Ed. Note: Check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

As we mentioned in our earlier “Team of the 2000s” posts, we felt that the top-tier programs fell into a few clear clusters. There was some debate amongst the RTC braintrust about where certain teams fell within those clusters so we can understand if you disagree with where a team is ranked (that’s what the comment section is for). Teams in the top five either have made it to every NCAA tournament this decade (a sign of at least being respectable every season) or have a 2nd championship to bolster their case.

#4 – Duke

Overview. This will be the most controversial selection on the list because it is Duke. Love them or hate them (and I’m pretty sure that most college basketball fans hate them), the Blue Devils remain the standard that other programs are judged against. That is not to say that they are the best program of the decade (there are still three teams ahead of them), but much like the New York Yankees, who are experiencing a similar title “drought,” every fanbase judges their success against what the guys in Durham are doing. To be completely honest, I ranked Duke lower than any of the other voters, but in the end their consistency (particularly during the regular season) won out and put them ahead of some of the other elite programs. The case for Duke being ranked above the teams below it in our countdown: 82.6% (regular season winning percentage–Gonzaga is the only other team to crack 80% and they don’t play in the ACC); 7 post-season and 4 regular season ACC titles (just an absurd number when you are competing against UNC although UNC’s inconsistency helped inflate this); 10 NCAA tournament trips (look at the above summary to see how often many excellent programs have missed the NCAA tournament this decade); 8 Sweet 16 appearances (maybe Duke hasn’t been that successful during the 2nd weekend, but they have gotten there more than anybody else); and 1 national title (more on this in a bit). The case against the Blue Devils? I alluded to it earlier, as Coach K’s teams have struggled mightily in the NCAA second weekend making it to the Final 4 “just” two out of the eight times they made it to the Sweet 16. In addition, Duke’s absence of a 2nd title prevents it from claiming a spot in the top 3. Out of the team’s below it, Tom Izzo‘s Michigan State Spartans have the best argument, but Duke’s vastly superior winning percentage (82.6% vs. 72.1%) and huge edge in conference titles combined with playing in a better conference (the ACC may be down, but you never see an abomination like this come out of the ACC) and NCAA-best 8 trips to the Sweet 16 (versus 6 for the Spartans) are just enough to make up for Michigan State’s edge in Final 4 appearances (4-2 although both teams were only able to seal the deal once).

Pinnacle. As it is with any team that won a single title this decade, the choice here is simple: the 2001 title. After coming up just short with one of the most talented teams in recent history in 1999, Coach K reloaded with a class featuring Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy Jr., and Carlos Boozer. Although not quite as dominant as the group that left just before they came in (Elton Brand, William Avery, and Corey Maggette – I know he was a year after the other two, but I wasn’t going to include Chris Burgess in there), the former was able to do something the latter failed to do – win a title.  Together with Shane Battier, who led the Blue Devils emotionally and in taking flops, this group made it to the Sweet 16 in 2000 before being upset by Florida. The following year the Blue Devils were able to give Coach K his 3rd title, but not before surviving three marginally tough games (vs. USC in the Elite 8, vs. Maryland in the national semifinals, and vs. Arizona in the championship game) to claim the title. The defining moment of that title game was Dunleavy Jr.’s 3-point barrage (three 3-pointers during an 11-2 run) that re-established Duke’s control of the game. One thing that will stick with Blue Devil fans forever though is their four games against Maryland, which were some of the best college basketball games you will ever see, the most memorable being the 10-point comeback in the last minute at College Park (although we are willing to debate with someone who argues that the 22-point comeback in the national semifinals might be better).

[Warning: Maryland fans may want to avoid this video.]

Tailspin. Other than the two UNC titles? The 2006-07 season. A rather mediocre Duke team went 22-11 in a season that included two separate four-game losing streaks. The latter of those losing streaks came to finish the season with the final insult coming courtesy of Eric Maynor and VCU. Much has been made on this site and others about the lack of elite talent in Durham lately, but fielding a team whose four best players were DeMarcus Nelson (junior),  Josh McRoberts (sophomore), Greg Paulus (sophomore), and Jon Scheyer (freshman)… you are in big trouble. The primary explanation for this was that outside of Shelden Williams and J.J. Redick, the Blue Devils had a long string of McDonald’s All-American busts from 2002 on, with Shavlik Randolph, who left prior to that, being the most famous example.

