Now onto something that won’t win this Duke grad and fan any friends…
I am tired of the Duke basketball haters. Mostly because it’s become so commonplace as to be rather passé. Even a former Duke head coach’s daughter is a Duke hater. (See her column.) That’s low.
And there’s no longer any originality to it. I mean, come on people! Most of you are college students with plenty of free time on your hands. Surely you can pour some of your hate into creativity.
Let’s cover some of the more common topics.
- Duke Sucks! Oh, this is real original. But it’s understandable. It’s a visceral reaction. I get it. They hate us for our freedom. No, wait. Those are terrorists. They hate us for our victories. That’s it. Surprisingly, the North Carolina and UConn haters must be absent or non-existent. But some people think UConn is now the team to beat (see article).
- [Player Name] Is Gay! Oh, brother. I thought today’s college students were supposed to be more enlightened and accepting of the differences between people. Silly me, sometimes I believe what I read in the newspaper. This point of view was rather graphically expressed by a Temple student behind me while waiting in line for the subway after the Duke-Temple game this past Saturday. Does Adam Morrison have to put up with this?
- Duke gets all the calls! I really don’t get this one. Honestly. I think you mean to say “Duke doesn’t get called for fouls when I think they should get called for fouls!” This argument is based on the truism that Duke makes more free throws than their opponents attempt. I was going to counter with the argument that Duke did not lead the nation in that category, but the statistics prove me wrong. As of this writing, Duke is #1 in number of free throws made, and #5 in number of free throws attempted. (See the team free throw stats from ESPN.com. You can sort them for yourself.) Damn statistics!
The difference here, I believe, lies in when the fouls are called. Are they called while the player is shooting or not? That’s where you should be looking.
And there is a bias towards calls going to star players, regardless of team. Watch some other team with a star player. Count his steps. Does he travel? If so, did it get called?
There are probably more topics, but these are the most common. This little discussion would not be possible on a more open forum (like the ESPNation boards) as trying to reason with a Duke hater is pointless.