Chris Carrawell: Wendell Moore "Has Been Tremendous"

Assistant impressed with sophomore's confidence

Duke assistant coach Chris Carrawell joined the chorus of voices in the Blue Devils program who are impressed with Wendell Moore Jr.’s improved confidence this season.

The sophomore will be counted on to be one of Duke’s leaders, with six freshmen and seven total newcomers on the roster.

“He’s been tremendous,” Carrawell said. “His presence, the growth from your freshman year to your sophomore year. We look at Matthew Hurt and Wendell Moore—in the one-and-done era, a lot of people would think they had bad years, so to speak. For a freshman to play those type of minutes and those averages, you look at those averages—in my day, coming back for sophomore year, they’d have been on covers of magazines. I mean, really. It’s just different now. The main thing, the most important thing I’ve seen out of Wendell has been his confidence. There would be times in games last year when he was open, and he wouldn’t shoot the ball, and you can hear bench and some fans yelling, ‘Shoot! Shoot!’ And he would pass up open shots. I think a year older, working on his game all summer and then you come back. You’re older. You’re more confident. He’s playing with extreme confidence now for us. That’s going to help us, because he can shoot the ball, but you wouldn’t know it. He wouldn’t shoot. When he’s open, we encourage him to take a shot, because it’s a good shot. Even if he misses it, he shoots such a good ball that its easy to rebound it. His confidence has been the main thing from freshman year to sophomore year.”