Duke University has been playing the game of basketball competitively
for over 109 years! In this time they have established themselves as one of, if
not the greatest college basketball programs in the entire nation. The basic
stats for this organization are simply unbelievable and I think Wikipedia tells
of their achievements almost as well as Dick Vitale:
Duke has won 4 NCAA
championships (fifth all-time) and appeared in 10 Championship Games (third
all-time) and 15 Final Fours (tied for third all-time), and has an NCAA-best
.750 NCAA tournament winning percentage. 11 Duke Players have been named the
National Player of the Year, and 71 players have been selected in the NBA
Draft. In the 2008–2009 NBA season, Duke had more former players on NBA rosters
than any other school. Additionally, Duke has 36 players named All-Americans
(chosen 60 times) and 14 Academic All-Americans. Duke has been the Atlantic
Coast Conference Champions a record 19 times. The program also lays claim to 19
ACC regular season titles. Prior to joining the ACC, Duke won the Southern
Conference championships five times. Duke has also finished the season ranked
No. 1 in the AP poll seven times and is second, behind only UCLA, in total
weeks ranked as the number one team in the nation by the AP with 121 weeks.
Additionally, the Blue Devils have the second longest streak in the AP Top 25
in history with 200 consecutive appearances from 1996 to 2007, trailing only
UCLA's 221 consecutive polls from 1966–1980. As a result of such success, ESPN,
in 2008, named Duke the most prestigious college basketball program since the
1985-86 season, noting that "by any measure of success, Duke is king of the
hill in college basketball in the 64-team era of the NCAA tournament."
Since that designation, Duke won another national title in 2010.
It is also important to note that Duke first beat the North
Carolina Tar Heels in 1906 by a score of 19 – 18. This rivalry is one of the
closest and longest standing rivalries in all of college or professional
sports. In the last 87 meetings of the two schools, Duke is up by a total of 6
points. Wrap your head around that for a while here…6 points!
Some of the greatest players to ever play college basketball
have without a doubt called Duke their home school. They have a rough go of
things too, since almost the entire nation hates them. Duke is the most hated
college basketball program in the nation, recently beating out Kansas and
Kentucky for the honor, but the Blue Devils don’t care. They go out there each
and every night and play with that chip on their shoulder and consistently put
together winning seasons and All-American players. Although these players haven’t
always transferred over to the pro’s that well, they did have the most players
on NBA rosters in the 2008-09 season. Recent years have produced some extremely
talented players who are even considered the stars of their NBA Franchise and
will more than likely end up in the Hall of Fame someday.
Now with all of these attributes you may ask yourself, “How
could anyone hate such a prestigious program?” As a lifelong Blue Devil fan I
found myself asking the same question. Luckily I was able to find an
interesting article on the 12 biggest reasons everybody hates Duke, while I was
doing some research for this piece. Here’s what I found and some basic quotes
on the material as well:
12. The Officials Love Them –
Cameron Indoor Stadium has a mystical quality that turns charges into blocks, hacks
into acceptable contact and stops the space-time continuum on three- and
five-second calls – but only for the guys wearing white.
11. Floor Slapping – Part pump-up,
part glory boy show-off, all lame and contrived. Taking a cue from how they
officiate the game, refs probably see Duke Players slap the floor and don’t
believe there’s any contact.
10. Coach K Says so. – Coach K
reportedly said after a contentious game against Dean Smith’s Tar Heels, “If I
even for one minute start to act like [Smith], don’t ask a single question.
Just get a gun and shoot me.” A 2010 piece by Mike Lopresti (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/lopresti/2010-12-22-dean-smith-mike-krzyzewski_N.htm)
tells about how they’re basically the same person aside from Coach K’s penchant
for swearing and Smith’s fondness for Scotch…scotch, scotch, scotch…mmmm.
9. Dick Vitale – “No Duchess has
ever loved a Duke as much as Dick Vitale.” Vitale overpraises Duke when they’re
doing well, makes excuses when they’re playing poorly and reveres Coach K so
much that he probably has a time share in Krzyzewskiville.
