Originally Posted by
wilson
True confession: I'm having an increasingly hard time caring a whole lot about Duke basketball. Even before the pandemic, it was steadily bothering me more and more that college athletics seem to be antithetical to core institutional missions, and to me, that contradiction has only been magnified by the Covid absurdities and gymnastics that went into whatever one wants to call this college football season. Add to that the fact that our best players have been, what, like 85% one-and-done for like 7 years now, and it's very hard for me to feel invested in the team year by year. I watched half of the Michigan State game the other night and was resoundingly "meh"ed by the overall quality of play, to say nothing of the [lack of] atmosphere and the general "Who are these guys?" nature of it all. There's no chance I stay up for tonight's 9:30 tip (we all know it'll really just be a few minutes shy of 10pm by the time they end up doing anything), and I'm not regretful or sorry or anything. At this point, I'm unequivocally more interested in the upcoming Hawks season than the just-started Duke season. That's kind of sad in a way, and I'll always feel connected to Duke and root for the program and watch the big games...I'll probably feel more motivated to do so after life gets back to "normal" sometime next year. But it's nowhere near the appointment viewing, put it on my personal schedule thing that it used to be for me.
It's kind of ironic that Duke Basketball Report is and will remain one of my favorite go-to sites, but by now, that's almost entirely because of the smart, interesting, caring people that the Off-Topic board keeps me connected to.
I suspect some will see this as outright heresy (and I'm wondering how many times I'll get flamed for admitting this...), but I bet I'm not alone?