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JasonEvans
03-15-2012, 11:39 PM
You known, some folks here complain a bit or feel frustrated at our team. Heck, it has happened to me at times. We get impatient with recruiting that sometimes goes too slowly and ends with us losing battels we expected to win. We see the team lose games we think it should not. We see execution that is sometimes not up to the high standards by which we hold the program.

Well, the next time you feel a bit frustrated, take a look up north at UConn. They were higher ranked than us in the preseason (#4). They added superstud center Andre Drummond at the last minute. Back in October, plenty of folks would have bet on them to win the national title.

Well, now their season is over. They didn't even finish .500 in their conference in the regular season. They were never in their tourney game, being handled easily by Iowa State (no exactly a legendary program). They won't be back to the tourney next year because of their shameful academic record. Most experts say all their NBA prospects will leave because next season there is nothing to play for. Their long-time coach is sickly and retirement is imminent. Their conference has crumbled around them and they are begging the ACC for a lifeline... which does not appear to be coming.

Like the title of my post said... It is good to be Duke.

-Jason "even if the weekend does not work out as we hope, we remain one of the luckiest fan bases in all of college sports" Evans

dukedoc
03-16-2012, 12:20 AM
Wow, what a crazy season for them. Despite his many faults, I do think Calhoun can coach, so it's hard to believe he couldn't extract any more from this group of young men. I know he had health issues, etc., but still. Give K some Andre Drummond, and I think you'd see a very different outcome.

Also, I couldn't help but recall the fits the mercurial Deandre Daniels gave many on this board during his recruitment. He's contributed fewer than 15 mpg and averaged around 3ppg and 2rpg this season. I know UConn has different personnel than Duke, but it appears that he wouldn't have been the messiah many had pinned him as late in his recruitment.

Many a cautionary tale told by this UConn team.

Chris Randolph
03-16-2012, 12:21 AM
Nice post Jason. Puts things in perspective. Lets Go Duke!

FerryFor50
03-16-2012, 12:46 AM
What puts things into perspective to me are these poorly coached, undisciplined teams doing dumb thing after dumb thing and losing games they shouldn't lose. Duke may do some inexplicable things, but these other teams take it to a whole new level.

Glad we have a coach that can coach...

davekay1971
03-16-2012, 07:29 AM
Jason's post hits the nail on the head. I was having some of the same thoughts, and was going to save them for after the season.

Basically, here's my thinking. There's very little that makes Duke being one of the nation's best programs year after year a guarantee. While we have an administration, an athletic department, and an alumni base all committed to maintaing a successful basketball program, achieving that success is no guarantee. Achieving the kind of success we've had for going on 30 years is almost impossible. How do I know it's almost impossible? Because the only program I can think of that has been as good as Duke for as long as Duke is, unfortunately, the one 8 miles down the road. Syracuse, Kansas, and Kentucky come close, but both have had notable down-times in the last 30 years (Kansas and Syracuse less so than Kentucky). UCLA had a marvellous run under Wooden, but it was about 15 years. Similarly with Indiana under Knight (closer to 20 years), UConn under Calhoun (20 years and uncounted questions of integrity), etc. The landscape of college basketball is filled with programs that were once great (State), once bordered on greatness (Maryland), could be great (Baylor), are great or really good right now but who knows about five years from now, etc.

At Duke, we've enjoyed an almost unparalleled run of success. It isn't the name Duke, or the fact that we went there, or the gothic wonderland campus, or really even a motivated athletic department and alumni base that makes it happen. Heck, there are plenty of nice colleges on pretty campuses with motivated ADs and alumni bases out there.

To my mind, there's one thing, and one thing only that has made THIS run at Duke possible (giving full credit for the Bubas years and Foster's marvellous 78 team). That's Coach K.

We all know, or should know, the state of Duke basketball when K arrived. The ACC was owned by Dean Smith and Carolina. They were the crown jewel. Up in College Park, Lefty was going strong. State had peaked and dipped but was still good. UVa was a powerhouse under Terry Holland. Duke was a mess, although a mess with a proud history. Sound familiar, State fans? In fact, look at State when Jimmy V stepped down. They quickly went into a decline, and have struggled mightily, for going on 20 years, to right the ship. Because they couldn't find the right coach (yes, I know, Sendek had them competitive, but, as I will always argue, State has the right to want to compete on even footing with Duke and Carolina, and Sendek wasn't going to get them there).

Duke got monumentally lucky with K. He could recruit. He could coach. He had integrity. More than anything, and something there's no way Butters could have known, the man could motivate. By 1986 he had Duke competing for a national championship, and the program has been at the top of college basketball's food chain ever since.