Outlook for the 2010s: Grade: B+. Duke is still Duke and can land 5-star recruits, but it’s not like it was at the end of the last decade when Duke had its choice of McDonald’s All-Americans. Back then, one of the big controversies was if Coach K made the right choice taking Mike Dunleavy Jr. instead of Casey Jacobsen (for the younger generation of readers trust us when we say they were both actually very good college basketball players). Now it is a big deal when Duke lands the #3 shooting guard in next year’s class instead of John Wall. Duke will still be able to get a couple of top-notch recruits every year because of their tradition (it goes back to before Coach K, youngsters), Notre Dame-like TV deal with ESPN, Coach K’s stature, and the fact that it’s one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the country (mothers like to brag about the Duke degree even if it is for the infamous Sociology major). However, the Blue Devils have fallen a notch below UNC in the hearts and minds of elite recruits and that will only get worse when Coach K retires (gasp!) as their is no clear successor in line for his throne.

The line-up for tonight should give us a couple of interesting games:

• 7:07 PM: #12 Arizona vs. #1 Louisville
• 7:27  PM: #3 Syracuse vs. #2 Oklahoma
• 9:37 PM: #3 Kansas vs. #2 Michigan State
• 9:57 PM: #4 Gonzaga vs. #1 UNC

We’ll be back around 7 for the start of tonight’s action. Leave your comments/questions and we’ll respond to them as soon as we start.

6:55 PM: A couple quick pieces of news to pass along in the midst of this Billy Gillispie madness and these somewhat important games tonight. Clemson‘s star forward Trevor Booker will return for his senior year. The news out of Iowa isn’t as good after Jake Kelly, Jeff Peterson, and David Palmer announced that they are transfering, which means that Todd Lickliter will need to replace 2 starting guards and a reserve forward.

7:10 PM: Chase Budinger makes a great play to temper Louisville’s great start. He’s going to need to have a great game tonight. If both teams use the press tonight, we’re going to get a blowout (and I think it will end up going in Louisville’s favor).

7:12 PM: I should warn you that I’m a big Chase Budinger fan so you’ve been warned. I haven’t seen a lot of him this year (stupid west coast starts), but I think he has the makings of a very solid NBA player.

7:14 PM: That’s not a good stat for Arizona. Only 6 Wildcats have scored in the NCAA tournament.

7:19 PM: Great play by Edgar Sosa feeding it to Preston Knowles. This pressure is going to kill Arizona if they only go 6 deep.

7:28 PM: I don’t think it will matter tonight, but I hope you paid attention to that FT statistic. Louisville shoots 63.8% as a team (307th out of 334 teams). That will come back to bite them. Just ask John Calipari. Actually he probably wouldn’t admit it because his team was just as bad last night. . .

7:30 PM: I think that any Blue Devil who mentions that they made the 1994 title game should put an asterisk by it on their resume saying that they rode Grant Hill‘s coattails there. If you don’t agree with me, see what happened the next year even if Coach K missed the last 2/3 of the season.

7:31 PM: It looks dead in Memphis. What do you guys think? I’m guessing it’s only 20% full. UNC fans must have bought up most of the stadium.

7:35 PM: Willie Warren is the most popular player in America for the next 40 minutes (unless we go to OT).

7:36 PM: Good calls by Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg. Poor job by Jonny Flynn on shielding for Eric Devendorf and Arinze Onuaku definitely got away with a push in the back against Blake Griffin.

7:45 PM: Horrible start by Syracuse. They’re lucky to just be down by 8 with 12:17 left. The only reason it is this close is because of a handful of careless Oklahoma turnovers. Jim Boeheim‘s squad looks awful right now.

7:50 PM: Louisville is running over Arizona right now. They are almost doubling up the Wildcats right now (40-21) with 3:29 left. . .If Syracuse can start hitting some shots, they should  win this game because the Sooners are doing a horrible job passing out of traps.

8:00 PM: Did any of these CBS people actually think Arizona had a chance? Louisville up huge at the half. Where’s Billy Packer when we need him? That one is over. I don’t need some crazy Bill James formula telling me that.

8:02 PM: Syracuse is doubling down on Blake Griffin each time Oklahoma even hints at throwing it into the post. Jeff Capel needs to take advantage of this by using Willie Warren or whoever is feeling it from the outside to be in the position to throw the entry pass. When Syracuse cheats off the perimeter player, take the 3.

8:05 PM: Great play by Taylor Griffin to strip Onuaku. Why is Austin Johnson (a 35% 3-point shooter) taking J.J. Redick-style 25-footers?

8:10 PM: It’s too bad that Longar Longar isn’t playing for the Sooners this year. Just imagine how many witty and witless puns the CBS guys would come up for him.

8:13 PM: Jonny, that’s why you don’t try to pick up a cheap charge by standing under the basket with a freight train coming at you.

