It isn’t like you’ve read me here before. My 2500 word live blogs? Check. Endless rants? Check. Recruiting speculation?  Check.

Still, I did win The Chronicle’s Sports Blog Bracket Challenge, with a bracket that was in the 99.9th percentile amongst ESPN’s entries. I picked Cornell to go to the Sweet 16. I picked Butler to go to the Elite 8 (although not any farther). I picked six of the eight Elite Eight teams. And yes, I picked Duke to win the it all (take that, bandwagon jumpers!).

So what’s my prize? I get free reign for one glorious blog post. Yes, it’s been two weeks since Duke cut down the nets in Indy, but can you blame me for taking that long to come down from my euphoria?

So what should I write about in a post that, as my editor put it, needs only to be semi-respectable journalism? If you’ve ever, and I mean ever read anything I’ve written for The Chronicle, you know the answer to this question.

Brian Zoubek.

See, I love Brian Zoubek. He’s everything I’m not—namely, tall. Plus, he’s got an awesome beard.

But for a year and a half, my admittedly illogical obsession with Zoubek merited me continuous ridicule from my friends and tent-mates. “He can’t catch the ball!” they’d say. “He can’t make a layup!” they’d say. “He’s 7-foot-1 and he can’t dunk!” they’d say.

Well, now its my turn. And I have one thing to say—told you so.

Now, Zoubek certainly wasn’t as big a star as any of Duke’s “Big Three” this season, but he was arguably the difference that propelled Duke to the National Championship this year. Zoubek provided everything past iterations of Duke teams lacked—size, strength, toughness, rebounding, and interior defense.

See, once head coach Mike Krzyzewski inserted Zoubek into the starting lineup against Maryland Feb. 13, the whole complexion of the Blue Devils’ season changed. After scoring 16 points and grabbing 17 rebounds—in only 22 minutes of action—Zoubek’s evolution was complete. In 10 of the final 16 games of the season, Zoubek had 10 or more rebounds. He averaged 6.6 points over that stretch, despite never averaging more than 4.1 a season in his first three years on campus.

So, yes, Zoubek played like—gasp—a solid center.

But it was in the NCAA Tournament that Zoubek really shone, and might have even stolen some of the spotlight from his more ESPN-friendly teammates. In the first round against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Duke went to Zoubek early to exploit its size advantage, and the senior did not disappoint.

It got to the point that ESPN analysts were actually discussing Zoubek using terms like X-factor, dominant rebounder and difference maker.

I know, weird.

Then against California, Zoubek was arguably Duke’s best player in a game in which the “Big Three” struggled. Yes he had 14 points and 13 rebounds in his best performance since that fateful Maryland game, but it was one play that defined the game for Zoubek.

See, the exclamation point on Duke’s victory was, ironically enough, a Zoubek dunk. In what is probably my favorite moment as a Chronicle writer, I had to explain to my colleagues on press row in Jacksonville why a dunk by this 7-foot-1 beast was invoking such a frenzy amongst the Duke fans in the stadium. They couldn’t seem to grasp the fact that this was Zoubek’s first dunk since that Maryland game, and one could probably count on one hand the amount of times he’d dunked during his career.

I still don’t think they understood.

But Zoubek understood. He understood that he didn’t need to be a dominant post scorer to make a big impact for the Blue Devils. He understood that he could dominate a game not on the stat sheet, but in the paint. He understood that a rebound could be just as important as a dunk.

And Zoubek’s renaissance wasn’t done there. He had 14 rebounds against Purdue and played a bruising game against a physical, tall Baylor frontline. Against a undersized but solid-rebounding West Virginia squad, Zoubek had six points and 10 rebounds.

And then, fittingly enough, it was Zoubek who iced Duke’s National Championship. Yes, he had eight points and 10 rebounds. But his most important series of the game, and perhaps of his career, was when he used his length to force Gordon Heyward to miss a fade-away jumper with under 10 seconds to go, grabbed the rebound, and then sunk a free throw.

After three-and-a-half injury-plagued and frustrating years, Zoubek was finally a winner. Now, his claim to fame was more than his height. He could say he was a National Champion, a dominant defender, and a solid big man. Oh yeah, and he’s still 7-foot-1.

