Did Shane guard himself?
Actually... no. They had him as starting center, and Carlos as backup SF, on the 2001 team, for some reason. Perhaps this is effectively the lineup they took into the NCAA tournament when Carlos was injured? Casey is in fact listed as backup center, though his minutes look too few.
So.. Shane was guarding Elton, and the 1999 version of Shane was guarding Nate James.
Just so you know, I am glad that UPS stopped running that Laettner shot over and over preaching Logistics. I wish that someone could use thier movie maker or photoshop skills to get Anthony Davis in there to swat the ball away. FYI: THE UPS HUB IS IN LOUISVILLE KY. There my bit of humor for the day.
JK I have been on this message board since 2008: When Billy Gillespie was screwing up the program. I have rooted for Duke every time they played North Carolina and have relished every time you guys beat them. You guys have one how many since 1998? 2? Let us have our moment. Even I got on the board and congratulated you guys the last time you won.
Congratulations to Kentucky for winning the National Championship. The kids certainly earned the victory, and Calipari should be commended for his ability to take a group of very young, very talented players and getting them to commit to defense, sharing the ball, and striving to achieve a team goal.
Kentucky Nation can now feel completely justified in turning their storied basketball program, unquestionably one of the most successful programs in all of college basketball, to a man with a longstanding history of ethical shortcomings, rule-bending/breaking, and treatment of academics and education as a nuisance to be avoided. After all, the whole point of hiring him was to win the title, ethics, honor, and education be damned. The gamble has, for now, paid off.
Congratulations!
I think Cal has found, through his near-misses (or as Carlin would say, "BS, that was a near HIT!") a way to operated his brand of powerhouse team building within the letter, if not spirit, of the rules. And it has delivered what Big Blue Nation craves - National Champions. (shooo, what any ball fan craves!)
Among my family and friends here in Louisville, that is OK. We do not talk about possible sanctions or the effects it may have long term on the game. While it is popular to say that UK fans live and die by victory, really, we have jobs, and kids, and lawns, and causes, and bunches of things that go on, despite victories and sanctions and we got to celebrate - most of us not burning or shooting anything - last week, and buy new shirts, but really, how does us loving or scoffing a victory mean a damn thing in the grand scheme of things?
I'm wearing the Duke NC shirt from 2010 as I type this. Does your vistory dance groove any deeper because Coach K alledgedly plays more deeply by the rules? And if so, what the frank and beans did any of you as Duke fans have to do with that ethic?
The same thing UK fans had to do with Cal being hired and allowed to run his program within the constraints of the NCAA rules.
nothing
We had a thread up discussing the National Title game that night. As a member of the board, you could have easily decided to post your thoughts in that thread both during and after the game. You chose instead to hop on shortly after the conclusion of the game, and throw up thread to rub the victory in the faces of Duke fans on a Duke board, and you chose to reference Laettner as well.
You could have had "your moment" in the in-game thread and likely would have received a few "congrats" in that thread. I think choosing the route you chose, revealed that your intentions stopped short of honorable.
It's not a huge deal, but if you truly wanted to just get congrats on the championship from your fellow "friends" here, the path you chose was not the best way to achieve that. Instead it was the worst way. Thus the reaction it drew.
That the first thing he did upon the final horn was to run here and create a new thread to gloat lets me know what his ambitions were. Trust me, the last thing I was thinking about on April 5, 2010 was to run to whatever boards UK fans frequent to rub it in their faces and beg for congrats. I was too busy partying at Rocket Bar and running down 7th Street in DC high-fiving cab drivers.
Deep, profound, wrong, and completely beside the point.
Cal, if he is indeed playing within the rules as he wins, is probably able to do so because the KY brand allows him to do so, while at smaller schools such as UMass and Memphis, he had to go one step farther to get top caliber talent. I doubt the leopard has changed a spot...he just doesn't have to tiptoe quite as far to (or beyond) the edge of the rules as he did before.
As for what I, or any Duke fan, has done...well, I can't quite reproduce your prose, but here's the reply.
(1) Coach K doesn't alledgedly, or allegedly, play "more deeply by the rules" than Cal...he most definitely plays more deeply by the rules than Cal.
(2) My "vistory" dance does groove quite deeply...because I have the luxury of supporting a basketball program that has a long history of winning, graduating players, educating players, and doing it with a commendable lack of sanctions and scandals. Of course, that's my victory dance. The victory dance of a fan who could give a crap about such things could groove quite deep if their program won a title by any means necessary.
(3) I can, like a KY fan, choose to support, or not support, the team based on whether or not I support the way the program is being run. I'm not a big fan of blindly supporting laundry. If Duke basketball was run with the same blithe disregard for education, ethics, and rules as certain other programs, I could choose to no longer support Duke basketball. I don't have one tiny iota of control with regards to whether or not the Duke Athletics Department chooses to run it's program like, well, Duke, or hire a guy like Cal, but I can control whether or not I choose to support the program.
If you'll notice, my previous post about Kentucky's win didn't accuse Cal of cheating in any way shape or form with this year's team, nor did it take away from this year's team's victory in any way. There have been no allegations about the 2011-2012 Kentucky team and there should be no assumption that rule-breaking, or even rule-bending was involved. What I wrote was an honest congratulations for the victory won, and an honest assessment of the the decision Kentucky made to hire Cal, seeking a win doing it his way, with his well known and documented history.
If Duke hires Cal when K retires and promptly wins a Natty, my victory dance won't groove deeply at all.
Thanks for the "d" in allegedly thing, I always get that wrong...
I mean this sincerely. You Blue Devils have a privilege (notice the "d" correction!) that no other elite program has ever enjoyed - a coach that found his home, an athletic director and overall program that had the luxury of not needing a winning team to be loved so that you could foster a legacy program. Not that Coach K has not made the most of his ethic, his intelligence, his drive and his passion. But who else, anywhere in college sports, has ever been given this opportunity?
You Dukies have it great! But it is lightning in a bottle. It has never been done before. And will never happen again. Revel in it.
But those programs not granted that privilege through legacy and tradition and, yes, money from the 1%, well, we play by the rules and compete as we can. And this year, one of us kicked everyone elses I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.!
I post infrequently but couldn't let this fascinating post perhaps go unanswered....
The first paragraph and and half of the second paragraph are spot-on. In addition to our immense gratitude for all the pride basketball has given us for many years-including some pre-K- our encompassing pride and enjoyment has come from pride in the overall Duke athletic program-perhaps the best in the country, possibly excepting Stanford-over the past twenty years, with national team national champions in men's and women's lacrosse, golf,soccer, and other individual ones. We are eqally as proud of these "Iron Dukes" as we are of our basketball teams- going all the way back to the Groat-led ones and the original "Iron Dukes".
It is this of which we are most proud, in addition to believing that our Coach K-led teams literally personify all that is- or can be- good about college basketball.
And finally-with Coach K aboard and our superb A.D.-THERE ARE SOUND REASONS TO BELIEVE THIS WILL CONTINUE LONGER than the duration of "lightening in a bottle", however appealing and delicious may be that phrase.
I'm wrong frequently and don't doubt you may be right about my wrong.
Great title to your post BTW!