8:15 PM: Not a fan of that timeout by Capel. Flynn was clearly in pain. Hold the ball, clear out an isolation on Flynn, and go right at him. Boeheim is too smart to let Flynn stay in. I guess he does get to use Blake Griffin for this last play, but I still don’t like it.

8:16 PM: And Tony Crocker bails Capel out by hitting a 3. See that’s what happens when you think, you look like an idiot. Let that be a lesson to all you kids out there.

8:25 PM: You know how Shaq always says he will make the free throws when they matter. Well I think Louisville is doing the opposite of that. They are 11/12 and are up by 27 early in the 2nd half. You know Rick Pitino is wishing he could save these free throws for a game later in the tournament.

8:40 PM: I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you rarely win when you go 0/10 from 3. You can forget the 5 Big East teams in the Elite 8 and the all-Big East Final 4. This is an embarrassing performance by Syracuse. They need to start cutting into the lead right away if they want to have a chance and prevent me from watching the Celtics-Hawks game.

8:55 PM: Josh, I was actually across the street at a bar after deciding that $200 to sit in the back of the arena was a little too much. Are you sticking around for the Elite 8 or did you sell your tickets and head back to Durham? I actually scored a pair of tickets for face value for tomorrow night.

9:00 PM: Good stuff Josh. I think I’m actually going to be at the front of the balcony. I couldn’t find anything better for a reasonable price. People were still asking $200 for Loge. I even tried to see if any of the fans of losing teams were looking to sell, but I didn’t find any takers.

9:02 PM: I LIVE MY LIFE A QUARTER MILE AT A TIME! Sorry. I just had to. I can’t wait until Vin Diesel and Paul Walker make some bad investments in their 60′s and come back to make a sequel based in Central Florida leaving their turn signal on the entire movie.

9:10 PM: 103-64. I don’t need to say anything else. You know we could very realistically have 4 Big East teams and 3 Big 12 teams in the Elite 8. If the Big 12 somehow manages to get more teams to Detroit than the Big East, will all the talking heads start saying that the Big 12 was the best conference this year?

9:14 PM: Who is that sitting behind the Griffins? Too much make-up, but . . .

9:18 PM: BS, I haven’t watched “The Wire” (on my Netflix list), but he does look very familiar.

9:19 PM: Syracuse has totally given up. Taylor Griffin got that board easily. It will be interesting to hear Boeheim’s post-game press conference. This team just gave up. The only who continued to compete was Jonny Flynn.

9:21 PM: Agreed on Griffin. Fortunately I don’t have that problem thanks to my single-digit vertical.

9:23 PM: I’m assuming that Jason Capel won’t be wearing an Oklahoma shirt even if he is rooting for them on Sunday (if UNC beats Gonzaga).

9:25 PM: It looks like Boeheim is going to pick up his 800th win against some Divsion 2 school next year. Does Clark Kellogg realize the coaches don’t get Olympic medals?

9:30 PM: Mercifully, the first set of games today are over. Hopefully the next set are better.

9:40 PM: Not the prettiest start to the game, but at least it’s close. That’s something, right?

9:45 PM: BS, I’m trying to be nice here, but yes you could call it ugly. UNC-Gonzaga is bound to be good, right?

9:49 PM: What was that Brady Morningstar? That 17-footer was about 4 feet short.

9:50 PM: Josh, I don’t mean to pick on you, but I think you said that you are a senior on Duke. What are you thoughts on basketball during your time at Duke? I am assuming you came in expecting more success. What are your fellow Duke fans saying today?

9:56 PM: For those of you who have been watching the game, Anthony Grant took the Alabama job for a reported $2 M/yr. We’ll have a post on the dominos that will fall as the result of this later tonight. What do you guys think this this decision will lead to?

10:00 PM: Are these new uniforms for Gonzaga? They look different.

10:05 PM: BS, that’s a possibility or it means that the Kentucky job is already taken. Grant committed to Alabama just a few hours after Gillispie was let go. It seems pretty clear that he was hoping for the Kentucky job, which is much higher profile (and money). You have to figure that Kentucky has somebody lined up. Don’t forget that Billy Donovan has changed his mind before.

10:10 PM: BS, I finished my undergrad days a few years ago. I just happen to live in Boston so I’ll be going to Pitt-Villanova tomorrow night. He was here for Duke.

10:12 PM: Kansas has opened up a 10-point lead following an 11-0 run. It looks like we might have 3 Big 12 teams in the Elite 8. . .

10:13 PM: “Blossoming kind of like a dog would”? Norman Chad is going to have fun with that one.

10:15 PM: If Gonzaga is going to play zone defense, why doesn’t Roy Williams just put Tyler Hansbrough on Austin Daye‘s side and watch Hansbrough eat the sophomore alive?

