NEW YORK — At halftime of Duke’s win over Arizona State Wednesday, ESPN analyst Doug Gottlieb opened by declaring Duke “alarmingly unathletic,” right next to former Blue Devil star Jason Williams. Of course, Duke went on to win that game and tonight, the Blue Devils won the NIT by beating Connecticut.
So when a reporter asked Mike Krzyzewski to respond to Gottlieb’s criticism, the Duke head coach responded appropriately.
“He should be an expert on alarmingly non‑athletic,” Krzyzewski said. “So I’ll have to take a look at that a little bit closer because it comes from an expert who actually knows what it feels like to be alarmingly non‑athletic.
“Actually, we’re pretty athletic — we’re just not as athletic as Connecticut. Singler is a really good athlete. Lance, Miles. Jon is not leaping tall buildings with a single bound but he’s a real good athlete. But I wouldn’t call us like this athletic team, but we’re not amazingly non‑athletic. And I would rather not get into a discussion with Doug because I have respect of his stature and he should have his arguments with people of similar stature. That would be a good thing.”
Krzyzewski wasn’t done, either. A few questions later, he enjoyed the following exchange with a reporter:
Q. Kyle, 2‑of‑12, 6 points, he shoots 29 percent. I told you those numbers coming into the game.
A: I would have been very worried or mad at you. I would have told you to go talk to Doug Gottlieb. You don’t have to do that by the way. I won’t punish you like that.
Ouch.
It’s worth noting that even on Wednesday, Gottlieb, who has drawn ire from Duke fans in the past, predicted Duke would beat Connecticut. The same can’t be said of Williams, who was pressured into forecasting a Huskies victory.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Doug Gottlieb looks like a penis anyways..wasn’t he the waterboy at Oklahoma State? I thought ESPN would could find better commentators than Doug. Duke just dominated a pretty athletic team in UCONN so who’s alarmingly un-athletic now Doug?
Gottlieb also had an interesting comment when analyzing Duke with Jay Williams in studio during the Wednesday game against ASU. After Williams mentioned the impact Mason Plumlee would have when he returned from injury, especially in terms of athleticism, Gottlieb retorted with something along the lines of, “How big of an impact can that kid make when he wasn’t even expected to start?” Apparently Gottlieb’s information about the inner-workings of the Duke program is hazy at best…
Gottlieb’s limited because his brain consists entirely of airpockets and his mouth speaks before his limited mind does any critical thinking. Basically he is saying that one of the best teams in the country consists of a bunch of web footed clutzes. Hum, let’s examine that. Singler is a potential first team all American and Smith, Thomas, Scheyer, and Dawkins are really good atheletes. Smith and Dawkins are really quick and Thomas can jump with anyone. Mason Plumley appears very talented (but an injured freshman, so we need to see him more) and his brother is a very good shot blocker and defender (can’t do that without some athletic ability). Zoubek is the only one I’d say is un-atheletic. So, let see…..basically Gottlieb is full of it.