At Duke, basketball never fully escapes the spotlight. In just over a month—October 16, to be exact—the Blue Devils kick off the college basketball season. It’s too early to say how far Duke can go in the Tournament, how quickly the freshmen can contribute or how significant of a void Gerald Henderson and Elliot Williams leave in their absence.
It’s probably too early to accurately speculate about play on the court, but there are a number of Duke Basketball subplots worth noting.
Here are four stories to follow as the season nears:
1. “Countdown to Craziness”: Duke’s Own Midnight Madness?
A simple Blue-White game may soon be in the past.
In 1970, Maryland head coach Lefty Driesell looked to get an edge on everyone else when he started pratice a minute after midnight on the first day NCAA rules permitted it. The symbolic gesture laid the foundation for an NCAA tradition: The concept of “Midnight Madness” was born. Other programs now use that time to host pep rallies, scrimmages and interactive fan events.
And sometimes, Midnight Madness can even involve the “Soulja Boy.”
On October 12, 2009, top high school recruit Greg Monroe visited Georgetown for Midnight Madness. At the time, recruiting experts pegged Duke and Georgetown as the favorites for the 6-foot-10 forward.
And then, in front of a packed McDonough Arena, something special happened. Patrick Ewing Jr. taught former NFL receiver Jerry Rice the “Crank Dat” dance, to the students’ delight. ESPNU covered the event live, and three days later, Monroe committed. If the night didn’t solidify the foward’s pick, it certainly didn’t hurt.
It wasn’t a scrimmage like Duke’s Blue-White game, it was a celebration of Georgetown sports. “The Countdown to Craziness”—though the specifics are unclear—might give the Blue Devils something similar.
“It’s going to build off of the Blue-White game that we’ve had in the past,” Associate Sports Information Director Matt Plizga said Monday. “There will still be that aspect of it, but there will be a lot of other smaller activities going on around that. Nothing was wrong with the [Blue-White game], but we are just trying to build on that, make it a bit more interactive for the students and the fans.”
2. Nolan Smith’s Twitter Feed.
Duke players are often noted for their ability to deal effectively with the media. Some years, the team recieves training from professionals: A few years ago, Seattle Mariners play-by-play commentator Dave Simms was brought in to speak to the team about interacting with the media. Much of the advice consists of simple reminders: stand up straight, look people in the eyes, don’t mumble.
Being smart with the media protects Duke’s program and public image. Sometimes, though, this comes at a cost. An interview veteran can dodge questions and pass stock answers off for geniuine thought. Candid responses are traded for sports clichés.
There’s something funny, though, about Twitter. The medium is generally less formal and gives public figures an opportunity to throw out offbeat and unconstrained remarks.
On Sept. 5, Smith (@ndotsmitty) tweeted, “At southpoint mall, just saw a midget and he came up to me and said ‘what up lil man ima big duke fan!’ ”
Smith followed up with the punchline: “Are you a big duke fan or little duke fan!”
The junior’s joke—a little edgy, maybe—shows Smith is a part of that trend.
For now, it seems as though the tweets of Duke players—senior Jon Scheyer uses the site as well—are relatively unfiltered. The players that have chosen to have an account on Twitter have done so by their own accord and have not been formally encouraged to do so by the program. But it’s something to keep an eye on. As soon a player embarrasses Duke Basketball, expect free-spirited tweeting to come to a sudden end.
3. A diminished UNC squad.
As the old saying goes, “If you can’t beat ‘em, wait until they graduate or leave early.”
Having lost Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green to graduation and Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington after the pair bolted early to the NBA, the Tar Heels look to replace their top four scorers who combined for 66.2 points per game.
A season in transition could benefit Duke. The Blue Devils haven’t defeated their rival in Cameron Indoor Stadium since February 9, 2005. Duke will get its chance to end that streak March 6 to finish off the regular season.
4. Surviving K-Ville 2010.
Take last year’s K-Ville, add about a month to the tenting period, and then—most importantly—sprinkle in some swine flu. I thought the C-1 and the communal utensil buckets in the dining halls would be the main carrier of the flu until I remembered that Duke students sleep shoulder-to-shoulder in tents during two of the coldest months of the year. But hey, you get grace if it’s below 20 degrees or snows two inches, right?
It sounds to me like what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls a “Swine Flu Party,” an event during which “people have close contact with a person who has 2009 H1N1 flu in order to become infected with the virus...in the hope of having natural immunity [to the] 2009 H1N1 flu virus that might circulate later and cause more severe disease.”
These parties are not recommended. I wonder what the CDC would have to say about K-Ville.
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