CHARLOTTE – Duke is whole again, and that can’t be good news for the other teams in the NCAA Tournament.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski made it official yesterday when he revealed that point guard Sean Dockery, who’s been out since Feb. 23 with a right knee injury, will start tonight’s first-round game against No. 16 seed Delaware State (19-13) at Charlotte Coliseum.
“I was excited just to be out there with my teammates,” Dockery said yesterday. “I plan on playing the way I was playing before I got injured. [Krzyzewski] likes the way I’ve come back [in practice] and given the team energy.”
The return of a healthy Dockery, who practiced with a knee brace and looked fine yesterday, does a lot of significant things for 25-5 Duke, a No. 1 seed and one of the favorites to win it all even without Dockery’s services.
“It changes the rotation for us and makes us a lot deeper and we can play more pressure defense with Sean in there,” Krzyzewski said. “The person it helps the most is [guard] Daniel Ewing. Now when he comes [in at point guard] he’s fresher.”
Ewing, who’s more of a shooting guard than a point guard, has been playing the point in Dockery’s absence and has struggled at times. For example, he committed made a couple of critical turnovers late in Duke’s loss to North Carolina in the regular-season finale.
“When [Dockery] came back to practice it made such a difference,” Ewing said yesterday. “This is a good look for us. We’re a more complete team having Sean back.”
That can’t be good news for the rest of the country, including top-seeded North Carolina, which plays Oakland University today at the Coliseum.
The Tar Heels have struggled since their regular-season ACC title-clinching win over Duke two weeks ago.
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It’s been quite a run for the Oakland University Grizzlies, who are not from the Bay Area – but from Rochester, Mich.
Oakland not only won the play-in game to get to this point, defeating Alabama A&M on Tuesday to improve its record to 13-18, but it has won its last six games after a 7-18 start.
“The last two weeks have been amazing and the greatest thing to happen to us and our university,” Oakland coach Greg Kampe said yesterday. “We had 2,500 people make the four-hour drive to Dayton on Tuesday [for the play-in game]. We didn’t have 2,500 people at any of our games in Oakland this season.”
A Duke win tonight and Krzyzewski ties Dean Smith’s NCAA record for tournament victories at 65.