Comments on: Let’s Not Go Overboard with the Demise of Duke

By: ving

ving — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:33:07 +0000

Hey TBL –

Now that Duke is done for the year, do you stand by your original assessment of Jon Scheyer?

By: TheBigLead

TheBigLead — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:19:21 +0000

If you’ve seen She’s the One, then Duke is simply in a bit of a down cycle.

By: tallguy

tallguy — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:48:26 +0000

What do all 3 of those teams you mentioned have in common: shitty fan bases. New Orleans can’t keep the arena half full, the Rockies are outdrawn by major league lacrosse, and Xavier is second banana in its own city. Besides, mid majors cannot really complain about coverage…they get 200% tv time and coverage today versus just 10 year ago. Davidson played several national TV games this year, and it shouldn’t have been such a big surprise that they got to the sweet 16 (hell people, I told you it was going to happen…the only thing in my bracket I got right, but still).

Bottom line: the masses have always, and will always follow the dominant teams, and the masses drive ratings. Thus the traditional powers will always get more coverage due to established national fan bases. Do I want to slap people that root for Duke that have never set foot on West Campus? Yes, pretty much. Do I want to punch every tarhole that couldn’t spell Chapel Hill if you spotted them the C H A P E L H I L? damn straight (oh god, the 2 that sat in front of me Friday deserved to die…2 of the biggest fucking red necks you’ve ever seen and they didn’t shut up the entire time…jesus). But that’s the nature of big time athletics.

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:24:09 +0000

Tallguy, I understand your point about television. But to me it’s a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes. The networks keep giving us more Duke, more Yankees, more Lakers, more Cowboys every single year so they can make money every year. Meanwhile, fan interest keeps dropping and dropping. And then when those teams are eliminated early in the postseason because they are vastly overrated, nobody watches the rest of the postseason and their numbers go down. And it’s mostly because fans bitch that they don’t know anything about the Rockies/Hornets/Xavier/etc, so they don’t care. Gee, I wonder why.

By: tallguy

tallguy — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:13:09 +0000

Jesus, I want to kill people every time I here about the demise of Duke. A stretch of 2 non sweet 16s and Duke is a terrible team. God damn grow a fucking brain people. You people act like getting to the sweet 16 is easy, yet in reality, once you get there it really comes down to how the ball bounces on a certain night. There is 1 program that have done better than Duke this decade: Florida. UConn and UNC have comparable resumes and UCLA is having a nice run right now without a title, but otherwise, Duke is doing just fine thank you. Duke started 1 senior, 1 junior, 2 sophmores and a freshman who played out of position all year and got physically pounded every game…and still played extremely well before hitting the wall at the tail end of the season. We’re talking about a team that was expected to be decent, but not a legit title contender this year…and they over performed. Yet the “Duke prestige” is slipping away? Fuck that.

As for the dissing of the ACC…more Final Fours and Titles in this decade than any other conference…and particularly this year, dominated the other BCS conferences in out of conference games. ACC this year was comprised of a bunch of middle of the pack teams that beat up one another and cost themselves bids, but top to bottom by far the toughest league (sorry PAC-10, but you have a sub 200 RPI team in your conference…Arizona’s conference record looks even worse if you take away the automatic wins against OSU out).

And Jay…yeah it’d be nice and fair if more non-traditional teams got more TV games and coverage…unfortunately the media isn’t concerned about fairness, they’re concerned about ratings and circulation. So as long as Duke/UNC/UCLA/Syracuse/etc significantly outdraw every other team, you can be sure as shit ESPN et al will continue to obsess about them (something like 7 of the top 10 highest rated ESPN college games are Duke/UNC, even with regional blackouts).

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:17:22 +0000

Yes, robioland, but even they have gone farther than Duke in the last three years. And they beat Duke to get there. Actually, there’s no excuse for LSU basketball in the last two years, but I was just saying “my team” as a figure of speech.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:56:37 +0000

It’s just like the fricking Yankees when they lost to Cleveland. The story is that Duke lost, not West Virginia won. Duke losing is getting more press than the 16 teams that won, combined. Please, God, make it stop.

It’s the same way whenever someone other than Tiger wins a golf tournament. Last year, when Zach Johnson won the Master’s, I emailed every show on ESPN Radio, imploring them to make him the story, not Tiger’s “failure”(they did it again today. Geoff Ogilvy didn’t win; Tiger lost). Of course, I knew it was a futile gesture, but one I felt I needed to make.

By: robioland

robioland — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:29:20 +0000

Assuming from your photo Jay, that LSU is “your team”. I have to assume you’re just happy making it to the final four every 20 years. Maybe LSU would get on TV more if they weren’t 30-33 since their last final four run.

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:36:27 +0000

Every single program in the country would trade places with Coach K and Duke right now.

You’re right. I wish my team hadn’t made it out the Sweet Sixteen in four years, and still had 95 of its games nationally televised.

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:32:57 +0000

I wish television would reflect the parity we see in college basketball these days. Robioland’s numbers reflect that there is almost no sure thing anymore. But we are always fed that steady diet of Duke/UNC/UCLA/Kentucky/Indiana/Michigan/Syracuse/UConn/Notre Dame games. Schools like Memphis, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Xavier are just as good if not better than many of these teams in recent years. But nobody sees them all year and then they act like they came out of nowhere (with the exception of Memphis).