I’m not a huge basketball fan. However, on the local sports talk radio, they were discussing basketball. And the guy said something along the lines of “Everyone loves to hate on coach K. and his style of basketball, but its a winner.” They also said that his ‘system’ doesn’t rely on star players.
Anyone care to explain what all that meant?
The basketball team is good or better almost every year, their players don’t rob other students, the team has never had any kind of scandal to speak of, the school is excellent academically… what’s not to hate? Clearly they are worse than Hitler.
OK, I’m a Duke fan. Sarcasm aside, there’s a perception that Duke is a pretty boy school. I think that’s really the long and the short of it. They’re seen as preppies, and in particular people absolutely hated Christian Laettner. People charge that Duke gets favorable treatment from referees (good luck arguing anybody out of that position) and people complain they are overexposed on TV and that commentators like Dick Vitale go way over the top in supporting them.
This part was nonsense in the literal mode, and illustrates why Duke is so fucking annoying. They recruit absolute blue-chippers, and beat teams mostly because they’re talented, and cultivate this kind of mystique that they’re special because Coach K breeds some kind of egoless championship magic.
In reality, they’re very good every year, and, (I guess) because of the silly “The Right Way” imaging they’ve got going on, they are absolutely adored by the sports media establishment. I would estimate that 90-95% of the games they’ve played over the last decade I could watch on TV locally wherever I was, which is unheard of for any other college basketball team. And when the Vitales and the Patricks and the Packers and the Kelloggs of the world* talk about Duke, they don’t talk about how good the players are, or how much it helps to have six different guys who shoot 40% from three and 85% from the line and can play intense pressure defense for 30 minutes up and down the floor, they talk about the fantasy land magic that makes them Winners. Also, the refs know about the magic, too, and anybody who tells you that any Duke home game is called even roughly neutrally is fucking batshit insane.
It’s really only 49% Coach K’s fault, although he is in fact a sniveling phony in addition to a fantastic coach. The media makes up the rest of it.
I think a lot of it is because of what kind of university they are. If they were “AnyState U” instead of being a notch below Ivy-League they wouldn’t have this problem.
Also the constant media attention doesn’t help.
IMO, People hate Duke basketball for the same reason for the same reason why people hate Tim Tebow.
They are too ‘perfect’, too arrogant
Other people/teams that anointed this distinction at various points in their careers:
Tiger Woods (perfect up until a year ago)
Lance Armstrong
Jeff Gordon
Dallas Cowboys
NY Yankees
While the media’s worship of the program is certainly a contributing factor, I don’t think that the hatred started until Laettner. They may have been disliked in the 80’s, but they hadn’t won anything. In the 90’s, they started winning, and there was a smug arrogance that started to become evident, highlighted by Laettner’s foot stomp of Kentucky’s Aminu Timberlake. Also, don’t forget that Laettner was chosen as the lone collegian on the '92 Dream Team over a(n) (arguably) more deserving Shaquille O’Neal.
Bobby Hurley being a whiny bitch didn’t help either.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fawning media coverage. Take the “no stars” line. The story of 2010 was how Duke managed to win a title with a bunch of good but not great players. But every single one of their starting 5 was a high school All-American. We’re talking a starting five composed entirely of top-30 players. Most teams are lucky to get one player that good every few years. Duke had 5 in their starting lineup, and they were considered to be under-talented?
I’m equal-opportunity with this particular peeve, by the way. UNC is the same way. Roy Williams supposedly has a weak squad this year, consisting of role players, but few stars. He has 7 high school All-Americans on his team. Only in a fantasy land of skewed perspective could such a team be considered weak.
media slobber + sustained success + uncharismatic players + (biggest factor imo) their UNBEARABLY OBNOXIOUS FANS = h.a.t.e.
i will say that out of all the high profile schools, duke has had the worst pro’s, which is a testament to K’s coaching, i suppose. however the depth of their squad from top to bottom really makes up for the lack of top tier talent
No.
Duke McDonald’s All-American’s since 1990:
Grant Hill
Cherokee Parks
Chris Collins
Joey Beard
Ricky Price
Trajan Langdon
Steve Wojciechowski
Taymon Domzalski
Nate James
Shane Battier
Elton Brand
Chris Burgess
Corey Maggette
Carlos Boozer
Mike Dunleavy, Jr.
Casey Sanders
Jason Williams
Chris Duhon
Daniel Ewing
Sean Dockery
J.J. Redick
Shavlik Randolph
Michael Thompson
Luol Deng
Demarcus Nelson
Greg Paulus
Josh McRoberts
Eric Boateng
Gerald Henderson
Jon Scheyer
Lance Thomas
Taylor King
Kyle Singler
Nolan Smith
Elliot Williams
Mason Plumlee
Ryan Kelly
Kyrie Irving
I think there are 24 a year for the whole country to pick from. By comparison, Kentucky, the program with the most wins all-time and a couple national championships during this period, has had 17.
i was using “NBA star” as a metric of “top tier talent”. i mean, for a powerhouse like Duke, i can only think of 3 all-star caliber players EVER (coincidence they’re all recent-ish)- Elton Brand, Carlos Boozer, and Grant Hill. You compare that to schools like UNC, UCLA, or Kansas?
Don’t forget the elephant in the room; Duke plays a lot of white players. You’d be surprised how much more favorable a white player’s media reception is when taken as a ratio to their actual talent. In a small, unconscious way, this contributes to the media fawning and the fan backlash.
Any perennially successful program, in any sport, will start to see some overexposure backlash. Duke is no different. But it’s the level of fanaticism of the talking heads that drives me crazy, especially Vitale. Duke is the type of program I would want to like, but I just can’t. Duke is the type of program basketball insiders want to love, and they just can’t help themselves.
The Duke Flop.
I think all that started after beating UNLV and the Fab Five. I think both were portrayed as being bad for the game of basketball especially with the Fab Five’s brashnesss, hotdogging, etc. It was the same Showtime vs. Lunch Pail dynamic that the 80s Lakers vs. Celtics rivalry had.
As for me personally most of the teams I’ve hated have prevented or ended my team’s success. Being a Detroit area sports fan, this would include Duke trouncing U-M in 92, Mich. St. in 1999 nat. semis. Plus I was also a UNLV fan during their impressive run.
Or Texas Western vs. Kentucky. But it’s about more than hotdogging or brashness.