The End Is Near: Duke Might Be Likable

I need to tread lightly with this post, but here goes.

I have hated Duke basically as long as I've been a basketball fan. It used to be for the same reasons as everyone else. They were rich, cocky and white, with usually their coach and a few select stars carrying the torch of douchebaggery for that oh so cultured student section. Sure, there were a ton of Duke players that do not exhibit any of these traits. Grant Hill, Carlos Boozer, Elton Brand... actually, any player that succeeded in the NBA was alright in my book. Those guys had the right to be arrogant if they wanted, they could back it up and weren't just a product of privilege/hype/media coverage. But everyone knows the real icons of Dookiness, the guys who embodied all that hatred, we don't need to name them.

Anyway, so I used to hate them because of all that, plus the excruciating media coverage, the Vitale/Patrick dynamic, the floor-slapping, the favorable officiating and the seemingly familiar face/athletic ability that didn't appear to be any different than the guy's I went up against in high school. This hatred was probably predicated on the fact that Duke was almost always good, and I was not a fan of them. I've found that I've hated them the same reason the Patriots are hated now or the Yankees have been hated for eternity. As I became a more rational sports fan, I realized that anyone who hates a team for those reasons is an idiot. Media coverage and whiteness are not crimes against humanity. But that's not to say I didn't stop hating Duke.

With the help of my new rationality and Will Blythe's book To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever, probably my favorite sports book ever, I had new reasons to hate Duke. They represented everything that is wrong with America. I'm not saying that to be a sensationalist, it's the truth. They represent an elite, entitled America. They think they deserve things for being Duke the same way the majority of Americans think they deserve things for being America.

In Blythe's book he profiles the difference between UNC and Duke. I'm going to save his outstanding cultural analysis of that rivalry for when that game rolls around, but one element of his argument was that Duke was imperialistic. A bunch of rich, elite kids from the North, coached by a Polish guy from Chicago, settling in the heart of North Carolina, an area full of humble, middle-class folks, who were genuinely passionate about few things: religion, family and basketball. Not American Express or taunting or media favoritism or anything in basketball that doesn't happen on the court. Duke, and more specifically Coach K, stormed Durham and turned the town into something the rest of North Carolina couldn't identify with, and thus, resented. Now I'm from the Philly area, but if you have certain political views, it's not hard to empathize with those UNC fans. I hated Duke for the reasons they did, which is far different, and I think far more substantial, than the reasons of the general public. I think you could even say that Duke has stormed the college basketball landscape in general and turned it into something true hoops fans couldn't identify with as well, but that might be painting with too broad a brush.

Anyway, those are the foundations for my hatred of Duke over the last few years and last season was a microcosm of my new rationalism. Sure, the standard annoyances were there, but it was the immediate arrogance and expected success of that team, full of big name recruits like McRoberts, Paulus, Henderson, Thomas that made their eventual demise so much more enjoyable. For most of the season, the media loved them, the Crazies loved them, they loved themselves. "We were All-Americans, we got a scholarship to Duke fucking University, we are going to stomp anyone who comes near us." But as sometimes happens in college hoops, things don't work out as they should. Talent doesn't trump heart and it doesn't denote chemistry. Watching them lose to VCU, a mid-major team with a young upstart coach and an unsung star, Maynor, who in reality, was more talented than anyone Duke had, was ever so sweet.

Now, at the beginning of this year, I knew something was up. They only lost McRoberts, which could be considered addition by subtraction, and they brought in three All-Americans. Given the general exodus of veteran talent amongst the top teams and the media's jock-sniffing of the Devils I thought Duke would be top 7 team for sure. But when they were out of the top 10 and lambasted for their lack of inside presence and point guard play, I was almost disappointed. Was Coach K removed from his pedestal above the colleges hoops world? I saw the doubts, but where were the benefits of the doubts? Hopefully they are even worse than people are saying. Hopefully they are still overrated somehow. Then I watched them play.

Let me tell you something. Not only is Duke better than expected, they are the most fun team to watch in the country and they are the BEST TEAM IN THE COUNTRY. Yes, it's true. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I've got to think Coach K's time with Mike D'Antoni this summer influenced this. They are playing small ball like the Phoenix Suns. They certainly don't have Nash or Stoudemire, but they spread the floor with versatile shooters and ball-handlers, drive and kick flawlessly and create enough defensive chaos to keep teams from exploiting their weaknesses inside. They have speed and ballhandling matched by maybe no one in the country besides, ironically, UNC and can get scoring from about eight different guys. Henderson, King and Singler is the best wing combo in the nation and cause constant mismatches, ala, Shawn Marion for Phoenix. A more detailed analysis of their greatness would be pointless, it's not hard to watch them play and see why. (Or just read this outstanding article by Grant Wahl at SI.com)

You might say, well how does style of play change how they are assholes? Well, besides King, there is a quietude to this team that is unassuming. When you can't pick one player to hate, whereas in the past there was always one figurehead of Duke-ism, from McRoberts to Redick to Battier all the way back to Laettner, you realize this team seems to embrace a team concept in both their style and their attitude. And if Coach K truly did change his style to adapt to what he had, rather than change what he had to embrace his style, isn't that a lack of stubbornness that we could have never expected out of him? And when we see this dynamic, a program that has gotten along forever by practicing their own brand of arrogance on their own island amidst the college basketball landscape trying to get things done like everyone else, should we embrace them? I say yes, and I will watch them with joy every time they are on. (I still hate the Crazies though, they haven't changed at all).

Yes, the end of our Duke-hating paradise might be near, and in what is surely no coincidence, Dick Vitale is nowhere to be found. Certainly I wish Dukie V well, but this might be a year he's better off missing.