No doubt recruits notice how polar opposite the Duke basketball leader and his UNC counterpart are when speaking about their squads.
Even Duke basketball faithful must admit the UNC brand — largely due to Michael Jordan and his eternal silhouette — still appeals to youth and likely will continue to do so for decades to come. As a result, the Tar Heels should stay a threat to the Blue Devils in the chase for elite prep prospects.
So then why, per the 247Sports Team Rankings, has the staff in Chapel Hill failed to compile a better class than the five-star magnets in Durham across the past eight recruiting cycles?
Sure, the dark cloud of an academic scandal didn’t help matters. That said, a UNC head coach with all the right words surely could have overcome the university’s self-harm to snag a few of the studs who instead landed at Duke and fueled the past decade’s lopsided rivalry results.
Rather than helping his program’s cause, though, Roy Williams has opted to emit foul words about his current players that should only hurt his chances to attract better ones.
With that in mind, Duke basketball fans should have their fingers crossed that shared targets between the Blue Devils and Tar Heels — five-star 2021 buddies Paolo Banchero and Kennedy Chandler come to mind — come across the words the 17th-year UNC ringleader spewed during his radio show on Monday night, as ESPN reported.
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Two days after dropping to 8-6 overall and 1-2 in ACC play with a mortifying home loss to Georgia Tech, Williams tagged his handpicked collection as “the least gifted team I’ve ever coached in the time that I’ve been back here.”
Yikes.
But the gift — Ol’ Roy’s mouth — kept on giving, thereby possibly removing one obstacle from the present-day recruiting trail for Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski (who, mind you, might cap off his benchmark career coaching Bronny James, in part because of his reputation in the eyes of LeBron James Sr. as a man who would never throw his pupils under the bus).
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“We stunk, OK; we were not very good,” Williams wailed. “The crazy thing about it is, our team, and we’ve had some very gifted teams, this is not a very gifted team. It’s just not.”
Ouch.
Fortunately for Williams’ foes eight miles up Tobacco Road, in addition to also pinning his ongoing shortcomings on those who skipped town for the NBA after last season and those who have fallen to injury this season, the blame-gamer called upon his own F-game to simultaneously trash his guys’ effort and potential (seemingly dumping on their professional dreams in the process):
“So if you’re going to be like that, you gotta bring your A-game. Even though your A-game may not even be an A-game, you gotta bring your best game to play on game day.”
Stay classy, Roy.
Stay tuned to Ball Durham for more Duke basketball recruiting updates, analyses, opinions, and predictions.