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Message: [QUOTE="champs99and04, post: 2009202, member: 488"] Thing is, N.C. State hasn't really been good this season. Gottfried seems to have them trapped - he's a truly mediocre coach, if I'm being generous, but he manages to bottle the talent on his roster every so often that you can't get rid of him. He took them to the sweet sixteen as an 11 seed back in 2012 and then knocked off top-seeded Villanova - with mostly the same players that won the title a year later - to get there again in 2015. This has the feel of you're classic "last four in" team that is like 8-10 in the ACC and somehow still playing in the second weekend. As for Duke, they have a bit of a conundrum on their hands - Allen has regressed in a near Purvis-like fashion. It is unclear whether the injuries or tripping theatrics have anything to do with it, but he's hurt them at times. Rarely do you see a dichotomy in roster balance as stark as this one - between the veterans (Allen, Jones, Jefferson, and Kennard, though he's only a sophomore) and freshman (Jackson, Bolden, Tatum, and Giles), they essentially have two different teams, and they appeared to be playing better in November and December before they started to integrate the hurt players into the lineup. Kennard has been bandied about as a national player of the year candidate, and he was [I]benched [/I]by Capel against Miami (and came off the bench again last night). Losing minutes to a player like Tatum, who is more talented but not as good, can't sit well with him. Meanwhile, they're still easing Giles back in. He's playing only about 12 minutes a game but producing at a monster per minute rate. Jackson has been pretty good all year. Bolden is raw right now but has a lot of upside and will have to take minutes from Jefferson, who I like a lot, if he's going to play. Somebody is going to be unhappy. Another loss or two and the Capel/Hopkins jokes will be made, definitely by me. [/QUOTE]

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