Power of Caring
  presented by CIGNA

Posted: Tue November 11, 1997 at 10:00 PM ET

PC: Alex, why don't we start at the top? Who is the magazine picking as the No. 1 team in the country?

AW: We're picking Duke No. 1. This year they've brought in four terrific freshmen. Six-foot-two guard William Avery is going to be very helpful in the backcourt, shoring up the ball-handling and the shooting duties that wore down Steve Wojciechowski and Trajan Langdon by the end of the year. But most importantly they've brought in three big guys, including Elton Brand, who has the biggest hands on Tobacco Road right now -- he's been very impressive in workouts so far. Those three guys are going to give the Blue Devils the upfront rebounding muscle that they need and they're also going to give Mike Krzyzewski a huge amount of depth. He's talking about, perhaps, doing fullcourt pressure defense, something he was unable to do for the last few years. We may see a Duke team that's returning to the kind of glory that we got used to in the early 90's.

AW: All five starters are back [at Arizona]; in fact their top eight guys are back -- 11 lettermen. It looks like the biggest obstacle for Arizona is the psychological burden of repeating. There is a rule change this season: the elimination of the closely guarded rule that we got used to over the last few seasons has been rescinded. We're going to see that call made again, the five-second call. I think Arizona will be helped by that rules change because typically Lute Olson's team has three ballhandlers on the floor at any one time, sometimes four, all passers and catchers. And they don't entrust the ball into the hands of one player, they're not so dependent on one player. And I think that gives the Wildcats a lot more flexibility and will help their cause in trying to repeat.

PC: Every year when we get to tournament time we hear how important guard play is. The last time a center won the MVP in a Final Four was Christian Laettner of Duke in 1991, and he isn't even really a center. Is the center becoming obsolete in college basketball?

AW: Yes, I do think so. And if you look at centers of recent vintage, other than [Bryant]"Big Country" Reeves, who took his Oklahoma State team to the Final Four, no one's really gone there. Shaq didn't go. Tim Duncan didn't go. Eric Montross went but he was really nothing but a counterweight for Donald Williams's three-pointers -- he really wasn't the focal point of that 1993 championship Tar Heels team. Coaches will tell you that players want to run up and down the floor. Even big guys are saying that their heroes, the guys they try to emulate when they play on the playgrounds, aren't the guys like Kareem and so forth from a different generation, they're smaller players like Michael Jordan.

PC: Alex, a couple of those smaller players in particular that I know you want to talk about, Eastern Michigan's Earl Boykins and Duke's Steve Wojciechowski.

AW: When Earl Boykins came out of high school in Cleveland, he was listed at 5-8 because he hoped he'd get recruited. He figured at 5-8 at least some school would give him a look. As a freshman at Eastern Michigan, he was listed at 5-7 because Ben Braun, then the coach there, didn't think anyone would take him and his team seriously if he wasn't listed at least at 5-7. Well, the truth now has come out: Earl Boykins is 5-5. At the rate he's going, he could be 5-3 by the time the NBA gets a look at him. One point in Boykins's favor is that Muggsy Bogues has had a pretty good career in the NBA and he's 5-3, too.

And Wojo -- Wojo is a guy who's played a lot of soccer in his time and he has the quick feet that really help in that. He's a guy that Mike Krzyzewski was going to start come hell or high water, really, because he reminds him so much of Bobby Hurley. He's got that spirit, the willingness to step in and take the charge. He's just the kind of leader, a very emotional kid on the floor, that Duke is going to need as it goes to war in what is probably the toughest conference going this year, the ACC.