There's a reason that we all fret about who the next coach is going to be. K is in his 60s. As active and dedicated as the man is, one day he's going to retire. There is no guarantee, none whatsoever, that Duke is going to maintain this level of consistent excellence once he does. Realistically, the odds are against it. Oh, Duke's probably not going to fall like State did. K's coaching family is too smart and too big, and there are plenty of smart young coaches outside of his coaching family that would saw off a leg to coach at Duke. But the reality is that nobody in the history of college basketball has done what Mike Krzyzewski has done. That means it's damned hard to do, and damned hard to maintain once he's retired.

Think about what that means, that nobody in history has done what he has done. Wooden had more titles, and no one will catch that. Must have been fun to be a UCLA fan for those 12 years. Dean Smith, Bobby Knight, Adolph Rupp...Krzyzewski has surpassed them all.

It's been great to be a Duke fan for the last 28 years and counting (taking it back to 84, when the program really began to turn around)

We all know the numbers, the accomplishments, so I'm not going to recount them. But, for those of us who get frustrated, get ticked, wish Coach would do this or do that differently (and that would be all of us, including yours truly), take a moment to step back, before the tournament begins for Duke, and think about that fact. We've all been able to be fans of the single most successful coach in the history of college basketball. There is no guarantee whatsoever that Duke's success will continue, at this level, 10, 20 years into the future. Not that we shouldn't still get frustrated, get ticked, and wish Coach would do this or that differently. But it's also important to really treasure something that is, in all likelihood, once in a lifetime.

bjornolf
03-16-2012, 07:31 AM
Just to play devil's advocate, they did win the national title last year, and both their men's and women's teams have basically owned us for the last fifteen years or so. All good things must come to an end.

davekay1971
03-16-2012, 07:34 AM
Of course, they did win the national title last year, and both their men's and women's teams have basically owned us for the last fifteen years or so. All good things must come to an end.

While their women's team has been stellar year in and year out, and while Calhoun has 3 titles to claim, UConn mens basketball has had a lot more up-and-down than Duke over the last 15 years. There's no denying what Kemba Walker and UConn accomplished last year - it was an amazing post-season run. But I can't imagine what the DBR message boards would have looked like during some of the down years UConn has had over Calhoun's run.

wavedukefan70s
03-16-2012, 07:59 AM
K could be around a lot longer than a lot of people expect.we do the same or similar critique of our highschool football coach of sixty years in my town(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McKissick).i believe duke could easily get between thirty seven and forty years if he chooses.great coaches are hard to come by.you really have to sit back and just appreciate you were able to watch a legend work.

rthomas
03-16-2012, 08:12 AM
You known, some folks here complain a bit or feel frustrated at our team. Heck, it has happened to me at times. We get impatient with recruiting that sometimes goes too slowly and ends with us losing battels we expected to win. We see the team lose games we think it should not. We see execution that is sometimes not up to the high standards by which we hold the program.

Well, the next time you feel a bit frustrated, take a look up north at UConn. They were higher ranked than us in the preseason (#4). They added superstud center Andre Drummond at the last minute. Back in October, plenty of folks would have bet on them to win the national title.

Well, now their season is over. They didn't even finish .500 in their conference in the regular season. They were never in their tourney game, being handled easily by Iowa State (no exactly a legendary program). They won't be back to the tourney next year because of their shameful academic record. Most experts say all their NBA prospects will leave because next season there is nothing to play for. Their long-time coach is sickly and retirement is imminent. Their conference has crumbled around them and they are begging the ACC for a lifeline... which does not appear to be coming.

Like the title of my post said... It is good to be Duke.

-Jason "even if the weekend does not work out as we hope, we remain one of the luckiest fan bases in all of college sports" Evans

Where is the "Like" button?

NSDukeFan
03-16-2012, 08:20 AM
Where is the "Like" button?

That's the button with the green happy, red unhappy face at the bottom left. :)
I approve of this thread.

linus
03-16-2012, 09:02 AM
Jason's post hits the nail on the head. I was having some of the same thoughts, and was going to save them for after the season.

Basically, here's my thinking. There's very little that makes Duke being one of the nation's best programs year after year a guarantee. While we have an administration, an athletic department, and an alumni base all committed to maintaing a successful basketball program, achieving that success is no guarantee. Achieving the kind of success we've had for going on 30 years is almost impossible. How do I know it's almost impossible? Because the only program I can think of that has been as good as Duke for as long as Duke is, unfortunately, the one 8 miles down the road. Syracuse, Kansas, and Kentucky come close, but both have had notable down-times in the last 30 years (Kansas and Syracuse less so than Kentucky). UCLA had a marvellous run under Wooden, but it was about 15 years. Similarly with Indiana under Knight (closer to 20 years), UConn under Calhoun (20 years and uncounted questions of integrity), etc. The landscape of college basketball is filled with programs that were once great (State), once bordered on greatness (Maryland), could be great (Baylor), are great or really good right now but who knows about five years from now, etc.