10:20 PM: UNC is starting to open up a lead after Wayne Ellington hits a 3 and gets an “and 1″. Seven different Tar Heels have already scored in the first ten minutes. Arizona had six players score in their first 2 games. The Wildcats had 9 score tonight thanks to some garbage time points.

10:25 PM: If Lawson is even 70%, UNC wins the title. It’s that simple. It’s amazing how quickly this became his team this year. He took the conch shell from Hansbrough pretty quickly.

10:30 PM: BS, I think Travis Ford would be a great hire. . .in 5 years. I don’t think he is ready for the job in Lexington yet. He would have a lot of goodwill coming from the fans, but that would die pretty quickly if he didn’t take a Jodie Meeks/Patrick Patterson to at least the Sweet 16 next year. Kentucky fans are pretty crazy and that’s a rough situation for an inexperienced coach (at the big-time level).

10:32 PM: Danger time for Gonzaga. Jeremy Pargo with 3 fouls and 7 minutes left in the 1st half. UNC is up by 13. They could stretch this to 20 in a blink of the eye.

10:35 PM: Josh, great post/comment. Yeah. Duke has had some bad luck with recruits although I’m not sure if those guys don’t become overrated in the high school rankings because Duke is pursuing them. The one thing about Duke this year is that they essentially had Greg Monroe locked up before he committed to Georgetown and he obviously would have been a huge addition to this Duke team. I’m not sure if they would have beaten Villanova, but they probably would have been a #1 seed with Monroe. A lot of the radio/podcast people are talking about how Coach K changed his recruiting strategy after the Elton Brand/Will Avery/Corey Maggette era and stopped going after those type of supremely talented athletes (with the exception of Gerald Henderson who was awful last night) for feat that he might only have them for 1 or 2 years. Instead, he went after a slightly lower caliber player who would stay for 4 years. Of course, Coach K’s whole committment to Team USA probably also had a detrimental effect on his recruiting too. There are a lot of potential explanations.

10:45 PM: Ugh, CBS is so far behind. Clark Kellogg just said that Grant interviewed at Alabama. He took the job! Way to be 3 hours behind Jeff Goodman.

10:47 PM: Nice job by Gonzaga cutting into this UNC lead. Mark Few has to be happy going into half trailing by just  11 with the way UNC started and Pargo sitting out the last 7 minutes. If they can keep the momentum and keep it around 8 with 12 minutes left we might have a solid finish.

10:50 PM: Agree on the Williams/Boozer/Dunleavy class. I was repeating what the radio/podcast people said (reading over my post it wasn’t clear). I was mainly talking about the 1 and dones like you were. I’m not sure how much Coach K gets out of saying he coached Team USA. I mean he is Coach K (with the AmEx commercials, etc.) that should be enough to woo recruits.

10:55 PM: It looks like we have a potentially great game brewing in Indianapolis. The Spartans have cut it to 1 just 3 minutes into the 2nd half.

10:57 PM: Josh, if I’m a 17-year old and I see a team with LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, and Dwayne Wade (coming off the bench) I expect them to win. If anything it would be egg on the coach’s face if they didn’t win. I know it’s wrong, but I doubt a high school kid gives the coach of a team like that for winning. I could be wrong, but that’s just my interpretation (if I was 10 years younger and about 100x as talented on the court).

11:00 PM: BS, yeah I heard that on SportsCenter. I think I commented it at sometime in the past 2 days (not sure  where it is or if it is even on thes ite since I’ve been sending so many e-mails and talking to so many people), but I can’t see Bobby Knight taking over a huge program. I think he’s too old to handle the pressure and the media surrounding a program like that. I think Tom Izzo would be a great hire for Kentucky, but they’re going to have to offer him a lot of money to go there. One bonus for Izzo (even more than a guy like Rick Barnes who is also rumored as a candidate) is that Izzo has enough rep that even if he failed there is would be another big-name program that would take him in a heartbeat.

11:05 PM: That was awful defense by Kalin Lucas on that Sherron Collins drive that the CBS guys are fawning over. Just stand in there and take a charge. BS, basketball players aren’t always the brightest people on the planet. That’s my only explanation.

11:15 PM: UNC has opened up a 17-point lead just 1:48 into the 2nd half. Looks like we’ll be focusing on Indianapolis, but we’ll keep an eye on Memphis.

11:17 PM: And we’re tied with 9:36 to play. This should be a great finish.

11:20 PM: Maybe Len Elmore is operating on a higher intellectual plane than me (He’s a Harvard JD), but that last statement made no sense. Here’s what I heard (may not be word-for-word) “Call or no call. You gotta hold your position and play on. You gotta make the official call it.” Um, yeah.

