Redick, as became obvious with his DUI, liked to party. K-Ville is where the students camp out and, the night before the big game, each consume approximately 20 beers each and do not sleep. JJ basically partook in that tradition, and then played terribly.

Now why do you have to start picking on this school?

As we’ve both said a number of times, the team is:

1-Horrifically overexposed

2-Consistently overrated

3-Had a long run of success with kids that were pumped up as smarter, cleaner, and classier than every other player in college

If you are a sports fan and not a Duke fan, all those things generate a lot of vitriol. Everyone assumes Duke fans are obnoxious and smug because ESPN is obnoxious and smug when they talk about Duke.

In actuality, I’d bet most people on this board, unless based in the Southeast, don’t know more than a few Duke fans. I go to a Duke bar in Chicago to watch some games. This is the only bar I know of that is full-on “We’re the Duke bar, we’ll show the game.” This bar doesn’t fill up for any game except for UNC. Not even close. In Chicago.

In contrast, there are at least two bars dedicated to all of the major Big 12 and Big 10 schools and they all overflow on Saturdays in the fall. This is the Midwest, sure, but you can still throw a rock and hit a Red Sox fan.

I’m genuinely curious, do you really find that you encounter a lot of Duke fans, period? Let alone a lot of obnoxious fans?

The hey (hay?) day of Duke as a program that kids in middle school want to cheer for appears to be fading if not totally over. I’ll readily admit that there was a time around 1994 or so when Duke was the hottest thing in the country for kids to cheer for-like the Braves or the Yankees or whatever. I just don’t think that’s the case any more. My students don’t care about Duke. Duke is boring in style of play and in being mired in March mediocrity.

Many people hang on hating Duke-there is a terrible website called “Truth About Duke” that is a testament to just how ridiculous people can be about sports. But, for the most part, I think Duke is largely irrelevant. It pains me to say that but since 2002, this hasn’t been a major program in terms of talent or results.

And I think that’s the crux of what flummoxes the modern Duke fan-people are hating on something that doesn’t exist any more. Since I was 15 years old or so the last time Duke was a really, really big deal, it’s incredibly odd to me that people want to claim I’m a loathsome figure because I cheer for Duke. It feels like somebody thinking the fans of the Twins are intolerable. I mean, they’re a good little team and they have their strong points, but are they really worth the time for people on a national level to hate?

In the same vein, as I was discussing with Roger Dorn, I find it pretty staggering that people still buy into the hype of beating Duke-that it’s a big deal, that it matters. This is a team that hasn’t advanced meaningfully in the tournament in going on 5 years and hasn’t been really, truly good in nearly a decade. And whose February-March record over the past 3 years has to be close to .500 if not under it.

That’s all hard for me to write, because I’m a fan after all, and I’m confident that they’ll eventually get back on top. It’s a basketball school and they devote a great deal of resources to it and March makes anything possible. But I don’t see a period of sustained dominance, like what UNC is in right now or what Duke used to be in, on the horizon.

I’ll also parrot what MTF said earlier-people are inclined to hate schools like Duke to start with because the university, truly or falsely, frames itself as elite in every sense of the word. It’s marketing that has worked, as evidenced by Duke’s rapid rise in the national academic picture, but it also opens Duke up to the hate that all those kinds of schools receive-as nerds, or rich nerds, or rich kids who want you to think they’re smart. And then add to that these kids that people are already inclined to hate painting their faces and jumping up and down on national television for 40 minutes twice a week. It’s totally harmless and anywhere else it would be ignored (it is, in fact, ignored at dozens of other schools) but when Duke kids do it, it’s this thing to be studied, criticized, and disgusted by.

On top of all that, the face of Duke basketball inspires intense hatred for a variety of reasons that some psychologist could work out. People find his voice annoying, they find his hair annoying, they find his nose totally unacceptable. I don’t know that there’s any old, white man in America who people hate so intensely.