Duke Crews

#1
emainvol

emainvol

Giver of Sexy
Joined
Feb 4, 2006
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#1
I'm sure someone has started this topic before, but, how good is this kid? I know he is ranked pretty high by the experts (and he has that whole ugly swingman ala North Carolina thing going on). Any thoughts?
 
#2
#2
I think he will be really good. He has really moved up the charts since Pearl spotted him last year. Pearl described him as the type of player with a chip on his shoulder.
 
#3
#3
(vol_freak @ Feb 13 said:
I think he will be really good. He has really moved up the charts since Pearl spotted him last year. Pearl described him as the type of player with a chip on his shoulder.
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Blue in color I hope.
 
#4
#4
maybe CBP can recruit a fab five. gimme that and some mag wheels, and that would be sweet
 
#6
#6
Justin Young of Rivals.com says that Duke Crews is a "monkey wrench" in the law of physics. That he "soars" through the air for boards and "rim-rattling" dunks and that it would be hard to find another player in the counrty with more explosion off the floor than Duke Crews.

Jerry Meyer of Rivals.com and a former coach says that Duke Crews is a "freak". Very good defensively, very good rebounder, extremely athletic, very good offensive game from 10 feet in. Has range to around 15 ft with his jumper. Not completely polished in his low post but will certainly improve. Most people have him as a 5* caliber prospect and like the previous poster stated, he made the Jordan All-American which is the best of the best. Could make the McDonald's All-American, but Meyer said it was probably doubtful due to all the time he missed this year from his hand injury.
 
#7
#7
(orangewizard98 @ Feb 14 said:
Justin Young of Rivals.com says that Duke Crews is a "monkey wrench" in the law of physics. That he "soars" through the air for boards and "rim-rattling" dunks and that it would be hard to find another player in the counrty with more explosion off the floor than Duke Crews.

Jerry Meyer of Rivals.com and a former coach says that Duke Crews is a "freak". Very good defensively, very good rebounder, extremely athletic, very good offensive game from 10 feet in. Has range to around 15 ft with his jumper. Not completely polished in his low post but will certainly improve. Most people have him as a 56* caliber prospect and like the previous poster stated, he made the Jordan All-American which is the best of the best. Could make the McDonald's All-American, but Meyer said it was probably doubtful due to all the time he missed this year from his hand injury.
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56* eh??? thats impressive! :ninja:

jk with ya. Duke crews could be the best post player to play in tennessee for quiet awhile, and thats impressive since we have had crump and slay the past 4 years. This kid looks automatic on the inside and he has hops. I saw a picture where he touched to top of the painted box of the backboard, thats some jumping skills....
 
#8
#8
lol....well, he may not quite be a 56* caliber player. Just a little exaggeration on my part...lol

Guess I should fix that.
 
#9
#9
FWIW.......Also according to Justin Young, he actually said that he felt Wayne Chism was the best overall post player coming into the SEC in the Class od 2006. Said Duke Crews was the best athlete coming into the SEC in the Class of 2006.

 
#10
#10
wayne chism...... He has handled and stuck with all the biggest men coming into college this year, including oden who is suppose to be something else. we will be set on the inside next year, just got to replace watson and we can make another run...
 
#12
#12
(vols2345 @ Feb 14 said:
56* eh??? thats impressive! :ninja:

jk with ya. Duke crews could be the best post player to play in tennessee for quiet awhile, and thats impressive since we have had crump and slay the past 4 years.
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He might be the best since Doug Roth! :biggrin2:
 
#13
#13
I had the opportunity to watch Duke play in person about a week ago. I will say the game I saw Duke play was against a much inferior opponent so some of what I saw was perhaps skewed. However, what I took from watching Duke play, he is a great athletic talent. Offensively I think he is very unpolished. His team has him playing the post position right now, which I dont believe he will play at TN. I believe he will certainly be a 3 guy/small forward. Things that impressed me with his game offensively were his ability to run the floor and score in transition, get points on missed shots, and his overall unselfishness to pass the ball to open teammates. That was very impressive to me, at times during the game I felt he passed up many shot opportunities for easy scores. Duke IMO is a slasher type scorer who like mentioned before will get points on missed shots, steals, fast break points, etc. This is where Duke will thrive in Pearl's pressing system, you are gonna witness many highlight film dunks with this kid. He had about 6 nasty dunks during the game, one where he looked back for the other team on a fast break and then did a windmill dunk bringing down the house.

Where I think Duke has got to get better is playing with his back to the basket. At the high school level he can out jump his opponents and make shots easier for himself, but when he gets in the SEC that will obviously change. I definitely wouldn't say Duke has a great jump shot by any means. He didn't take many jump shots in the game I saw because he didn't need to. But watching him shoot in warm ups and during the game, I wasn't overly impressed with that aspect of his play. I would say his range is 10ft in, an occasional 3 here or there maybe. His free throw shooting was less than impressive to me, he missed about 7 free throws and shot about 13 for the game.

Defensively Duke stood around a little too much for my taste, but that will change in Pearl's system. He did block several shots, and grab some steals on defense, but his man blew by him on several occasions, which dissapointed me to a degree. That being said Duke has a great ability to get off the ground, and his second jump is as good as his first.

IMO Duke has great upside. Duke will do great in Pearl's system because it will maximize his talents, and hide some of his weaknesses. He seemed very much liked by all his teammates, and is a very unselfish basketball player. TN fans are gonna really love this kid.

My brother and I wore our TN gear to the game and before the tipoff Duke was standing at half court. Some fans of the opposing team sitting down front were harrassing him and he started laughing. He then pulled up his shorts just a hair and beneath his game shorts were a pair of black mesh shorts with a power T on them. Duke pointed to the power T and looked at those guys and laughed some more. I then waived my arms and he looked up at me and smiled. Pretty cool I thought. Seems like this kid is pumped to be a TENNESSEE VOLUNTEER, which is a wonderful thing to see!
 
#15
#15
(tnvoln77 @ Feb 15 said:
My brother and I wore our TN gear to the game and before the tipoff Duke was standing at half court. Some fans of the opposing team sitting down front were harrassing him and he started laughing. He then pulled up his shorts just a hair and beneath his game shorts were a pair of black mesh shorts with a power T on them. Duke pointed to the power T and looked at those guys and laughed some more. I then waived my arms and he looked up at me and smiled. Pretty cool I thought. Seems like this kid is pumped to be a TENNESSEE VOLUNTEER, which is a wonderful thing to see!
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Cool story. This team's energy is contagious. Pearl has come to Tennessee and "infected" the players. . . .now everyone is catching it: the fan-base, the media, and apparently the recruits! Glad to hear that Crews is stoked about becoming a Vol. He has near-superhuman athletic qualities and will become much more polished once he gets to college. When you are are THAT much better than your competition in high school, you almost don't need to pay attention to details and work on your technical game.

Oh, and I'm already getting chills picturing that Windmill dunk in an Orange jersey next year!
 
#19
#19
(vols2345 @ Feb 14 said:
I saw a picture where he touched to top of the painted box of the backboard, thats some jumping skills....
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Photographical evidence.

21889042.jpg
 
#23
#23
Chism will play the 5. Pearl has made the comment that he is the 2nd best center in the country behind Greg Oden and that he would be the best post player on our team right now.
 
#25
#25
Next season...

PG - JaJuan Smith - Jordan Howell
SG - Chris Lofton - Marques Johnson - Josh Tabb
SF - Dane Bradshaw - Tony Passley
PF - Duke Crews - Ryan Childress
C - Major Wingate - Wayne Chism - Damion Harris
 
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