A Duke Hater's Lament

So the Duke Blue Devils are off to another hot start. Wow. Haven't seen that before.

According to Pat Forde at ESPN.com, the fighting Krzyzewskis are poised to challenge North Carolina for ACC supremacy. Not only that, but thanks to North Carolina, the Blue Devils are apparently "underexposed".  I'm confident most teams in the NCAA would tolerate the kind of underexposure that comes with front page ESPN articles.

Duke is a consistently good basketball team, has very passionate fans, and equally passionate haters. I'm one of the haters, and I've got some problems with this situation.

First of all, it's fairly doubtful that Duke will seriously challenge North Carolina. I seriously doubt anyone will challenge North Carolina. Although, as a Spartans fan, I sure would love it if Michigan State could throw them a loss tonight.

Second, it seems that every year we hear the same refrain from the media.  It's something like, "everyone is doubting Duke, but they're hot, and this might be their year."  Then they go and lose to VCU, or squeak by Belmont by one point. And that's not even to mention the Shelden Williams-J.J. Reddick team getting spanked by Michigan State.

If this Duke media saturation were a mere annoyance, then I probably wouldn't complain. Or if I did complain, maybe I'd complain less. But the fact is Coach K undeniably gets a recruiting advantage from the news articles, the national commercials, and coaching the USA Basketball team. So it's more than an annoyance, it actually affects the ability of other teams to compete with Duke for recruits, and thus to compete on the floor.

So maybe we could just limit our praise of the Dookies, just a little bit.  Lets see if their team of McDonald's All-Americans can beat, say Davidson. If they win that game, and win handily, then I'll start to think they might merit the hype. But until then, try to remember that Duke's fast starts, while impressive, often mean nothing come March.