The NCAA tournament is about basketball but also so much more: the fans, bands, cheerleaders, etc. The East Regional is coming to Washington, DC this weekend and we could not be more excited to be there in person! HoopsHD is all over it and covering all of the angles so you can look forward to a cascade of coverage in the days ahead. Jon Teitel got to attend Duke’s practice on Thursday afternoon and now brings you the following photo/video essay.
SO SG Alex O’Connell scored 7 PTS against North Dakota State but looks ready for action despite not playing against UCF:
You might think that Coach K has everything memorized but even the winningest coach in college basketball history needs to check his notes from time to time:
Still no sign of Jim Nantz but the rest of the CBS crew is in the house with TV monitors aplenty:
Raftery: 
Wolfson: 
Grant Hill spent the entire time catching up with all of the assistant coaches at his alma mater including:
2000 ACC POY Chris Carrawell: 
2011 ACC POY Nolan Smith: 
Zion Williamson is big: 
I mean really big: 
Here is video of Zion looking big while warming up:
FR SG Cam Reddish is averaging 12.5 PPG through 2 career NCAA tourney games and was working on his 3-PT shot:
FR PG Tre Jones has only made 1 FT in the entire NCAA tourney so he got some shots up from the FT line:
There are camera crews set up everywhere to capture their allotted 15 minutes of practice video before we get kicked out of the gym:
The 2 freshman superstars (RJ Barrett and Zion) spent some time shooting from the mid-court logo just to see who has more range:
I never met John Wooden so this might be the closest I ever get to a 5-time (and counting) NCAA championship coach:
…and his lovely wife:
1 perk for Greg Paulus (screen left), who spent the past year down the street from the Capital 1 Arena as an assistant coach at GW, is that he can walk over and reconnect with the coach (screen right) who recruited him to come play at Duke almost 15 years ago:
RJ and Zion stretched it out:
…then stretched it out some more:
That’s all for now, check back later for continuing coverage.