Your Pocket Guide To Duke-Long Beach State

Three things to know before No. 7 Duke (9-1), a 25-point favorite, hosts Long Beach State (6-6) tonight at 7 p.m.:

1. Duke isn't the best team on Long Beach State's schedule. The 49ers' strength of schedule is tops in the country for a reason, and it's not because Cameron Indoor Stadium is the only marquee stop on their slate. They've already played Notre Dame, No. 6 West Virginia, No. 21 Clemson, UCLA, No. 2 Texas and No. 3 Kentucky (in that order!), and even though the 49ers only beat UCLA -- which really shouldn't even be on that list this year -- they put a scare into Kentucky and Clemson. Either way, this isn't like playing N.C. Central in women's basketball.

2. Christmas is usually good to the Blue Devils. As Bryan Strickland noted in today's Herald-Sun, Duke has won its first game after the holiday break for the last 14 years. One Duke staffer told me earlier this year that one of the strengths of Duke under Krzyzewski is that the Blue Devils don't lose to teams they're supposed to beat. A school like Long Beach State might beat a UCLA now and then, but when was the last time Duke lost to a non-BCS school before the New Year? Answer: Dec. 28, 1983 to Southern Methodist, in Hawaii. Six months later, Jonathan Clay Redick was born.

3. In baseball, the 49ers are known as the Dirtbags, and I think they should just adopt the nickname across the board, because those once-ubiquitous hats would make me root much harder for all endeavors in which the Long Beach State 49ers-turned-Dirtbags partake. That's all.