NEW YORK — Jon Scheyer hears his Duke team getting criticized for its lack of athleticism and believes it may be because three of its five starters are white.
“That definitely could be,” Scheyer said after pumping in 19 points, 5 assists and 5 rebounds to lead No. 7 Duke to a 68-59 victory over No. 13 UConn in the championship game of the Dick’s Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off at Madison Square Garden.
“Without saying too much I think that’s a possibility,” he added. “I think there’s definitely a thought of that. We have some really athletic [white] guys like Miles and Mason [Plumlee], for example, and I don’t really hear people talking about them being great athletes. So I don’t know what that means. But I do know that.”
It’s a fair issue that you broach. The starting forward, Miles Plumlee, a 6’11″ sophomore, has a 35″ vertical and was a major state high jump competitor, which would probably be regarded as athletic, even by the, well, provocative analyst Gottlieb.
Scheyer is being somewhat modest in his own regard. When they ran him through a battery of tests as a freshman, his VO2 reading, a measure used for endurance, was actually higher than Lance Armstrong, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Boy, talk about a tough topic to throw out there. My 9-yr-old told me the other night that the reason Coach K doesn’t win as much now is because he recruits “too many white guys.” I guess Scheyer noticed it too.