11:21 PM: A bad pair of days for the nation’s top 2 defensive teams based on opponent’s field goal percentage. A day after Memphis got run out of the gym by Missouri, Gonzaga, which came into today allowing 36.9% FG (2nd in the nation to Memphis) is allowing the Tar Heels to shoot 61%.

11:27 PM: Huge shot by Tyrel Reed. The Jayhawks are up by 3 with 4:40 left. Cole Aldrich has been huge today (17 points and 13 rebounds). Bill Self is going to rely on Collins and Aldrigch down the stretch. What’s going on with the Kansas guys limping? Do they have voodoo dolls up in East Lansing?

11:30 PM: CBS probably won’t mention it, but Gonzaga has cut the lead to 11 with 12:27 left.

11:32 PM: Huge swing in Memphis. Bobby Frasor just hit two 3s in 26 seconds and Ellington got an “and 1″ with the FT coming after the timeout. UNC up by 19 again. Wow. That was quick.

11:37 PM: UNC has 12 points on their last 4 possessions. Now, Ken Pomeroy hasn’t run the numbers, but that seems like it is fairly efficient.

11:38 PM: Tied at 60 with 91 seconds left. Our first classic game of the weekend?

11:39 PM: Awful play by Collins there. He went up in the air without a real option. He would have been better  off chucking it up at the rim and hoping that it would fall or Aldrich would be able to grab a rebound.

11:40 PM: Lucas just killed Collins there. Gus Johnson is loving this. Are we going to get another one of his YouTube classic calls? Mrs. Izzo doesn’t look too confident.

11:44 PM: Tyshawn Taylor tripped over his own feet. Tough call for the officials though. I think Raymar Morgan may have nicked Taylor’s leg just before he tripped over himself though.

11:46 PM: Bad foul by Travis Walton, Sherron Collins fails to hit the front end of the one-and-one. He is choking right now. Lucas is totally outplaying him in the last 2 minutes.

11:48 PM: That should do it. Michigan State is next on Louisville’s slaughter list. Just  an awful finish by Sherron Collins after a solid game (20 points on 9/13 FG).

11:50 PM: One spot is yet to be decided? When one team is up by 25 with 5 minutes left, it is already decided. And sorry to the Hansbrough fanboys, but Griffin is going to kill Hansbrough. Just enjoy the fact that UNC will be headed to Detroit next weekend. Blake’s next stop will be New York City for the NBA Draft Green Room.

12:02 PM: Two blowouts in Memphis. I’m afraid that we’re going to see something similar in the Elite 8 game too. As much as I hate to say it, this has been a very lackluster tournament so far. Hopefully they college basketball gods will repay with a great last 3 rounds.

12:10 PM: Ok. Well that wraps it up for tonight. It’s been fun interacting with you guys, but rtmsf will be running things for tomorrow’s today’s Elite 8 games. I’ll be at the East Regional (and probably some bar nearby before). If you’re in Boston and need advice on places to go, e-mail me at rushthecourt@gmail.com. If you’re in Glendale, Indianapolis, or Memphis, good luck with that.

RTC asked its legion of correspondents, charlatans, sycophants, toadies and other hangers-on to send us their very favorite March Madness memory,  something that had a visceral effect on who they are as a person and college basketball fan today.  Not surprisingly, many of the submissions were excellent and if you’re not fired up reading them, then you need to head back over to PerezHilton for the rest of this month.  We’ve chosen the sixteen best, and we’ll be counting them down over the next two weeks as we approach the 2009 NCAA Tournament.

An NCAA victory over Duke tastes a little sweeter, and a loss to the Devils hurts a little more.  Nobody gets passions as high as Coach K’s Dookies, and we received two submissions that perfectly illustrate that range of emotions.

We Shocked the World!!! (submitted by Rob Dauster of Ballin is a Habit)

“Just when people say you can’t, UCan. And UConn has won the national championship.” – Jim Nantz

I’ll never forget those words. It was just three days before my 14th birthday. Growing up in Connecticut, we never really had a pro sports team, so we latched on to Jim Calhoun‘s UConn Huskies. Despite being a team of national relevance for a number of years, Calhoun had never gotten his team to the Final Four. He finally broke through in 1999, barely hanging on against 10 seed Gonzaga in the Elite 8 before beating Ohio State for what many thought to be the right to lose to a talented Duke squad in the Finals.

Duke came in riding a 32-game winning streak (their only loss was the Cincinnati in the Great Alaska Shootout, don’t ask me why I know such things) with a roster loaded with NBA draft picks – William Avery, Trajan Langdon, Shane Battier, Elton Brand, Corey Maggette.