So here’s a memo to any NBA scout reading this now approaching 800 word essay—give Brian Zoubek a chance late in the second round. He’ll never dominate an NBA game. He may never even play consistent minutes. But if you’re star center is in foul trouble, and you put Zoubek in the game, he’ll rebound, play physical defense, and hustle for every loose ball. Think about it—isn’t that exactly what you want from the 5th or 6th person off your bench?

And to all my friends who doubted me, I have one thing to say (again)—I told you so.

Brian Zoubek (and I) will now accept your apologies.

Take a look at the attendees list for the MIT Sloan Sports Conference when you have a chance.

It’s incredible.

On March 6, the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center housed more influential minds at the tops of their respective sports than probably any previous gathering in human history. There were over 1,000 people at Sloan from sports management, media and fandom, plus an additional 400 on the waiting list. Panel discussions generated lines bigger than the ones at Alpine on a Monday morning: you had a better chance of finding an empty seat at Cameron that same night. Welcome to the big show. Everywhere you walked, there was a recognizable face.  Is that Bill Simmons talking to Brian Kenney about Sugar Ray Leonard? Are Adam Silver, Daryl Morey and Mark Cuban really humoring three Harvard kids waving resumes?  Wait… that can’t be… Steve Kerr? And a ragtag team of representative from MLB, NFL, NHL, FIFA, ESPN, Reebok, Nike, Bloomberg, EA Sport and Black Rock? In short, if you were anyone of consequence in sports, you were at Sloan.

You would figure, then, that Duke athletics would have a few representatives. Sports analytics should in fact be synonymous with Duke itself. This is how Duke has marketed itself for two decades: sports with an analytical, cerebral bend. Shane Battier, as portrayed in Chris Ballard’s “The Art of a Beautiful Game” and this must-read NY Times feature, perhaps best embodies this distinct Duke quality. Battier’s knowledge of analytics—for instance, Kobe Bryant’s effective field goal percentage from different zones on the floor, Manu Ginobli’s statistical tendencies—render him the unique player who combines athletic prowess and the scientific method. Battier’s four years at Duke weren’t marked by his athletic prowess a la Jason Williams, but rather a blend of ability and brains. He consistently made the right defensive rotations and rarely attempted low-percentage shots. Indeed, the Battier-style of play is pretty much the accepted standard for your typical Duke teams. Capable and smart.

Ironically, the Duke basketball brass might not actually be that smart by today’s sports standards. The team currently employs zero official basketball quants (think Dean Oliver of the Denver Nuggets) and does not delve into unorthodox statistical analysis (efficiency ratings, adjusted plus minus ratio, etc.) as a means of strategy evaluation. At least, that’s the team’s public relations stance. When The Chronicle’s Ben Cohen did a column on tracking offensive and defensive efficiency, he got this quote from assistant coach Chris Collins: “The numbers we use a lot are turnovers and offensive rebounds.  The other key is we try to get ourselves to the free-throw line. Those are probably the main ones that we look at—and obviously, well, shooting the ball.”

If we are to take Collin’s words at face value, then the team is doing only the most rudimentary statistical basketball analysis possible. Turnovers, offensive rebounds and fouls essentially mean nothing in a vacuum: they’re variables dependent on a range of factors, from pace to score of the game (What happens to John Scheyer’s assist/turnover ratio when Duke is up 10 with 5:00 left and K elects to run the shot clock down?) to lineups (What is Duke’s offensive rebounding like when the Plumlee brothers are at the 4 and 5? How about Thomas and Zoubek?). All of these factors, according to the basketball’s best and brightest—namely, Oliver, Morey, Cuban, Kevin Pritchard, John Hollinger and Mike Zarren (Celtics’ Basketball Operations Analyst)—can be relatively accounted for and weighted appropriately with enough patience and tinkering. Sure, these new statistical tools might not be perfect, but they’re certainly better at describing what actually happened in a game than the box score as constituted. The traditional box score might as well be thrown out the window. Points, free throw discrepancy, assists (which, by the way, are wholly determined by subjective scorekeepers), blocks and rebounds are worthless without context. Statistical analysis is the only empirical means of providing a way to corroborate what our eyes see with numbers on paper—the basketball guys at Sloan made this idea abundantly clear.

