Duke-UNC games are special in their own right, but analyzing the media's coverage of Duke's games against, say, Georgetown and Maryland is just as fruitful because of the wide range of media outlets that cover the games. For contests in the Tobacco Road rivalry, we have local newspapers and national Web sites. When Duke plays Maryland—especially in College Park—we also have considerable coverage from the Washington D.C. media elite. After all, it's not every day you see Reggie Love, clad in White House-appropriate attire, sitting behind the Duke bench.
So what did the visiting and home media have to say about Duke's 78-67 win over the Terrapins? Let's find out.
The most entertaining dispatch we read appeared not in a newspaper—those still exist, right?—but on Dan Steinberg's D.C. Sports Bog on the Washington Post's Web site. During the game, Steinberg wrote about Operation Scheyerface v2.0, which prompted organizers to print out more than 2,400 copies of Jon Scheyer's face. (Maryland students couldn't have been pleased to see Scheyer ice the game with a late 3-pointer. And the Environmental Protection Agency probably isn't happy about all those dead trees, either.)
After the game, Steinberg focused on the Blue Devils' response to the vitriol. Steinberg, who has written about Duke hatred before, detailed Mike Krzyzewski's classy response about the Maryland fans, then moves to the players' reactions to the atmosphere. In the process, Steinberg learns something we've known for a few months: Not only is Gerald Henderson Duke's best player, but he is also the best quote, which means just as much as his on-court prowess to the press:
Only Gerald Henderson was willing to discuss the specific ways of the pranksters."Oh, we got a lot of calls, a LOT of calls," he said. "It's been happening here probably since Coach Dawkins played here. You know, it gets old, but that's what they do."
So what actually happens on such a call
"They ask for you, tell you 'You suck,' tell you 'You're gonna lose tomorrow,' and then you hang up on them," Henderson said.
Finally, one more point about Steinberg's blog post. He actually credits Duke's media operations, which is some praise not many reporters are willing to dole out:
As for Operation Scheyerface v2.0, more high roadism. Some teams keep their locker rooms closed and only allow you to interview their players on a stage with PR people hovering nearby (ahem, Hoyas), but Duke has enough faith in their players to turn them loose, and they managed themselves quite well, thanks.
Staying within The Post, Maryland beat writer Steve Yanda draws a contrast between the two teams' last matchup, when Duke obliterated Maryland by more than 40 points in Cameron Indoor Stadium. The end result from the Comcast Center was the same, but the post-game feeling and rhetoric was decidedly different:
The measuring stick Maryland used to determine how far it had come since the last time it faced its most hated rival resided not on the scoreboard or the stat sheet, but in the words emanating from its defeated players.Once again, the Terrapins could not match the skill and precision of No. 7 Duke, and Maryland dropped a 78-67 decision last night at Comcast Center that damaged its hopes of an NCAA tournament berth.
But a team that one month ago seemed destined to wander aimlessly through the remainder of its ACC slate demonstrated a mental turnaround that has produced a more encouraging outlook.
"When we played them the first time, they absolutely blew us out, and they were the better team," sophomore guard Adrian Bowie said. "But this time, it was a different story. They still came out with a win, but we showed the difference in how much better we have gotten."
In The (Raleigh) News & Observer, Duke beat writer Ken Tysiac leads with the way the Blue Devils responded to Dave Neal's "crushing screen" on Nolan Smith early in the second half:
That noise seemed to awaken Duke's Gerald Henderson as he lifted the Blue Devils to a 78-67 win Wednesday night. Henderson came out of the timeout playing like a man possessed.Fifteen seconds after the timeout, he slammed home a dunk, stomped his feet and screamed. In the 15 minutes, 36 seconds after that timeout, Henderson scored 11 of his 19 points.
He said Neal's screen was a clean play, but it still angered the Blue Devils.
"When one of your guys goes out like he did, you get emotional," Henderson said.
The Herald-Sun's Bryan Strickland writes about the same incident, but adds a more revealing quote to his story:
But the exchange appeared to ignite Duke junior Gerald Henderson as much as it did the Maryland crowd, and behind Henderson the Blue Devils fought their way to a 78-67 win.Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said the initial diagnosis on Smith was a mild concussion, but Smith was taken to the hospital after the game as a precautionary measure before the team returned home.
"It made us very angry, very angry," said Henderson, who scored 19 points, including an emphatic dunk on the play after Smith went down. "It was a clean play, but when one of your guys goes out like he did, it gets you emotional -- especially for me because Nolan is one of my best friends. You hate to see that."
The Diamondback, Maryland's student newspaper, ruffled some of Mike Krzyzewski's feathers in the post-game press conference by asking about the "crap" Scheyer took from Maryland's student section. Krzyzewski's response was subtly biting. "You know, I have no idea what crap there is," he said. "You know, I have no idea what crap there is. I don't pay any attention to that. I'm sure he doesn't either. Are they giving him crap? I don't know. They might like him. They probably like him a lot. Maybe he was teasing them, I don't know."
Naturally, Mark Selig focused on Scheyer's 3-pointer to hush the fans:
Fans arrived at Comcast Center at 5 a.m. for the much anticipated 9 p.m. tip-off, and as part of what they called "Operation Scheyerface," the majority of the student section brandished a teasing picture of the Blue Devils guard.It was Scheyer who got the last laugh, rendering a valiant Terps effort futile.
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