Probably the most-anticipated college career of a Juneau-Douglas High School graduate will officially open at 2:30 p.m. (Alaska time) Thursday.
That's when Carlos Boozer Jr. takes the floor as the defending NCAA Division I runner-up Duke Blue Devils, ranked No. 10 in the preseason Associated Press basketball poll, open their season against the 13th-ranked Stanford Cardinal in a game that will be broadcast nationally on ESPN. The game, which will be at New York City's Madison Square Garden, is the first NCAA Division I game of the season in the country, and it is also part of the Coaches Vs. Cancer Classic.
The other game in the Classic, which starts 30 minutes after the end of the Duke game, pits defending national champion Connecticut against Iowa.
Boozer, a freshman forward-center who was one of the nation's top-10 high school basketball players last year, is expected to come off the bench Thursday as he's still recovering from a broken foot in August. But even in limited action, he's already made a significant impression for the Blue Devils.
In an exhibition game Monday, Boozer scored a team-high 22 points and grabbed seven rebounds in just 16 minutes as Duke crushed the Down Under Bandits 123-63. Boozer, who scored eight points before fouling out in a 128-80 exhibition victory over the Five-Star Hawks on Nov. 3, made 10 of his 11 free throw attempts and shot 6-of-8 from the field on Monday.
"My skills were not going to leave me," Boozer told writer A.J. Carr of the Raleigh News & Observer, who said Boozer flashed his mobility by intercepting a pass, dribbling three quarters of the court and dunking. "I'm getting more comfortable, more confident. It's a matter of getting (all) the conditioning."
Boozer's parents, Carlos Sr. and Renee, made the trip to New York City for Thursday's game, and naturally they're excited to see their son's college debut.
"Hopefully he'll do something special so the cameraman can show his mom and dad," Carlos Sr. said Wednesday before heading to the airport. "He's not starting, but he's expected to get lots of time off the bench. He's had only 10 practices so he's not 100 percent. He's about 98 percent right now."
Carlos Sr., who is camp director for Elite Basketball Organization-Alaska, said Slick Rick's Barbecue will be setting up a food spread at Marlintini's Lounge for every televised Duke game during the season as a fund-raiser for EBO. The spread will include chicken, ribs, corn and greens, and EBO t-shirts will be sold to help fund the group's travel to tournaments in the Lower 48. An Alaska all-star team of high school players was picked after last month's EBO camp at Juneau-Douglas High School, and that team will travel to tournaments frequented by college recruiters in the hopes the players might earn scholarships.
"Ethan (Billings, one of Marlintini's owners) was very happy to do this for us. He's the first person to come forward to help EBO so far," Carlos Sr. said. "You can bring kids (to the barbecue) as long as a parent or guardian is present. We want to get everyone on the bandwagon."