Yet, as I scrolled down the program and looked for Sloan’s Duke representatives, only one name appeared: mine. To be fair, I’m not sure any ACC schools sent their basketball people to Sloan. The analytics movement is mostly a pro-phenomenon, which makes sense. In the NBA, sample sizes can be large (five and six year analyses are possible), and data is less diluted. What I mean by the latter term is that everyone’s strength of schedule in the NBA is more or less the same, whereas in the NCAA comparing ’09 Memphis with ’09 UNC is virtually impossible: Memphis played in a watered down, woefully bad C-USA, while UNC competed in a conference chock-full of tournament teams and lottery picks. Perhaps Duke Basketball has no desire to invest in analytics because it has no legitimate application.

I for one am not sold on that train of thought. At the end of the day, the hard numbers, if interpreted and mathematically manipulated correctly, can tell a compelling sports story. A story, I would posit, that is more logical and accurate than any type of qualitative analysis. The statistical movement is now a staple of MLB and dominating the general management of the best NBA organizations. Not coincidentally, the eight NBA teams heavy on quantitative methodology—the Celtics, Lakers, Rockets, Thunder, Nuggets, Mavericks, Magic and Cavs—all are in prime position to contend for championships in the next several years. These teams unite around the idea that the same prized concepts we use in science and math should necessarily be a part of sports. These organizations’ decision-making processes are no doubt more rigorous and objectivity-based than their peers (just take a look at some of the research papers presented at Sloan—might I recommend Brian Skinner’s paper, The Price of Anarchy, which links hoops offensive schemes with Braess’s Paradox?). A strong analytic-minded managerial core is not sufficient to win a championship (cue discussion of talent and execution), but I’d argue it’s becoming progressively necessary.

College sports has yet to embrace Michael Lewis and the “Moneyball” line of thinking. Duke is in prime position to lead the way, boasting some of the best number-crunching undergrad and grad students in the world who will work for virtually nothing in order to get closer to the ground K and his cronies walk on. I doubt that K, Collins or any of the coaching staff knows much about Markovian chains, linear regressions or noise in data sets. However, there’s a plethora of students here who do, and they should be utilized effectively, even if it’s just in an experimental fashion. At the very least, Duke’s varsity teams should take a look at the value of analytics in their respective sports and see what the movement has to offer.

I’ll even save a few seats at Sloan next year.

In his first high school basketball game, as a freshman on the Montclair Kimberley Academy’s varsity, Kyrie Irving scored seven points in a 66-53 loss to Newark Academy, MKA’s archrival and my alma mater. Irving was a precocious rookie — he was the primary focus of the scouting report, even as a newcomer — but on the court, the youngster was quiet and unassuming. The result wasn’t much better in the season opener his sophomore year, when he scored 22 points in a 70-39 road loss, this time at my high school.

After the game, my friend walked over to me in the bleachers, where I had enjoyed the win, and he made a prediction that seemed equally bold and strange. The lopsided final still lit up the scoreboard, lingering to rub it in.

“Irving is so nasty,” he said before anything else. “He’s going to go to, like, Memphis in three years.”

“Come on,” I laughed. “He’s a good point guard for a bad prep school, and you just beat him by 30.”

“Trust me,” he said. “He’s the best player we’ve ever played against.”

My friend wasn’t one for compliments. To him, an opposing player was either “nasty” or he was “garbage,” and most were the latter. So the unusually glowing endorsement stuck with me, and I made it a point to watch out for Irving’s name the rest of the season. Most of the time, it wasn’t hard to find. About two months later, Irving dropped 47 points against a top-20 team in Montclair, and more impressive, he led his hapless squad to a victory. At the time, he was averaging almost 27 points per game, which included a 48-point outburst and a 35-point effort in another loss to my high school.

“So you guys held up Irving, huh?” I said to the same friend after the game.

“What are you talking about?”

“He only scored 35.”

“Dude,” he said, “we double- and triple-teamed him the whole game.”

