So everybody in? Pot right? If so, let the games begin!
I used to respect Duke before their over-developed sense of favorable referee entitlement.
The thing is, I really did respect Hewitt. I liked it when he called that sports talk show to defend Schenscher. I think he recruits well and coaches a great game. Last year was phenomenal for you guys. But terping is a classless and pointless thing to do. Heres’s another opinion.
Tell you what. You think Duke will lose on or before Sunday. I assume you think Tech will do better. Let’s have a friendly wager concrning which team goes farther. Loser has to post a sincere statement praising the winning team, including an admission that the losing team was overrated and did not deserve it’s hype. You in?
Well, I’ll disagree with the whole terping thing to start with. This is kind of like arguing with someone that NBA officials don’t favor superstars or better teams. Really, it happen. Consciously or not, it happens. And Duke gets a lot of calls. Watch Shelden Williams in the post. He creates space consistently by knocking a defender back. While I fully acknowledge that contact happens, he does it with suck regularity and gets such an advantage from it that it simply has to be a foul. Watch Redick’ feet. He travels. A lot. But, no calls.
To the specific game, the reffing was pretty poor. Williams is certainly a more viable post option than Luke, but he was consistenly gaining an advantage through contact. That’s a foul, but the refs didn’t call it. I don’t think the refs make or don’t make calls with a specific goal of letting Duke win. I do think they let Duke get away with more than other teams because they are Duke, because Kryzyzewski effectively works the refs, and because the refs are caught up in the moment.
I won’t take your wager, because your premise of “You think Duke will lose on or before Sunday. I assume you think Tech will do better” is quite incorrect. I hope Tech does better. Will they? Probably not. They have a bear of a trek to the final 4. Duke, being a 1 seed has an easier road. I just believe that at some point the wheels will fall off for Duke, whether it is Williams finally finding foul trouble or Reddick going cold from the floor. Either of those happen and Duke is in serious trouble. I just tend to think that will happen sooner rather than later.
Tip off of game 1 is just a couple minutes away, here we go!! 
Mullinator,
Did you read my links?
OK forget Tech. Back up your assertion that “Duke’s not getting past the second round.” Lets have a friendly on that alone. On second thought, don’t forget Tech. You have no faith that they can even win two games? Some fan. I have them going a long way in my brackets.
Alabama looks like they aren’t going to wait around and see what 5 seed goes down first :yeesh:
Damn you, Greenback, I just came to say that same thing! 
Let me have my moment. I had them going places 
I picked Wisc. Milwaukee in my only bracket.
not a fan of basketball (or any team sport, really) but i always found this parody of Dickie-Baby rather amusing
Warning, the link is NSFW, funny, but NSFW
Darn it! I wanted to pick Milwaukee over 'Bama, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It least I have Pacific over Pitt (fingers crossed).
Go Orange!
[QUOTE]
I had your exact opposite, unfortunately. That’s why I’m taking some such glee my choice of Wisc.-Mil.
some? I haven’t a clue where that word came from. I think the hamsters randomly added it to my post. :smack:
Eastern Kentucky is giving UK quite a game as well. How bad would that mess up your brackets?
[sub]Can you tell my afternoon classes were cancelled?[/sub]
[SIZE=4]Go Pacific!!! [/SIZE]
I think they’re going to go pretty deep this year. Sweet 16 at least.
I think I picked them over the Huskies. Yup, I did. If that works out it would be suh-weet!
We should have set up some side pools for things like:
[ul]
[li]First #1 Seed eliminated.[/li][li]First person to have their overall winner eliminated.[/li][li]First team to get pitted by someone other than anyone who has posted in this thread.[/li][li]Largest seed differential in a win (we’ve had a 12 over a 5, can we get a larger spread?)[/li][/ul]
Any others?
Ugh, Pitt and Alabama really let me down today.
Mostly, I just wanted to chime in as another hardcore Duke fan! Holla. I have Duke going to the championship game, and losing to Illinois (it was painful to admit that, honest.)