What I learned from the message boards

[rocketeli]

I hope everyone is at least as excited as I am to get the basketball season started, and that we can channel some of the enthusiasm and appreciation for that we have had for the relatively modest success of the football team into our evaluations of the basketball team. In order to help with this I'm sharing what I learned during my first season of actually reading sports message boards last year...

1. Basketball coaches should really be arrested for taking money for what they do. How can they hold their heads up in public when even the most casual fan knows better than these supposedly highly trained and experienced professionals who have spent years coaching how to manage the team? Really these coaches are the most ignorant people!

2. The men who play college basketball have the emotional make-up of 13 year old school girls. If they don't "like" each other things will not go well.

3. If our team comes back and wins a game after being behind by a lot of points, this is due to our grit, desire and coaching talent. If the other team comes back and wins, we "let them."

4. Only the last game the team has played should be used to evaluate the teams ultimate record, progression in the NCAA tournament etc.

5. If a player is having a bad game this is most likely do to a conscious decision on his part to under-perform. It is never due to nagging injury, defensive pressure from the other team or a defensive mismatch for us, or that the particular style or pace of play is unsuited for that particular player.

a..nn..d a special one for us Duke fans (some of them)

6. If an eighteen to twenty year old world class athlete in excellent physical conditioning is forced to play 20-30 minutes a week extra of basketball for 3-4 weeks he will completely break down and be unable to perform at all. Never forget it!

[dukejim1]

I learned what the word viral really means. You take what was once water cooler talk and put it on a message board and an unexplained disease spreads and worsens as it travels across the country at warp speed. The biggest symptom of this crippling virus is the loss of reality.






I hope everyone is at least as excited as I am to get the basketball season started, and that we can channel some of the enthusiasm and appreciation for that we have had for the relatively modest success of the football team into our evaluations of the basketball team. In order to help with this I'm sharing what I learned during my first season of actually reading sports message boards last year...

1. Basketball coaches should really be arrested for taking money for what they do. How can they hold their heads up in public when even the most casual fan knows better than these supposedly highly trained and experienced professionals who have spent years coaching how to manage the team? Really these coaches are the most ignorant people!

2. The men who play college basketball have the emotional make-up of 13 year old school girls. If they don't "like" each other things will not go well.

3. If our team comes back and wins a game after being behind by a lot of points, this is due to our grit, desire and coaching talent. If the other team comes back and wins, we "let them."

4. Only the last game the team has played should be used to evaluate the teams ultimate record, progression in the NCAA tournament etc.

5. If a player is having a bad game this is most likely do to a conscious decision on his part to under-perform. It is never due to nagging injury, defensive pressure from the other team or a defensive mismatch for us, or that the particular style or pace of play is unsuited for that particular player.

a..nn..d a special one for us Duke fans (some of them)

6. If an eighteen to twenty year old world class athlete in excellent physical conditioning is forced to play 20-30 minutes a week extra of basketball for 3-4 weeks he will completely break down and be unable to perform at all. Never forget it!

[tele]

I learned what the word viral really means. You take what was once water cooler talk and put it on a message board and an unexplained disease spreads and worsens as it travels across the country at warp speed. The biggest symptom of this crippling virus is the loss of reality.

That is as good a description of going viral as I've seen. Except I think it does take on it's own reality, even it it's only a meme for a day.

[-bdbd]

I hope everyone is at least as excited as I am to get the basketball season started, and that we can channel some of the enthusiasm and appreciation for that we have had for the relatively modest success of the football team into our evaluations of the basketball team. In order to help with this I'm sharing what I learned during my first season of actually reading sports message boards last year...

1. Basketball coaches should really be arrested for taking money for what they do. How can they hold their heads up in public when even the most casual fan knows better than these supposedly highly trained and experienced professionals who have spent years coaching how to manage the team? Really these coaches are the most ignorant people!

2. The men who play college basketball have the emotional make-up of 13 year old school girls. If they don't "like" each other things will not go well.

3. If our team comes back and wins a game after being behind by a lot of points, this is due to our grit, desire and coaching talent. If the other team comes back and wins, we "let them."

4. Only the last game the team has played should be used to evaluate the teams ultimate record, progression in the NCAA tournament etc.

5. If a player is having a bad game this is most likely do to a conscious decision on his part to under-perform. It is never due to nagging injury, defensive pressure from the other team or a defensive mismatch for us, or that the particular style or pace of play is unsuited for that particular player.

a..nn..d a special one for us Duke fans (some of them)

6. If an eighteen to twenty year old world class athlete in excellent physical conditioning is forced to play 20-30 minutes a week extra of basketball for 3-4 weeks he will completely break down and be unable to perform at all. Never forget it!

7. Years of play, many years of coaching and additional camp/classroom/mentor-based instruction has been generally wasted on a team's coaches. There are actually THOUSANDS of very enthusiastic/insightful internet posters who are much more clear-headed and situationally aware, with a significantly better sense of what it takes to make "our" team win, all of whom are very willing to share their invaluable insights for the team... and for free even!

8. EVERY call that goes against our team and for the opponent was either: A. The result of poor eyesight or poor judgement by the referees; or B. The result of bribery or other moral debravity by said referees.

Corollary 8a. Referees are always pulling for the other team.


9. "Our" team (whichever team the poster is rooting for ) NEVER commits fouls. Any implication to the contrary is immediate proof of either insanity or sheer stupidity, or both.

10. Any recruiit who chooses to go to another school over "our" school is either being short-sighted/naive and exhibiting poor judgment, or he was persuaded to go elsewhere through other, nefarious means. There is, after all, no reasonable explanation of why a recruit would ever choose to go elsewhere.



:rolleyes:

[MCFinARL]

And don't forget

11. It's over. ;)

[NSDukeFan]

One thing I've learned lately, that I wouldn't have thought from watching the games and don't really remember from the past two years, is that Seth Curry is a terrible defensive player and everyone agrees about this. This has come as a bit of a surprise to me and may be good for the defense-focused staff to know.

[sagegrouse]

I learned what the word viral really means. You take what was once water cooler talk and put it on a message board and an unexplained disease spreads and worsens as it travels across the country at warp speed. The biggest symptom of this crippling virus is the loss of reality.

How would you modify the Churchill quote of long ago? "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

"A lie goes around the world 100 times before the truth has a chance to log in?"

sagegrouse

[OldPhiKap]

I learned Swahili.