Bill Polian/Duke versus North Carolina thoughts

Bill Polian.. The True Successor of the Indianapolis Colts

You know, I forgot to include one key guy from the Colts' success (ever since 1996.) And the guy is Bill Polian, the president of the Colts. He went through the 4 consecutive Super Bowl drouts with the Buffalo Bills from '90 to '93; he suffered the NFC Championship loss with the Carolina Panthers in 1996. Now, he's won the Super Bowl. However, how did he make the Colts such a valuable franchise? Well I shall list:

1.) In the 1998 NFL Draft, he had the choice of selecting one of the two marquee Quarterbacks out of College. It was either going to be Tennessee's Peyton Manning, or Washington State's Ryan Leaf. He made a Colts' forever life changing decision, by selecting Peyton Manning, and it paid off! Manning has won two MVP's since 1998, and has kept the Colts to four consecutive 12 win seasons since 2003. Ryan Leaf? Oh, he's sitting at home right now wondering what went wrong as he had playing problems as well as attitude problems, and retired in 2000 due to a bogus "injury."

2.) Drafting Marvin Harrison. How did he end up doing so? By trading Marshall Faulk to the Rams (thank you, Bill!) and helping the city of St. Louis and other Rams fans (like me) watch the Rams win a Super Bowl, and appear in another, while watching Marshall win two offensive player of the year awards, as well as two runner up MVP awards (both runnerup beside teammate, Kurt Warner.) In all seriousness, though, Polian got what he wanted out of Marvin Harrison. A receiver alot like Isaac Bruce, that could take a good jump out of the snap, skyrocket up the field, run his route to perfection, and catch the ball. It paid off adding Manning to the helm, and 6 seasons later from 1996, was 2001, they drafted Reggie Wayne. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Duke and North Carolina. The rivalry is back, baby.

It doesn't get any better than this. It's Duke and North Carolina, baby. Mono-e-mono as it usually is. Two colleges that loathe eachother, yet still respect eachother, and that's why this rivalry is just so great to watch. I'm a Duke fan, so this may sound bias to you, however take alook at things. North Carolina beat us nine of ten times from 1993 to 1998. Then, how about Duke?! We defeated North Carolina ten of eleven times from 2000 to 2003. We beat them more times in 4 seasons. It's not always lopsided (one-sided) though. If you've taken a look in previous years, they've traded off games back and forth. It's a great rivalry, and undoubtedly great to be a fan of Duke. It's just hard when taking a loss in a rivalry. And that could happen in one day, baby.

While I'm pulling out Dick Vitale "baby"'s, I'll make my prediction and it's going to be tough. I feel overall that North Carolina is the better team (taking away my bias writing, you dig) with more talent surrounding them. Take a look at Tyler Hansbrough. Now, I'm not a fan of the guy, obviously, but I would have to be an idiot not to acknowledge the talent he has. He can grab the boards down low, and post-up. The only thing that is going to stop this kid from playing in the pros one day is the ability to shoot the jumper which he hasn't been able to do ... at all!

His counterpart on Duke, Josh McRoberts? He's another aggressive player in the post, while I feel he isn't as good as Hansbrough (because Tyler is depended on more early, and often while McRoberts doesn't have that much pressure), McRoberts can hit the jumper, and that sets them both apart forcing Hansbrough to guard him from the wing on several times. While he isn't the most accurate shooter on Duke, he can still take players out of the post, and look for a player like DeMarcus Nelson or Jon Scheyer to cut to the basket, and he's been doing that this season. The major flaws of Josh McRoberts are that he can't get shots to bounce off the back-iron and go in, and that's been hurting him alot this season (the Clemson game, the Florida State game, the Virginia Tech game, several games) so he's been unable to use the back-iron to any strength, and it's the same with the backboard. The only other thing I question of McRoberts is his speed; but he has two more seasons with Duke to see how he can utilize that.

Now Duke and North Carolina are definitely familiar teams in these perspectives. However, you want my prediction? I'm going to take a biased prediction, and say Duke pulls off the upset 74-70. That is, if the Blue Devils can take a'hold of the Tar Heels' offensive speed, and slow them down making them play our game, a half-court tempo offense, slowing them down to not create any quick movements from Danny Green, Brandan Wright, or Ty Lawson. If Duke can do that effectively, and create points on the offensive side of the ball by finding Scheyer on the wing, and having DeMarcus Nelson resent to the dribble, and pull up, creating space, and taking shots then Duke has a great chance to win this game.