But the Huskies hung with Duke the whole game, trailing by just two at the half, thanks in large part to 13 points from defensive specialist Ricky Moore. The second half became the Rip Hamilton Show, as the junior with the silky smooth jumper finished his last collegiate game with 27 points.

The game ended in unbelievable fashion. With UConn up 75-74, everyone’s favorite pudge-ball Khalid El-Amin drove baseline and threw up an airball, which Trajan Langdan collected with around 15 seconds left. He brought the ball up court and tried to go one-on-one against Moore. Moore forced him into a travel. El-Amin would rattle home two free throws, setting up the finish. Langdon would once again take the inbounds and dribble into a double team before turning the ball over.

And that was it.  So what is my memory?

Seeing Khalid El-Amin screaming “WE SHOCKED THE WORLD” before jumping into Jake Voskuhl’s arms.

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Verne Lundquist Just Had an Aneurysm (submitted by Patrick Marshall of Bluejay Basketball)

Being a big Kentucky fan most of my life, no one can forget the 1992 East Regional Final of Kentucky vs. Duke.  The game was spectacular but what made the Kentucky team so special were the players that were affectionately known as “The Unforgettables.”  Kentucky’s basketball program had been dragged through the mud four years before in a major scandal involving academic fraud and improper payments to recruits.  However, Richie Farmer, Deron Feldhaus, John Pelphrey and Sean Woods chose to stay with the program and as seniors in their first eligible appearance, they made a surprising run in the NCAA tournament that year to the regional finals against Duke.  The three-point shot has been one of the most exciting innovations in college basketball and the Cats’ love of the three-point shot is what established my love for these Wildcats. As the Wildcats drove deeper into March, I just had to watch that game.

Back in the day I had this black and white portable tv and I remember taking it to high school musical practice so I could still watch the game while we had rehearsal.  I seem to remember that Kentucky was down somewhat big (12 pts), but some key threes got them back into the game and eventually sent the game into overtime.  As they battled in overtime it was down to what appeared to be one play.  Sean Woods drove to the basket and made an awkward bank-shot with 2.1 seconds left.  I was jumping around the room like mad and thought there was no way Duke would be able to get off a good shot – Kentucky has made it back to the Final Four.  However, it was not to be.  Duke inbounded the ball length of the court and Christian Laettner hit the storied shot that is now shown every year at tournament time.  Laettner finished his 10-10 shooting and 31 point night with a storybook ending as Duke went on the next week to gain back-to-back NCAA championships.  I just said to myself over and over, “How did John Pelphrey not react fast enough to stop a 2/3 court pass to Laettner at the free throw line.  Not only that, but he just stood there and watched him shoot it.”   Oh, I so hate Duke and oh what could have been.

The game had all the drama you could ask for with the lead changing five times in the final 31 seconds of the game and both teams combining to shoot 63% in the second half and overtime.   But that final shot is what is the most recognizable and memorable part of that game.  This season Kentucky fans not only have to watch the shot again, but have to re-live the whole drama and feel the punch in the stomach again with a new commercial including Laettner and now turncoat Rick Pitino. But in the end, this game is considered by many to be the greatest college basketball game of all time.  I know I will never forget it.

Their offensive and defensive stats are through the roof thus far.  They average nearly 100 pts per game (97.0), shooting 51% from the field and 41% from three.  They are #2 nationally in points per possession (1.207) and percentage of trips where they score at least a point (59.7%).   They share the ball amazingly well (#2 nationally in assists – 21.7) and have a preposterous nearly 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio (1.87).  The Heels also rebound with the best of the country (#8 nationally) and play defense with abandon (holding opponents to 37.3% shooting and forcing 19 turnovers per game – 14th nationally).   Put simply, this team is playing GREAT basketball.

The Heels are Posterizing Everyone in Their Path

photo credit:  Jim Hawkins/AP

So the question is begged – why do we need to finish out the season if we know that Carolina is far-and-away the best team?  Well… because it’s still early.  December 5th is a light year away from April 6th in college basketball time, and  a lot can and will happen in the interim.  Other teams will improve, and UNC, while looking indomitable at this point, could eventually suffer from the fatigue of increasing pressure to win every game and/or simply a rough night in March.  That’s the beauty of our game.  Short of a major injury, we can rest assured that the Lakers and Celtics will more than likely be back in the NBA Finals due to the sport’s seven-game series playoff format.  But in a one-game situation in the NCAA Tournament, much like the World Cup and NFL Playoffs, an inspired underdog can accomplish the unthinkable and take down the seemingly unbeatable favorite (witness last year’s Super Bowl for just such a recent example).

