Last week, Mike Krzyzewski and his Blue Devils dropped out of the top 25 for the first time since the 2007-08 season.
We’ll certainly see Peyton Manning once again next season. For his sake, I hope it’s on a commercial for Papa Johns or Nationwide instead of on the football field.
This is a weird time to be alive.
Chaotic. Unpredictable. Carnage. These words are not being used to recount the end result of gladiators strapping on armor and ripping one another to shreds for the amusement of the Roman populus—they are descriptions of the 2015-16 college basketball season. But let me add another word to the mix: beautiful.
In a season in which no dominant team has emerged, the top 25 teams in the country combined for 16 losses last week. But the team that has yet to suffer a defeat will not have the chance to become the first undefeated national champion since Indiana in 1976.
A look at how far players from both teams have traveled to get to New York for Saturday's Pinstripe Bowl.
For two of the Blue Devils’ national championship winning freshmen from a year ago, the stability of the organizations that selected them may be much more important than where their names ended up on the draft board.
The next time you’re watching your team play, maybe think about it before proclaiming them the best in the land, and when it comes to preseason predictions and polls: Just say no.
It’s hard to care about a blowout, season-opening basketball game while something so shocking unfolds somewhere else. Sitting at Cameron while the soccer stadium in Paris was evacuated put things in perspective: That could be here. That could be us. That could be me.
After the season’s opening weekend, all the hype surrounding Duke basketball is not about its top-ranked recruiting class, nor its nationally televised showdown with No. 2 Kentucky Tuesday—but rather the magnificent scoring prowess of Grayson Allen.
“I just think that sports are stupid and anyone who likes them is just a lesser person.” As funny as I find Amy Schumer— in this moment of her hit film Trainwreck, she’s flat out wrong.
For the umpteenth time in a row, Duke finished exhibition play undefeated. Finally, it’s time for the real show to begin.
You can print a schedule off and draw a million asterisks on there, but at the end of the day, when your Sharpie and inner will have shriveled, the Blue Devils will be 6-2.
Duke’s 33.4 points per game sits in the nation’s top 50, and a healthy 5.5 yards per play produces an average of more than 400 yards per contest. But dig a little deeper and those numbers appear skewed thanks to Duke’s first-quarter performances.
By choosing to look up to Mia Hamm even after becoming a Blue Devil, that little girl who grew up playing soccer and watching Hamm is not abandoning any allegiances. If there is one thing Mia taught me, it is that a sports hero can transcends intercollegiate athletics.
The media—like Jon Snow—still knows nothing. Okay, we know some things, but the notion of asking anyone—even national and local beat writers who are paid handsomely (just kidding)—to predict a top 25 before even seeing any team take the field is incredibly disturbing and, looking back, highly entertaining. Here’s a link to the original preseason top 25, and a look at the conference and division winners that each respective conference’s media predicted prior to the season: -Big 12: TCU -ACC: Clemson and Georgia Tech -Pac-12: Oregon and USC -Big Ten: Ohio State and Wisconsin -SEC: Auburn (overall), Alabama and Georgia (divisions) That seems pretty solid, right?
In an industry that racks up profits in the billions, the greatest indicator of success has proven to be not which program can build the best facilities or attract the most-talented recruits, but the program that can create a stable coaching situation.
In a time where women’s sports are looked at as “less than” or “more boring than” their male counterparts, Dr. Jen Welter, Becky Hammon and Justine Siegal have proven they can do anything their male counterparts can do—and sometimes better.
The injury bug is at it again—this time, it’s taking the whole ACC with it. As much as any sports fan enjoys watching their teams come away with the victory, it’s just not the same if every team on the schedule is without its impact players.
Handoff. Screen pass. Quarterback scramble. Punt. Through four games, this sequence has become all too familiar for Blue Devil fans. Despite starting the season 3-1 and sporting one of the best defenses in the nation, Duke’s offense has been lacking fluidity and consistency.
