Originally Posted by
COYS
Great anecdote, by the way. Great story. Zoubs could easily have said the same thing if someone had compared him to Davis, Alabi, Favors/Lawal, or even Aldrich, Pittman, Cousins, etc.
The first part of your post reminds me how Duke is always treated in a unique way by the media. In past seasons, Duke was "exposed" by "athletic" teams like LSU, WVU, and Nova. This season, when the top seeds lost and Duke kept on winning, the media didn't claim that Kansas and 'Cuse were exposed as weak teams. Rather, they complained that Duke got an easy bracket and, due to upsets, an easy path to the title. This being the case even though Duke beat perhaps the most "athletic" team in the tournament in Baylor in a virtual home game for them, demolished the WVU team that was supposedly a better fit as a number 1 seed than Duke, and then defeated a Butler team in another virtual true road game for Duke. Any champion needs a bit of luck to hoist the trophy. However, whether or not Duke was the "best" team on paper going into the tourney doesn't matter. What they went through to finally bring home the ultimate banner proves that they were the best team.