Lehigh's C.J. McCollum injured

[dukelifer]

C.J. McCollum may have broken his foot. Bad things often happen to teams that beat Duke in the tourney but this is not what you want to see. Kid was leading the nation in scoring.

[Native]

And the Duke Curse strikes again.

In all seriousness, hate to see this for the kid. Dude absolutely shredded us last year — one of the best guards in the nation, no doubt. Here's to a speedy recovery.

[cptnflash]

This is such a bummer. Hope he's back in time for the Patriot League tournament at least. They'll need him to have any shot of beating Bucknell and making it back to the big dance.

[OldPhiKap]

Vibes for a quick and full recovery!

[jimsumner]

Terrible news for the kid and his team.

Am I the only one who wishes we would retire this Duke curse nonsense? There's no cause and effect and the whole thing reeks of schadenfreude.

[MChambers]

Terrible news for the kid and his team.

Am I the only one who wishes we would retire this Duke curse nonsense? There's no cause and effect and the whole thing reeks of schadenfreude.
I'm with you.

[Duvall]

Terrible news for the kid and his team.

Am I the only one who wishes we would retire this Duke curse nonsense? There's no cause and effect and the whole thing reeks of schadenfreude.

Agreed. Turning player injuries into a punchline is distasteful.

[Kedsy]

Terrible news for the kid and his team.

Am I the only one who wishes we would retire this Duke curse nonsense? There's no cause and effect and the whole thing reeks of schadenfreude.

You are not the only one. I totally agree with you and absolutely cringe every time someone mentions the "Duke curse."

[cptnflash]

Am I the only one who wishes we would retire this Duke curse nonsense? There's no cause and effect and the whole thing reeks of schadenfreude.

+1. Not only is there no causation, there's no correlation.

[TruBlu]

Agreed. Turning player injuries into a punchline is distasteful.

Agree with you and Jim. I don't mind using the "Duke Curse" in cases of corruption, coaches getting fired, probation, etc., but player injury should not be used.

Best wishes to C.J. for a speedy and complete recovery.

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Terrible news for the kid and his team.

Am I the only one who wishes we would retire this Duke curse nonsense? There's no cause and effect and the whole thing reeks of schadenfreude.

Totally agree - the "joke" has gotten very stale. And one could argue we have suffered our share of "curses" with various transfers, injuries, first round losses to Lehigh, etc.

[sagegrouse]

Totally agree - the "joke" has gotten very stale. And one could argue we have suffered our share of "curses" with various transfers, injuries, first round losses to Lehigh, etc.

I would argue, that in winning the 2010 championship somewhat unexpectedly, that we sold our soul to the Devil. Nah, impossible -- we are the Devils -- sold our soul to a "defective" angel. The price exacted was the "curse of Kyrie's toe," losing the next season where Gary Williams, among others, said that Duke might have been undefeated if Kyrie had been healthy.

sagegrouse

[-bdbd]

Ha! I had always assumed that the "curse" was just something funny that was a DBR creation/promotion thing. However, I am recently seeing it getting mentioned in other ACC publications, such as the ACC Sports journal. Maybe there's some truth to it after all.... :rolleyes:


http://www.accsports.com/daily-links/2013010714412/acc-daily-links-jan-7.php?login=true


Sorry to see such a terrific player go down like that. Hoping for a speedy recovery!

[Wander]

+1. Not only is there no causation, there's no correlation.

I became curious after reading through this thread, especially the idea quoted here, which was my initial reaction as well.

The first thing we need to do is come up with a definition, otherwise it's way too easy to confirmation bias the Duke Curse to death. The spirit of it is that the team that beats Duke in the tournament is worse than expected the following year. I think the best way is to compare preseason and postseason ranking in the polls; looking at something like kenpom would put too little weight on postseason results. And in theory this incorporates the effects of injuries, coaching issues, and so on. I'm open to other ideas, but this metric seemed simple and direct. For the past 10 years:

2003 Indiana: 21st in preseason, unranked in postseason (lost in round of 32)
2004 Kansas: 5th in preseason, 9th in postseason (lost in Elite 8)
2005 UConn: 7th in preseason, in postseason (lost in round of 32)
2006 Michigan State: 4th in preseason, unranked in postseason (lost in first round)
2007 LSU: 5th in preseason, unranked in postseason (did not make NIT)
2008 VCU: unranked in preseason, unranked in postseason (lost in first round of NIT)
2009 West Virginia: unranked in preseason, unranked in postseason (lost in round of 64)
2010 Villanova: 6th in preseason, 15th in postseason (lost in round of 32)
2011: :)
2012 Arizona: 16th in preseason, unranked in postseason (lost in first round of NIT)
2013 Lehigh: ???

So... out of the last 10 years, in 2 years the teams did about as expected, in 4 years the teams did significantly worse than expected, in 3 years the teams did A LOT worse than expected, 1 year was not applicable, and in 0 years the teams did better than expected.

Of course, that's not enough to show anything, because we also need to show that similar "curses" don't hold true for other similar programs. I don't have the time or energy to do that the right way, but a quick glance eight miles down the road: Kentucky won the national championship in 2012 after beating UNC in 2011, and Kansas is doing really well so far this year after beating UNC last tournament.

My initial reaction was to agree with jimsumner, cptnflash, and others that the idea of Duke Curse was nonsense, but after looking back, I think the results are surprisingly good enough to the point where we're allowed to have some fun with it as long as we don't take it too seriously and use it in good taste.

[AtlDuke72]

Terrible news for the kid and his team.

Am I the only one who wishes we would retire this Duke curse nonsense? There's no cause and effect and the whole thing reeks of schadenfreude.

I agree 100%. It never was very funny, meant nothing and is in very bad taste regarding an injury to any player.