It reminded me of another conversation I had with him before Irving’s sophomore year, when his points parties had started to leak past the boundaries of prep schools and hardcore basketball nuts.

“What percent of their points do you think Irving will get this year?” I asked. “Fifty?”

“Easy,” he said.

Oh. Well then, it wasn’t such a surprise that Irving transferred at the end of his sophomore year to St. Patrick’s, the so-called Evil Empire of New Jersey high school hoops. We had discussed it as a possibility for a few months, and the shock of the news was quickly replaced by speculation about his potential. St. Patrick’s is a veritable powerhouse — always in contention for national championships, let alone state titles, and a breeding ground for Division-I guards.

Would Irving thrive, we wondered, in a system where he wasn’t the only option? And really, was he that good? Yes, it turned out. He was.

In February of Irving’s junior year — after he scored 21 points to help his new team rout the No. 3 team in the country — St. Patrick’s head coach, Kevin Boyle, confirmed our suspicions. “When it’s all said and done,” he said, “he will be arguably as good as any guard who’s played in New Jersey. Any guard. Ever. Ever.” DaJuan Wagner lit it up in New Jersey gyms. So, too, did Bobby Hurley and Jay Williams, the point guards of the only three national championship teams in Duke history.

Now, Irving’s part of that pedigree. He’s no longer a high school freshman psyched about playing in a rivalry game on a Friday night in front of about 200 fans. At Duke, where 9,314 pack Cameron Indoor Stadium for even the most meaningless exhibition, Irving won’t look much like the kid who never beat my alma mater, either. He’s got a prophecy to fulfill, and if he ever forgets, all he has to do is look up at the rafters for a reminder.

There, hanging high and proud, are two numbers and three banners, getting lonelier every April. They’re pleading for company.

As someone in attendance at last night’s game, I must say: First, you had me. Then, you lost me.

I’m not gonna lie, as tip-off for the Duke game approached at the Comcast Center, I was impressed by your sheer numbers, noise and passion. I don’t think anyone who has merely watched a Maryland game on TV can fully grasp what the gametime experience in College Park is like because it seems like nearly half the arena is filled with students—and not the calculator-toting, casual fan, going-to-the-game-to-be-seen kind of students either.

And sure, the Scheyer faces are great (although, come on, kids, Duke fans have enough mental sharpness to remember that you had them last year, as well). So, too, are those crazy, spinny Twilight Zone circle thingys you hold up when the opponent is shooting a free throw. All-in-all, I kind of dug your vibe, which is undoubtedly crass and obnoxious, and you definitely make for a hostile environment. I even turned a deaf ear when you dropped the f-bomb (multiple times) because I get that you have a street cred to maintain… people from surburban Maryland are so hard-edge!

But then, early in the second half, you crossed the line from crass and obnoxious to downright awful and disrespectful. When Dave Neal crushed Nolan Smith to the ground, you erupted in glee. You began a responsive and repetitive chant from one side of the stadium to the other—”Dave!” “Neal!”—with little regard to the injured and struggling player on the floor. I get it. You hate Duke. Fine. Yet there is a difference between playful hate and unmitigated vitriol, and the latter is what you put on display Wednesday night.

Some fans clapped when Smith finally rose from the floor, but it was too little, too late to make up for the behavior demonstrated in the minutes before. After all, it’s only a basketball game. And you chose to celebrate a play that left a kid our age seriously hurt and unresponsive on the court.

There’s a lot to fear in that side of the Turtle.

You stay classy, Maryland.

Love,
Meredith

So, here goes:

I have this rather bizarre theory. I thought of it the other night when I was walking from the boons of the Blue Zone to main West and passing by the newly begun construction at Wallace Wade. Looking at the lovely Caterpillar machinery, I smiled and fondly recalled a conversation I had two summers ago with then-Director of Athletics Joe Alleva. I asked him how he planned to go about fixing Duke’s little football problem, and one of his favorite starting points in answering this question was by citing the bathroom situation at Wally Wade. He firmly believed in the “If you build it, they will come” approach to fixing the program, with “it” being new bathrooms and “they” being top-notch football recruits.

