Saying somebody is scared of a college basketball coach feels a bit much, but I can understand why it happens around the college basketball landscape. Ultimately, these teams are fighting with other squads to ensure they have a chance to land some of the top recruits in the country.
Whenever a head coach who has won an NBA title comes to the college basketball ranks, other coaches will likely have to make some changes to ensure they can continue coaching and recruiting at the level they need to win at a very high level. That’s something North Carolina was able to do with Michael Malone, and multiple reports have indicated that Duke feels somewhat worried about that. The latest came from Jeff Goodman once again, who doubled down on his take that there is some fear about the Tar Heels hiring the former Denver Nuggets head coach.
“When you talk to the Duke staff, they were not scared of the previous head coach at North Carolina, Hubert Davis,” Goodman said. “They are scared to whatever degree. Maybe not terrified, but they are worried about Michael Malone at Carolina.”
“They’ve seen the work ethic, and they’ve also seen, obviously, he can sell something that even Duke and Scheyer cannot, which is, ‘Hey, see this ring; this ring was from the NBA, I won a title,’” Goodman continued. “So, you know, there are a few factors here that again instill that fear factor into Scheyer and Duke.”
I’ll be really interested to see what other comments come out here, and whether there’s really any true impact between North Carolina and Duke. We’ve seen North Carolina and Duke have recruiting battles for much of both programs’ existence, so it isn’t like that is going to change.
However, if Duke starts to lose players to North Carolina that it would typically land, I think we could make that assumption then. Until then, however, Duke is in a much better spot than North Carolina is right now.
