1: Well, the Deacs held off Duke in a game that got way too exciting for my taste down the stretch. Wake had it in the bag up until the last two or three minutes, when they apparently decided they’d played enough defense for the evening and that there was no real reason to execute on the offensive end since the game was over. If Paul hadn’t come up big when he did Duke would probably have won it, despite being pretty much handled the whole way.

2: I say it again – Chris Paul is the best player in the NCAA. He just has this extra gear that nobody else seems to have and that nobody seems to be able to stop.

3: JJ Redick scares the pants off me. He’s maybe the best pure shooter at this level I have ever seen, and the big deal is how much he has improved at getting his shots since last year. It used to be that if you frustrated his open perimeter looks he’d start forcing bad stuff on the drive. Now he’s getting good looks off those drives and finishing. Last night was a remarkable display because he somehow threw down 33 on what was basically an off night. For about 37 minutes Wake did a great job of forcing him a little off balance on the perimiter, rushing him just enough that his shooting dipped into mortal range, and if they hadn’t he’d probably have scored 50. Let’s face it – he clanked a lot of shots last night that go down on any other night.

4: BTW, had Wake played Von Wafer the way they did Redick, they’d be leading the league right now. Lesson: guarding the perimeter is about will, not ability.

5: Of course, down the stretch last night Wake once again forgot that they have this large, tallish fellow who hangs out near the basket that nobody can guard. I guess the lesson for opposing coaches is that the key to stopping Williams is to sucker the Wake guards into doing it for you. Lure you into some perimeter shots that initially look a little better than they really are. Gray and sometimes Downey hit periods where they’ll take the B-quality shot over the A-quality pass, and when it happens Wake gets beatable in a hurry.

6: And then there was one (former Xavier head coach in the ACC, that is). From all I hear, Pete Gillen is a class act. But the day after the season ends he’s going to be a class act looking for a new job. Which is really a shame. UVa ought to be a winning program, and you’d think a guy like Gillen would an ideal fit for one of the nation’s premier academic institutions. But so far it hasn’t panned out that way, and I doubt he’s going to get another try. Getting waxed by Carolina can’t sit well in C-ville, and getting whipped by Va. Tech, well, who at UVa knew Tech had a basketball team?

7: I saw St. Bonaventure play Temple last week, and for about a 5-minute stretch in the second half they showed flashes of competence. In the end, though, they’re simply not being schemed very well and I don’t remember a team at this level ever that was worse in the basics. If JJ Redick had the fundamentals you see among the players on this Bonnie team he’d never get a perimeter shot off because he’d have no concept of positioning, finding space, hand- or footwork, and if he did accidentally get enough room to get a shot off he’d wait until a defender got close, then fake and dribble headlong into the teeth of the nastiest 2-3 zone in America. All this said, what I saw last week was better than when I saw them against Marist and the chess team Cornell. So it’s possible that they’re getting some good coaching advice and are slowly starting to take it to heart. I don’t know. They’re just too erratic to be sure. However, their OT loss to UMass last week was followed up by a weak effort against Temple and last night’s butt-kicking by St. Joe’s. I’ll be interested to see at the end of the season whether the AD here concludes that Anthony Solomon deserves another season at the helm. That is, do they think this is the best this year’s team could have been expected to do, or do they think a different coach could have gotten more out of the troops? Hard to say.