At the time, I remember thinking how this was so ridiculous: Of all the things wrong with Duke Football, urinal troughs are at the top of the list? Really? But the other night in the Blue Zone, I had a revelation. What if urinal troughs are cursed? Being a nice Chicago girl—a White Sox fan with a Cubs-fan father—it suddenly popped in my head that the only other place I know that has troughs is Wrigley Field. I mean, I don’t have to tell you how absurdly obsessed those crazy Cubs fans are with curses. They’ve tried to sacrifice everything, from a freaking goat to a poor, poor nerdy kid in a hat and headphones who  took the fall for Alex Gonzalez. But they’ve never looked to their baseball mecca as the source of their 100-year “curse.”

Not like the misery of Duke Football fans could possibly match that of those who bleed Cubby Blue, but I can’t help but think that maybe getting rid of those old bathrooms might inadvertently turn this program around. That, and you know, David Cutcliffe.

So, here’s the question, for all you boys out there… do you have any evidence that counters this pathetic postulation? Help a girl out (in a G-rated, non-TMI manner, s’il vous plaît).

I’m sorry.

I feel the need to apologize after the Blue Devils’ loss tonight to Boston College. See, Tim Britton may have taken a lot of flak for his road ACC record recently, but I think I’m the champion of all-sports bad luck. I have now covered 10 men’s games away from the Gothic Wonderland and have seen a grand total of one win: a nailbiter over Belmont in Washington, D.C. last March, and that was hardly a victorious night. Keep in mind that, aside from football, all of these teams were ranked at the time of these losses. The 1-9 record, broken down by sport:

Basketball (1-4)

Losses: at Wake Forest last February and against West Virginia in the second round of the 2008 NCAA Tournament, at Michigan and at BC in 2008-09.

Win: Against Belmont in the first round. And given the fact that this was a one-point win over a 15-seed, does it really even count? If Gerald Henderson doesn’t make that coast-to-coast layup in the waning seconds, we’re looking at a monumental upset.

Lacrosse (0-2)

Losses: at Georgetown last March (the same day as the West Virginia game. I rushed over to the Verizon Center immediately after this one–Duke’s first loss of the year–was over, only to see the basketball team go cold and bow out to the Mountaineers), against Johns Hopkins in the Final Four. And in case you’ve forgotten, these were the Blue Devils’ only losses of the year. The loss to the Blue Jays was particularly surprising, given that Duke had crushed them at home in the regular season.

Soccer (0-2)

Losses: Twice to North Carolina, once in Chapel Hill and once in Cary in the 2007 ACC Tournament.

Football (0-1)

Loss: at Georgia Tech. This one was probably the least surprising of all the games on here, but it was a shutout and the ramifications went beyond this game. David Cutcliffe’s team had gotten off to a 3-1 start, but the defeat in Atlanta started a stretch to end the season in which Duke won just one more game.

So as much as Kyle Singler or Coach K will tell you that their team wasn’t tough enough, or Gerald Henderson will say that he should’ve made shots down the stretch, I have a different explanation: I’m just bad luck.

The good news? I’m not scheduled for any more road games the rest of the season.

The bad news? NCAA Tournament assignments haven’t been announced yet.

And he’s certainly not one to dismiss press criticism from perhaps the most prominent figure in the area, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who blasted local newspapers Jan. 7 after he was displeased that no media outlet printed a story about his Blue Devils jumping to No. 2 in the rankings. “I know it’s not that big here,” Krzyzewski said, not-so-subtly alluding to his team’s status in comparison to the fan favorite, North Carolina. “But it’s pretty damn good. So when this group makes No. 2, it’s a new group, they should be celebrated for doing something good.”

Except, as Drescher pointed out in his weekly column Jan. 17, The N&O did write something about the team’s new placement in the polls. The newspaper printed the Associated Press’ top 5 on the front page of its section Jan. 6, and posted a short story detailing the new rankings Jan. 5 on ACC Now, one of its three flagship blogs.

Understandably, Drescher, who attended both UNC and Duke, did not let Krzyzewski’s thinly-veiled accusations of media bias go ignored. He fired back in the same spirit (“Know this–we love you, man. But like a good ref, we’ll keep calling ‘em like we see ‘em,” he wrote), vigorously defending his newspaper’s coverage and jabbing Coach K a few times in the process by insinuating that he overlooks the local media for the national allure of ESPN, Sports Illustrated and The New York Times.