8. The Fraud – This one’s a little
tough. It’s based off of “The Shot” by Christian Laettner that we’re so blessed
to see every year around tournament time 2 – 3,000 times. It talks about how
that’s what we see about the game but when Laettner deliberately stomps on
Timberlake (not Justin) earlier in the game. I wasn’t aware of this…but I guess
a player could have been thrown out of a game for something like this, which
would have undoubtedly changed the game considerably…hmm.
7. The Lost Season – Once again,
this is kind of B.S. It basically talks about how Coach K had back surgery and
had to miss most of the 94-95 season and stupid Tar Heel fans complain that the
losses weren’t counted against Coach K, even though he wasn’t coaching. Those
guys can be such whiners!
6. They’re not as clean as you’d
think. – Duke players know how to get away with cheap shots. One of my high
school team mates was as close to a pro at this as I’ve seen so no judgment
from me! But Coach K never takes any heat about it, prompting the writer of
this particular article to state, “He’s like the SUV in a commercial that
drives through the mud and comes out inexplicably clean at the end.”
5. Flopping – This one’s tough to
argue…The best quote in here is, “European soccer players think Duke players
flop too much.” But they also take some of the most ferocious charges I’ve ever
seen. They just simply know how to play the game, even if that includes the
occasional dramatic undertaking.
4. Taking Charges. – My thoughts
are stated, here’s what the author of the article states: “On the other hand,
when Duke isn’t spontaneously falling to the ground like an empty trash can in
a stiff breeze, the team stands in the lane and takes the toughest charges in
college basketball…It’s fundamentally sound. It’s also infuriating.”
3. The Cameron Crazies – Some people
claim that the chants and things that the Crazies do are practiced rather than spontaneous,
and for some reason this drives people insane. Truth be told, they are
extremely creative in their cheering and Cameron Indoor stadium has got to be
one of the greatest venues ever for sports. It’s designed to give the students
the best possible experience at the game and they show their support of their
team and school with all of the wackiness that they bring to every game.
2. Christian Laetthner – “Danny
Ferry was the first Duke to gain widespread infamy, but it wasn’t until
Laettner began winning titles that a Blue Devil player earned the scorn of the
nation. He begat Wojo who begat Redick, who begat Scheyer who begat Ryan Kelly.
Laettner’s the godfather of troll.” In the Fab Five documentary they all sum it
up by saying that they all thought Laettner was a “bitch” but once they played
against him, they all found out just how talented he really was.
1. They’re the Best. – “If
Christian Laettner wasn’t any good, no one would have cared that he acted like
a jerk. But he was the best player in college basketball, so there was a reason
to despise him other than his cockiness and swagger.
Similarly, if Duke just had an
obnoxious coach, it would be West Virginia. If Duke simply had crazy fans, it
would be Maryland. If the team only flopped, it would be Real Madrid.
But Duke piles up the haters
because, in addition to all those things, it’s the best program in college
basketball. Four national championships in the last 21 years. Eleven Final Four
appearances since 1986. Eight title game appearances over the same span. No
other school can match those credentials.
The masses dislike Duke for the
same reason they dislike the Yankees or the Cowboys or the Steelers: They’re
worthy.”
I'd also like to mention that my brother and I took a self guided tour of the Duke campus before the 2012 National Tournament and actually got to see the players get on the bus for their opening game in Greensboro against Lehigh. We wished every player good luck and everyone of them thanked us, pure class. We even talked a bit to Coach K and thanked him for sending us a poster autographed by the entire team for our silent auction for cancer research each year. He was simply a peach.
I’m not going to lie…this was one of the worst things I’ve
ever had to do. I spoke in an earlier blog about how I felt so terrible about
what I had done and written that I desperately wanted to take a shower after
every time I read it…there is no shower that can remove the feeling I’ve
garnered from writing this. I will now retire to my shame corner with my bottle
of Jameson and pray for better tomorrows…
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