For proof of this, let’s take a walk down memory lane for a brief history lesson.  Below are a handful of teams who, like this year’s Tarheels, were seemingly invincible for the entire season.  That is, until they ran into a plucky team who had enough heart and made just enough plays in the right moments to block the favorite’s manifest destiny.

• 1984 UNC (28-3, 15-1 ACC) - We can start with a former version of the Heels.  Bob Knight’s Indiana team shot 65% from the field (69% in the second half) to take down Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins’ Heels in the second round of the NCAAs.  To this day, old-time Heels fans lament an injury to Kenny Smith’s wrist that limited his effectiveness in the postseason.  UNC had only a 1-pt loss at Arkansas and a 2-pt loss to Duke in the ACC Tourney prior to the NCAAs.  Of the 28 victories, only four were by single-digit margins.  This team was nasty.
• 1985 Georgetown (35-3, 17-2 Big East) – We still can’t fathom how this absolute beast of a defending national champion with Patrick Ewing and Reggie Williams lost to Villanova in the greatest upset in NCAA Tournament history.  Still, they did, as Villanova hit a ridiculous 79% from the field against a defensive dynamo that regularly held teams well under 40%.
• 1987 UNC (32-4, 16-1 ACC) - UNC, led by all-american Kenny Smith and super-frosh JR Reid, lost in the regional finals to Syracuse by 4 pts, in a game where Derrick Coleman and Rony Seikaly destroyed the Heels on the boards to eke out the victory.  Their only other losses were at UCLA (5 pts), at Notre Dame (2 pts) and in the finals of the ACC Tourney vs. NC State (1 pt).  While not as dominant as the 1984 version, this team was everyone’s choice to win the national title.
• 1991 UNLV (34-1, 20-0 Big West) - The best team we’ve ever seen that didn’t win the national title.  Simply an astonishing combination of talent and experience on the cusp of the early-entry era.  Duke, who had lost by 30 in the NCAA Final to this same team one year prior, became Duke on this night – roaring back behind Mr. March, Christian Laettner, to win the game in the final minutes 79-77.  UNLV, who placed all five starters on the all-Big West team (four 1st teamers), had beaten its opponents by an average of 27.5 pts per game coming into the national semis, including a whipping of #2  Arkansas at the old Barnhill Arena by a score of 112-105 (the final was much closer than the game actually was).
• 1997 Kansas (34-2, 18-1 Big 12) – We still contend that this was Roy Williams’ best team (even better than the 2005 UNC national champions).  A two-pt double-OT loss at Missouri was the only blemish on a near-perfect season until upstart and eventual national champion Arizona, led by Mike Bibby and Miles Simon, pulled off an 85-82 upset in the regional semifinals of the NCAAs.  Raef Lafrentz, Paul Pierce and Jacque Vaughn led a balanced attack that absolutely devastated most of its oppenents, many of whom were ranked (9-1).
• 1999 Duke (37-2, 19-0 ACC) – With the possible exception of 2006 UConn (who we find overrated), this was the last college team that was absolutely loaded with A-grade NBA talent. The lineup featured two NPOYs (Elton Brand, Shane Battier) in addition to draftees Will Avery, Trajan Langdon and Chris Carrawell.   Future all-star Corey Maggette came off the bench.  Only four teams all season were able to stay within 10 pts of the Devils, who crushed teams by an average of 24.6 points per game.  Had this team won the title game against UConn, it would have been on the short list of greatest teams in the modern era.
• 2002 Duke (31-4, 16-3 ACC) - This team didn’t have the outrageous statistical profile of its predecessor three years prior, but it was the defending national champs and boasted Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy Jr. and Carlos Boozer in a balanced attack that seemed destined for back-to-back titles.  That is, until this team’s only bugaboo, FT shooting (68.9%) popped up to bite them in the Sweet 16 against Indiana.  Two one-pt losses, a three-pt loss and a 14-pt loss to national champion Maryland were the only blemishes on this team’s resume.

So there you have it.  Our memories don’t go back further than the 80s, but we’re sure there are probably some other great historical examples of this phenomenon.  Leave them in the comments if you wish.  Of course, there are just as many (if not more) dominant teams that actually got it done and won the national title – which one will the 2008-09 Tarheels become?  To answer that question is why we will continue to watch.

Be-Deviled?

The last time Duke had such a blip was in the mid-90s. In 1995, with Coach K’s back hurting and Pete Gaudet at the helm for two-thirds of the season, Duke went 13-18 (2-14) and did not make the NCAA Tournament. There has been considerable harping over the years about whose record (K’s or Gaudet’s) all those losses should fall on, but at the time, it wasn’t a leap to see that even when Duke was 9-3 in early January 1995, a team led by the likes of Cherokee Parks and Jeff Capel (as opposed to Grant Hill, Bobby Hurley or Christian Laettner) was flawed. This was especially true in light of a stacked ACC that season (Each of Duncan, Wallace, Stackhouse, Childress and Joe Smith were all-americans in 1995).