“I thought he was tweaking us a little, so I tried to return that same kind of spirit in my piece,” Drescher told The Chronicle Monday. “I was fine with what he said, but I disagree with it, and that’s why I wrote a response.”

Promoting the accomplishments

Indeed, Drescher does more than simply defend his newspaper’s coverage as fair.

Although none of his sports reporters are Duke alumni and four went to UNC, Drescher deflects Krzyzewski’s accusations of bias for the Tar Heels by citing Jay Bilas, a Duke alumnus, who correctly observes that his affiliation with Duke should not impede his ability to fairly comment on the Blue Devils.

The N&O even sent former Duke beat reporter Luciana Chavez to Beijing in August to cover Krzyzewski in the Olympics, and the newspaper, not McClatchy Company, footed the bill. It was the most expensive trip Drescher said he has ever been associated with, costing the newspaper more than it did to send reporters to Iraq and Afghanistan, primarily because of lodging fees. There was, at one point, talk about not sending Chavez to China, as The N&O is certainly not immune to the problems almost every newspaper has encountered in the past two years.

In June, The N&O and The Charlotte Observer, another McClatchy newspaper, consolidated coverage, and now, The N&O’s sports department is managed by a Charlotte-based editor. The Raleigh newspaper, which can feature more NASCAR and Panthers reports with access to Charlotte reporters, has undergone two rounds of layoffs and buyouts in the last 12 months and has been forced to re-organize almost every facet of its coverage. Sending a reporter to Beijing was a journalistically ambitious decision; it may not have been as financially laudable.

“It’s kind of the era we’re in. We’re constantly being asked to cut costs,” Drescher said. “The bottom line is that we don’t have as many reporters as we used to, and we’re having to cover things differently.”

Staffing changes affect Duke beat

And even though Drescher said he considers Duke Basketball one of the newspaper’s franchise beats—along with state and government politics, the local universities as academic institutions and the Triangle’s college athletic programs—the Duke athletics beat did not survive the basketball season unscathed.

Chavez juggled the end of football season and beginning of basketball season before covering her last game Nov. 29, and she has since been re-assigned to the lifestyles department to write features. Ken Tysiac, formerly the Raleigh-based reporter for The Charlotte Observer, is now doing double duty for The N&O, shouldering the N.C. State beat while leading a three-headed reporting team on Duke. He is joined by longtime N&O writer A.J. Carr, a Krzyzewski favorite, and J.P. Giglio. UNC still has one full-time beat reporter, as it did during football season.

“I will be thrilled if we can get through this year preserving the staff and news hole that we have right now,” said Drescher, who received about a dozen phone calls and e-mails in addition to the 19 total online comments about his column (most were positive, although some Duke fans assailed him for criticizing Krzyzewski). “It is not a perfect world that we live in. It’s a journalism world that’s very different from what it was two years ago, and we’re doing all different kinds of things.

“I think our coverage of Duke has been good. I think what we need to be judged on here is the quality of our coverage in the newspaper. I’m open to hear criticism from people who say we’re not doing a good job with Duke coverage, but I’m not really hearing it, and I think it’s because we are doing a good job with Duke coverage. There’s more than one strategy to win a basketball game. There’s more than one strategy to get good newspaper coverage.”

The Blue Devils were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of championships danced in their heads.
And Crazies in their facepaint, coaches in their Duke attire,
Retreated to their kitchens for some food to acquire.

When out in K-Ville, I heard a kerplunk,
And ran from the court to see who was drunk.
Out to the tents I sprinted with grace,
Where soon the outside cold smacked me in the face.

The moon, in full, hanging on the Chapel’s spires
Created a shadow, and more light I did require.
Then a lamppost’s bulb flickered at my say,
And there, all alone on the grass-’twas Coach K!

Donning a black and blue jumpsuit, eyes staring at his strip,
I knew this must be his traditional Christmas trip.
It’s the visit that lives on in legend; no one knows if it’s true,
Except me-here he was, the only thing in view.

