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Seton Hall ready to face off with Duke as dance heats up

Andre Sweet says he has two "brothers" in basketball. One is Andre Barrett, his teammate at Seton Hall. The other is Chris Duhon of Duke, who will be his opponent today, sore ribs and all.

Lives and journeys become complicated in college basketball. There are far fewer than six degrees of separation in these frantic first-week subregional tournaments. Coaches have replaced one another and recruited against one another. Players know one another from summer leagues.

Andre Sweet and Andre Barrett first played against each other at the age of 9 or 10 in the church leagues in New York, where prodigies are identified early, candidates for big-time programs before their voices change.

On Saturday, Sweet and Barrett will try to keep Seton Hall going in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

In a doubleheader with a unifying theme, those other self-styled urban underdogs from Manhattan College will try to extend their season against Wake Forest. Both teams rely on transfers who came home.

Luis Flores talks about how he "got back on the boat" by leaving Rutgers for Manhattan. And Andre Sweet talks about being homesick at Duke, even though his roommate was Duhon, whom he describes as "one of the coolest guys I ever met."

Sometimes players leave even Duke, despite the beautiful campus, the aura of entitlement, and all those Final Fours that could produce institutional smugness if Dookies were not so innately humble.

Sweet was a part-timer on Duke's national champions in 2000-2001. Their talent awed him, but that was not why he came home, he said. He missed his family, he missed the city and he missed Andre Barrett.

"When a brother's in trouble, you help him out," Sweet said Friday.

The friendship had begun in grade school, then they played mind games with each other about their plans for high school.

"I told everybody I was going to another high school, but I went to Rice, and he came in the back door, and I said, `What are you doing here?'" Barrett recalled.

"He acted like he was upset, but I knew he wasn't," Sweet said.

They became teammates at Rice High School, in Harlem, with their families cheering them.

On Friday, they shared a smile about how Sweet's father used to chastise him from the bleachers, and how Barrett would smooth it over.

"I used to talk to his father," Sweet said. "We were all one family."

Upon graduation, the family was broken up.

Barrett, a high school all-American, received a scholarship at Seton Hall, not far from his home in the Bronx. Sweet said Friday he would have chosen Seton Hall over Duke, but "they didn't have a scholarship for me."

The Seton Hall coach at the time was Tommy Amaker, who, as it turned out, was just passing through on his way from Duke to Michigan.

When Amaker left, and some talented underclassmen turned professional, Barrett felt very much alone.

He put out a call to Sweet, who decided to come home, even if it meant leaving his roommate, Duhon, the anointed successor to a series of wise Duke point guards.

"Andre is one of the best guys I know," Duhon said Friday.

"He is a clown, a comedian. I don't think we ever argued. He kind of felt he was getting a little homesick at Duke, not with the team but with the whole university. Now he's doing great."
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