At Duke, we've enjoyed an almost unparalleled run of success. It isn't the name Duke, or the fact that we went there, or the gothic wonderland campus, or really even a motivated athletic department and alumni base that makes it happen. Heck, there are plenty of nice colleges on pretty campuses with motivated ADs and alumni bases out there.

To my mind, there's one thing, and one thing only that has made THIS run at Duke possible (giving full credit for the Bubas years and Foster's marvellous 78 team). That's Coach K.

We all know, or should know, the state of Duke basketball when K arrived. The ACC was owned by Dean Smith and Carolina. They were the crown jewel. Up in College Park, Lefty was going strong. State had peaked and dipped but was still good. UVa was a powerhouse under Terry Holland. Duke was a mess, although a mess with a proud history. Sound familiar, State fans? In fact, look at State when Jimmy V stepped down. They quickly went into a decline, and have struggled mightily, for going on 20 years, to right the ship. Because they couldn't find the right coach (yes, I know, Sendek had them competitive, but, as I will always argue, State has the right to want to compete on even footing with Duke and Carolina, and Sendek wasn't going to get them there).

Duke got monumentally lucky with K. He could recruit. He could coach. He had integrity. More than anything, and something there's no way Butters could have known, the man could motivate. By 1986 he had Duke competing for a national championship, and the program has been at the top of college basketball's food chain ever since.

There's a reason that we all fret about who the next coach is going to be. K is in his 60s. As active and dedicated as the man is, one day he's going to retire. There is no guarantee, none whatsoever, that Duke is going to maintain this level of consistent excellence once he does. Realistically, the odds are against it. Oh, Duke's probably not going to fall like State did. K's coaching family is too smart and too big, and there are plenty of smart young coaches outside of his coaching family that would saw off a leg to coach at Duke. But the reality is that nobody in the history of college basketball has done what Mike Krzyzewski has done. That means it's damned hard to do, and damned hard to maintain once he's retired.

Think about what that means, that nobody in history has done what he has done. Wooden had more titles, and no one will catch that. Must have been fun to be a UCLA fan for those 12 years. Dean Smith, Bobby Knight, Adolph Rupp...Krzyzewski has surpassed them all.

It's been great to be a Duke fan for the last 28 years and counting (taking it back to 84, when the program really began to turn around)

We all know the numbers, the accomplishments, so I'm not going to recount them. But, for those of us who get frustrated, get ticked, wish Coach would do this or do that differently (and that would be all of us, including yours truly), take a moment to step back, before the tournament begins for Duke, and think about that fact. We've all been able to be fans of the single most successful coach in the history of college basketball. There is no guarantee whatsoever that Duke's success will continue, at this level, 10, 20 years into the future. Not that we shouldn't still get frustrated, get ticked, and wish Coach would do this or that differently. But it's also important to really treasure something that is, in all likelihood, once in a lifetime.

This should be required reading before being allowed to post on these boards :) Excellent post!

bjornolf
03-16-2012, 09:23 AM
While their women's team has been stellar year in and year out, and while Calhoun has 3 titles to claim, UConn mens basketball has had a lot more up-and-down than Duke over the last 15 years. There's no denying what Kemba Walker and UConn accomplished last year - it was an amazing post-season run. But I can't imagine what the DBR message boards would have looked like during some of the down years UConn has had over Calhoun's run.

I agree 100%. Which is why I had edited my post to read "just to play devil's advocate". I wouldn't trade for the world.

Billy Dat
03-16-2012, 10:27 AM
There's a reason that we all fret about who the next coach is going to be. K is in his 60s. As active and dedicated as the man is, one day he's going to retire. There is no guarantee, none whatsoever, that Duke is going to maintain this level of consistent excellence once he does. Realistically, the odds are against it. Oh, Duke's probably not going to fall like State did. K's coaching family is too smart and too big, and there are plenty of smart young coaches outside of his coaching family that would saw off a leg to coach at Duke. But the reality is that nobody in the history of college basketball has done what Mike Krzyzewski has done. That means it's damned hard to do, and damned hard to maintain once he's retired.


