By Andy Demetra
The pink, crescent-shaped scar still cuts through the dove’s wings tattooed on his left arm, a physical reminder of a moment he’d rather forget.
Jose Alvarado did what he has always done on a basketball court: go all-out, throw his body around, play fearlessly. So when he saw Duke forward Javin DeLaurier have an unimpeded path toward the basket on the opposite baseline, Alvarado wasn’t about to bail out. He threw himself toward DeLaurier like a soldier jumping on a grenade, doing whatever he could to challenge the shot of a player 10 inches taller than him.
DeLaurier scored, but the midair collision caused Alvarado’s body to splay awkwardly. He crashed to the Cremins Court, elbow-first.
The next sight was ugly and unmistakable. Alvarado had fractured his left elbow, a gruesome injury that turned McCamish Pavilion ghostly quiet. It cost Alvarado the rest of his freshman season. It took him four months before he could start shooting again.
The scar has mostly faded, though, and so has the memory from that Feb. 11, 2018 day for Tech’s sophomore point guard. For the first time since that injury, Alvarado will face the No. 2 Duke Blue Devils (16-2, 5-1 ACC) when the Yellow Jackets travel to Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Speaking before Georgia Tech (11-8, 3-3 ACC) practiced Friday, Alvarado’s sole focus was on the game ahead. The injury, in fact, never came up.
“I’m excited. I can’t wait for the game, but it’s just a regular game for me coming up. I’m just going to play as hard as I can,” he said.
Still, nothing erases a bad moment quite like a seminal one. Fresh off a 63-61 win over Notre Dame, Alvarado and the Yellow Jackets will seek their first win at Duke since 2004. As you get ready for tip-off, here are the top five notes from my chart in preparation for Saturday’s matchup in Durham (12 p.m. ET, Georgia Tech IMG Sports Network):
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The whispers started in the offseason.
Is this the best collection of freshmen ever assembled? Could Duke run the table? Will they have players go 1-2-3 in the NBA Draft?
With the regular season more than halfway over, Duke has done little to lessen the hype. The 6-foot-7, 285-pound Zion Williamson (21.7 ppg, 9.3 rpg), is a sui generis physical specimen who makes a mockery of gravity and can overpower defenders on “grab and go” moves. Six-foot-7 R.J. Barrett (23.9 ppg, 6.7 rpg) is an athletic, long-striding lefty who changes speeds and gets downhill quickly. Six-foot-9 Cam Reddish (13.1 ppg) is a light-on-his-feet wing who can score at all three levels.
Duke’s collection of freshmen is scary – and that doesn’t include point guard Tre Jones (8.1 ppg, 5.7 apg), who missed the last two games with a shoulder injury. Perhaps it’s instructive to look at Duke’s lone loss in conference play, a 95-91 overtime defeat to Syracuse on Jan. 14. Two days after the Yellow Jackets torched them for 59.5-percent field goal shooting, the Orange’s 2-3 zone caused Duke to become unusually sedentary. The Blue Devils played most of that game without Jones, but as Jay Bilas remarked on the broadcast, there was a lot of passing, just not a lot of moving by Duke.
Georgia Tech forced Notre Dame to play above the foul line in its win Tuesday. Can the Yellow Jackets shrink the floor, make the Blue Devils become passers, and force them into settling for threes, where they’ve been spotty this year (only 28.7-percent 3pt. in ACC play)? After allowing 20 offensive rebounds against Notre Dame, the Jackets may also need to have their best defensive rebounding game of the season. On top of its other offensive gifts, Duke ranks third in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage (38.3 percent).