, it’s really fun to watch.
JJ: When all of these guys are healthy and at full speed as the season goes along here, is this Blue Devils team the most talented squad in the nation? Especially given some other pretty talented programs out there like a, say, Kentucky.
GH: Yeah, no doubt. You know, Coach K has been around for a long time, and he’s had some great recruiting classes but this might be — actually, this is his best recruiting class and it might be the best of all-time.
You wanna give respect to the Fab Five, that was a great class and there’s been others. Kentucky’s had some, and obviously you’re gonna judge them all differently.
But these guys are coming into a team that is already a pretty solid team. You know, Grayson Allen is a junior and Kennard is a really talented player, then you have the guys in the middle like Amile Jefferson and Matt Jones who have won championships. You have really solid leaders, role players — so you have the making of a very talented, very balanced team that could do something really special. But, of course, health is the most important thing.
JJ: You mentioned the legendary Coach K there, the man who built this program to what it is today and who helped bring you along. Frankly speaking, how much more coaching does he have left in the tank after 42 years between West Point and Durham?
GH: That’s a great question. I’ve been amazed, even over the last 12 years, with him being in charge of USA Basketball and the responsibilities that go along with that position, and still coaching at Duke. It’s really almost like having two jobs. I saw him after the Olympics down on campus a few times, and he was just energized and excited and ready to go. He was looking forward to the challenge and the opportunity of this season.
But you do understand and recognize that he’s getting older. As great as it is, you know I graduated 22 years ago from Duke, and to think that my college coach is still coaching is pretty remarkable. It’s not gonna happen forever.
So I don’t know. I really don’t know the answer to that question. I hope as long as he can and as long as he wants to. I also know, too, that the Duke program is in a really good place, and he has another great class coming in next year, so I don’t know. I know he came out maybe a year ago and said he might have five more years left in him, but I’m sure he’ll look at it every year at the end of the year and sort of assess things to decide if he still has the passion, the fire and the desire to go through another year.
JJ: Now moving on outside of the Durham landscape, one of the highly-touted freshmen that’s burst to the forefront really quickly here this season is UCLA’s Lonzo Ball. This young man has really captured a lot of attention early on. What, if any, is the ceiling for Ball? How far can you see this young man going in his basketball career?
GH: This kid is pretty special. He has already, as you said, in a short period of time really impressed everybody with his play. You know, I think he can be — well, obviously he is a great college player, leading his team to that win over Kentucky, which I don’t think anybody really expected.
His athleticism, his confidence, his ability to facilitate the score — you know, he’s impressive. He just does an amazing job out there, and he’s fun to watch. And, you know, he’s definitely an NBA player. His athleticism, and I hate making comparisons, but it reminds me of a [Russell] Westbrook a little bit, or maybe even a young Jason Kidd.
I know Steve Alford, a great coach, is very happy and it’s exciting to bring back that excitement to Westwood, and to the Bruins program.
But he’s just one of those guys that you say, “Wow, he’s special” and he gives that team and that program a chance this year because of his talent.
JJ: Now Duke and UCLA were expected to be successful coming into the season, but we always have those teams that sneak up on everyone. A month into this season already, are there any surprising teams that have popped up on your radar?
GH: That’s another good question. I think one of the teams to me that I won’t say necessarily surprises me, but I think coming into the season there wasn’t really a lot of talk about them — and that team is North Carolina.
I know that sounds crazy, but so much of the talk was about Kansas, it’s about Duke and it’s about Kentucky. But here’s a team in North Carolina that can win it this year as well.
You know, I think UCLA is a team, too. I think UCLA is a team that I didn’t expect them to get off to this great start.
And to a degree, I think Indiana as well. Indiana lost some important pieces to last year’s team with Yogi Ferrell, and Troy Williams, and a few other guys, and they’ve already had some very impressive wins at home against Carolina and on the road against Kansas.
You have these perennial teams that are usually in the Top 25, and maybe they gain some players or lose some players.
Baylor has been really good, and they weren’t really on my radar for being a team thus far that can be a Top 10 team. There have been some surprises, but in the grand scheme of things they’re not really surprises — if that makes any sense.
JJ: One thing that I lastly wanted to get your perspective on really quick is, right now the NBA product is the hottest that it has maybe ever been before, and especially since Michael Jordan. Does the renewed interest in the NBA over the course of the last decade or so help get more eyes on the college basketball product?
GH: Well, you know, I think so. You have the diehard fans who are just passionate about the game of basketball, and have been for many years.
Now you have the new fans who normally wouldn’t watch the game, but now they’re watching the Finals, and they’re watching LeBron and Kyrie. Those fans have just become fans of the game. It just brings more eyeballs and more focus on basketball.
And then you have the speculation, kind of like what we’re talking about, of who’s gonna be the next LeBron James, and the Kryie Irvings and the Kevin Durants of the world? You know, who’s gonna be the future?
I think the beauty of basketball is that once you get in and you get interested and you watch, it can lure you in. You become, I don’t wanna say hooked, but you become a fan of it. So I really think the two kind of go hand-in-hand, you know? There’s so much speculation now. You know, Jayson Tatum played on Tuesday night and everyone now is just excited about him and his potential not only for this season, but in the future moving forward.
College basketball is almost a feeder system, if you will, for the NBA. And, so, yeah I do think it helps the popularity for both. And look, I think it goes both ways. Like, March Madness, I’m switching to broadcast the Final Four with Jim Nantz and Bill Raftery, and when you have a great Final Four, I think that helps and it carries over into the NBA.
So I think the success and the popularity of both help each other, both directly and indirectly.
JJ: Grant, I want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to us. Before we let you go, please tell us about the work that you’re doing with the Allstate Good Works Team.
GH: It’s very exciting, and one of the things that I look forward to during the college basketball season, to be an ambassador and also a judge for the 2017 Allstate NABC Good Works Team, which honors student-athletes in men’s college basketball who really understand the importance of giving back into their communities.
This year we have 181 nominees from all over the country in college basketball, and eventually we will narrow the field down to 10 finalists who are comprised from Division I, Division II, Division III and the NAIA schools. We’ll then have a 10-member team that will be announced in February, and in years past we’ve brought that team out to the Final Four, we’ve done some community work, we’ve done a camp for kids, and we recognize and honor them. It’s just one of the really important messages to emphasize and to showcase that these young men, with all the time constraints and all the responsibilities of being a student-athlete, are doing some amazing works in their communities in a number of different ways.
I look forward to it, I’m excited to be a part of it, I’m excited to be a judge and I appreciate you allowing me to briefly talk about it. And I look forward to meeting these finalists this year in the Final Four in Phoenix.