The next season, when K was back on the bench, shows just how far the talent level at Duke had fallen. The 1995-96 team only performed five games better than its predecessor, going 18-13 (8-8) and losing both its first round ACC Tourney game and its first round NCAA game (by 15 pts) to… Eastern Michigan? The following year, 1996-97, Duke only got marginally back on track. The Devils finished with a 24-9 (12-4) record and won the ACC regular season, but they flamed out early again in the postseason, inexplicably losing to #8 seed NC State in the quarters of the ACC Tourney and barely scraping by Murray St. in the first round before losing to #10 seed Providence (by 11 pts) in the second round of the NCAAs. Does this sound familiar at all? It should, as Duke just finished its 2006-07 campaign with a 22-11 (8-8) record, culminating in a first round ACC Tourney loss and a first round NCAA loss to… VCU.

Is there cause for concern among Devil faithful, or is last year’s mediocre regular season and short-lived postseason just an anomaly?

After the 1995-97 disasters (by Duke standards), K got serious about recruiting again, which culminated in the 1997 class – Avery, Battier, Brand, and Burgess – one of the best of the last twenty years. How’d that work out? – try an absolutely sick 133-15 (59-5) record over the next four seasons, including three ACC Tourney championships, four NCAA #1 seeds, two Final Fours, and a national title in 2001. He followed that class up with a smattering of more blue-chippers, from Maggette in 1998 to another blockbuster class in 1999 – J-Will, Dunleavy and Boozer – and Duhon in 2000. What happened next? The 2002 class included JJ Redick and Shelden Williams, who, while excellent college players, never had the gamebreaking abilities that some of the previous Dookies had. In fact, the last player that it could arguably be said that Coach K recruited to Duke that fit that mold is Luol Deng (class of 2003), who was largely responsible for getting Duke to its last Final Four in 2004 during his only season there.

Since Deng’s departure after the 2004 season, we’re wondering what has happened to the pipeline of NBA talent that K was bringing in on a semi-annual basis. Sure, many guys have been highly ranked recruits that simply didn’t pan out as expected – Shavlik Randolph, Josh McRoberts, Greg Paulus – but even if those guys had hit their ceilings of potential, would they be as good as the Kevin Durants and the Tyrus Thomases of the contemporary NCAA landscape? Or the Elton Brands and Luol Dengs of Duke’s Christmas past?

Where are all the Duke studs?

Looking at the class rankings for 2007, Duke is listed near the top, which on its face, may suggest that they’ll be back on track in short order. The supposed jewel of the class is 6’9 forward Kyle Singler, from Medford, Oregon. We recognize that it’s always difficult to evaluate a player’s potential from all-star games and video compilations (disregard the title of the video – Singler is definitely going to Duke), but from what we’ve seen, Singler looks like another slow white boy fundamentally sound but below-the-rim type of player. The absolute best case for Duke would be if he channeled the career of another northwesterner, Adam Morrison (who, incidentally, made zero F4s), but he’s probably not even another Chris Carrawell. Their other two big recruits, Nolan Smith (6’3 G; Oak Hill (VA)) and Taylor King (6’7 F; Santa Ana (CA)) are both rated in the 26-50 range – in other words, they might make for nice four-year players if things break right. But where are their difference-makers like Grant Hill, Avery, J-Will, Brand, Battier, Deng, etc.?

The short answer is that K, for whatever reasons, simply isn’t pursuing or getting many of those guys anymore. Consider Duke’s 2007-08 likely starting lineup of Paulus, Scheyer, Henderson, Nelson, Singler – every one of these players was a McDonald’s All-American and top 50 recruit. Duke will likely win 20-25 games and get a top four seed in the NCAA Tournament with this group. But where is the gamebreaker that can get a somewhat flawed team like this, sporting no inside presence, to another Final Four? Where is the playmaker who can make good things happen down the stretch of close games on neutral courts in March? We simply don’t see it here.

This is the future of Duke?

We commented a few days ago about the impact of the one-and-dones on this season, and generally concluded that it helped teams more than it hurt them (at least in 06-07). The talent level at UNC, UCLA, Kansas, Florida, Ohio St., and others is replenishing – can we accurately say the same anymore at Duke? We think there is valid cause for concern, as Duke built its lofty and deserving reputation on the back of wins in March rather than wins on the recruiting lists; and the players that K is now getting seem mostly primed for Final Fours and championships on paper, not the hardwood.