This is 100% correct. Our fan base is spoiled beyond belief. Aside from the titles and Final Fours, I think the primary reason for the spoiled nature is the expectation that 27-30 wins per year is a given. Unfortunately, that 27-30 wins, which usually happen because K puts such an emphasis on playing every play as if the national championship is on the line, leads to high NCAA seeds. I say unfortunately because great regular season records and high seeds lay the groundwork for the chorus of "Duke is getting preferential treatment from the committee" and "Duke is the weakest #1 or #2 seed". When we then, sometimes, get knocked off before our seed says we should, we can't take it. I think the Sweet 16 losses hurt the collective Duke fanbase psyche more than the titles and Final Four appearances burnish it. I don't think it's right, but it's a fact. I think a lot of Duke fans THINK they'd rather have a program like Michigan State - one that plays a more inside-focused offense, plays a really brutal true road game schedule, and seems to make the Final Four at least once every four years. Of course, it's easy to forget that Izzo's squad went 19-15 and lost in the first round last year, or that they often have 1st or 2nd round losses after those Final Four years, or that they've only once punched a title card despite 6 Final Four trips under Izzo, or that they never seem to win the recruiting wars for the top players. I say all this thinking Izzo and MSU are great. We'll always want what we think the other guys have but we don't think we have. It's obviously better to be thankful for what we have, but that's not human nature.

jv001
03-16-2012, 10:37 AM
Jason's post hits the nail on the head. I was having some of the same thoughts, and was going to save them for after the season.

Basically, here's my thinking. There's very little that makes Duke being one of the nation's best programs year after year a guarantee. While we have an administration, an athletic department, and an alumni base all committed to maintaing a successful basketball program, achieving that success is no guarantee. Achieving the kind of success we've had for going on 30 years is almost impossible. How do I know it's almost impossible? Because the only program I can think of that has been as good as Duke for as long as Duke is, unfortunately, the one 8 miles down the road. Syracuse, Kansas, and Kentucky come close, but both have had notable down-times in the last 30 years (Kansas and Syracuse less so than Kentucky). UCLA had a marvellous run under Wooden, but it was about 15 years. Similarly with Indiana under Knight (closer to 20 years), UConn under Calhoun (20 years and uncounted questions of integrity), etc. The landscape of college basketball is filled with programs that were once great (State), once bordered on greatness (Maryland), could be great (Baylor), are great or really good right now but who knows about five years from now, etc.

At Duke, we've enjoyed an almost unparalleled run of success. It isn't the name Duke, or the fact that we went there, or the gothic wonderland campus, or really even a motivated athletic department and alumni base that makes it happen. Heck, there are plenty of nice colleges on pretty campuses with motivated ADs and alumni bases out there.

To my mind, there's one thing, and one thing only that has made THIS run at Duke possible (giving full credit for the Bubas years and Foster's marvellous 78 team). That's Coach K.

We all know, or should know, the state of Duke basketball when K arrived. The ACC was owned by Dean Smith and Carolina. They were the crown jewel. Up in College Park, Lefty was going strong. State had peaked and dipped but was still good. UVa was a powerhouse under Terry Holland. Duke was a mess, although a mess with a proud history. Sound familiar, State fans? In fact, look at State when Jimmy V stepped down. They quickly went into a decline, and have struggled mightily, for going on 20 years, to right the ship. Because they couldn't find the right coach (yes, I know, Sendek had them competitive, but, as I will always argue, State has the right to want to compete on even footing with Duke and Carolina, and Sendek wasn't going to get them there).

Duke got monumentally lucky with K. He could recruit. He could coach. He had integrity. More than anything, and something there's no way Butters could have known, the man could motivate. By 1986 he had Duke competing for a national championship, and the program has been at the top of college basketball's food chain ever since.

There's a reason that we all fret about who the next coach is going to be. K is in his 60s. As active and dedicated as the man is, one day he's going to retire. There is no guarantee, none whatsoever, that Duke is going to maintain this level of consistent excellence once he does. Realistically, the odds are against it. Oh, Duke's probably not going to fall like State did. K's coaching family is too smart and too big, and there are plenty of smart young coaches outside of his coaching family that would saw off a leg to coach at Duke. But the reality is that nobody in the history of college basketball has done what Mike Krzyzewski has done. That means it's damned hard to do, and damned hard to maintain once he's retired.

Think about what that means, that nobody in history has done what he has done. Wooden had more titles, and no one will catch that. Must have been fun to be a UCLA fan for those 12 years. Dean Smith, Bobby Knight, Adolph Rupp...Krzyzewski has surpassed them all.

It's been great to be a Duke fan for the last 28 years and counting (taking it back to 84, when the program really began to turn around)

We all know the numbers, the accomplishments, so I'm not going to recount them. But, for those of us who get frustrated, get ticked, wish Coach would do this or do that differently (and that would be all of us, including yours truly), take a moment to step back, before the tournament begins for Duke, and think about that fact. We've all been able to be fans of the single most successful coach in the history of college basketball. There is no guarantee whatsoever that Duke's success will continue, at this level, 10, 20 years into the future. Not that we shouldn't still get frustrated, get ticked, and wish Coach would do this or that differently. But it's also important to really treasure something that is, in all likelihood, once in a lifetime.

Excellent post. But that team down the road had it's own problem with point shaving(Doug Moe) many years ago. And recently the unc football program and Butch Davis. GoDuke!