News-Record.com

Sorry I didn't post again yesterday. Carlton and Daniels stole my airport charter jet note for their own notebook in today's paper.

Got a chance to check out the very, very large capitol - or is it capital? - building here in Austin. Massive place with tons of history on the walls. Portraits of everyone from Davy Crockett to W decorated the place.

Best of all was a massive painting in the Senate chamber commemorating the battle of San Jacinto in which the Texans won us the right to have really, really good junior college basketball at San Jacinto State. There may have been some Texas national independence mixed in there as well.

My thoughts for tonight's game? I picked Duke to win - which bodes badly for their chances, giving my recent prognostication losing streak.

But there's something about the Spartans that bugs me. They've got a ton of athletes, more than Duke, in fact. But they just don't seem to have that go-to guy, that crunch-time money player (to throw in a few more cliches). To me, this is the time of the season when you need players capable of elevating their games and carrying their team for minutes at a time - particularly toward the end. Duke has three potential suspects; Redick, Ewing and Williams.

Now I'm not saying that someone like Ager, Brown, Davis, Anderson, or Torbert (I told you they had a lot of athletes) isn't capable of turning into that guy for this game. But I still like Duke's chances.