“Laettner and Hurley,” he yelled, “come out, ghosts of long ago!
On, JWill! On, J.J.! On, on, Dawkins and Wojo!
To the ground floor of Cameron, to conjure a spell!
Now follow me, follow me, bid the night farewell!”

Without thinking or blinking, the players did the coach proud,
They chased him and disappeared where no one was allowed.
So in through Cameron’s gothic doors they filed,
Still yards behind Coach K, with a gleam like a child.

And then, by certain mistake, Wojo left the door ajar,
I snuck in, content to watch it all from afar.
Left and right I searched, where had everyone gone?
Commotion, up top, into seats they had withdrawn!

They were staring at the ceiling, fixated on their banners,
Embellishing the stadium like a moat does a manor.
And Coach K stood in the middle, flanked by his men,
He cleared his voice, ready to orate again.

His eyes, how they glistened! His hair, how it shined!
The banners, how regal, how they serve to remind,
The championships of the greatest teams of lore,
The types the naysayers decree don’t exist anymore.

“Now, guys,” he said, “you know this is a special time,
Every year, here we gather as we begin another climb.
And every year, we sit and stare, renew our zeal,
And next year, we will return, another banner to reveal.”

The players bellowed with approval, alive in their cheer,
And the cacophony was so loud it traveled to all those near.
Coach K twisted his head and stared up for one last peek-
What’s that, in the distance? Someone begins to speak!

I rush to the front door, again through the hall,
And there they are: Some students, passing a basketball.
The players and coach emerged seconds later with wonder,
And then, on first sight, the chatter turned to a thunder.

The panorama was unique, but Coach K knew what to do:
He strolled to his car, started the engine and drove through.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he raced out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to y’all, a good night!”

Given the way he’s molded the program and shifted public perception in so little time, it’s hard to fathom that David Cutcliffe has only been at Duke for less than a year. It’s even more difficult to imagine someone else in the largest office of Yoh Football Center, but if Duke had lured its first choice to Durham, Cutcliffe might still be in Knoxville, Tenn. (or waiting to find a new job at this point, but that’s irrelevant).

Exactly 12 months ago yesterday, Duke President Richard Brodhead, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask and former athletic director Joe Alleva flew to the Washington, D.C. area to court Navy head coach Paul Johnson, the architect of the the Midshipmen’s vaunted triple-option offense and the hottest coach riding the yearly carousel. Even in a 24-hour news cycle of conjecture, it became clear that Duke wanted Johnson to replace Ted Roof, and, at one point, was prepared to give him $2 million to move South. Johnson weighed lucrative offers from Duke, Southern Methodist and Georgia Tech before finally balking at the Blue Devils and traveling even farther South—all the way to Atlanta to take over a middling Yellow Jacket program.

Less than two weeks later, Cutcliffe was introduced on a rainy Saturday and the memory of Johnson’s public rebuke had been long forgotten. It was only mentioned this season when Cutcliffe and Johnsons’ teams met on the field in October, with the Yellow Jackets trouncing the Blue Devils 27-0. Both teams, to be fair, had seasons that exceeded expectations. For Johnson, recently named the ACC Coach of the Year, and Georgia Tech, that meant a 9-3 record, an appearance in the Chick-fil-A bowl, a rivalry win over Georgia. For Duke and Cutcliffe, the so-called Dawn of a New Day amounted to four wins, an away victory over a bowl-bound SEC team, the first ACC win since 2004 and the elimination of complete apathy and pessimism from the fan base.

On the one-year anniversary of Duke players’ short flight, though, it’s worth revisiting the situation: Knowing what it knows now, would Duke rather have Cutcliffe or Johnson?

The win-loss disparity seems to favor Johnson, but as Cutcliffe has reminded us incessantly, a new coach’s first year has to be judged on more than his team’s final record. On-field performance is just part of the formula for building a program. Comparatively, Cutcliffe was more instrumental to his team’s newfound success, and his squad’s turnaround was more transformational than Georgia Tech’s. After all, the Yellow Jackets won seven games in 2007 and even went to a bowl game. The only mention of a bowl for the 1-11 Blue Devils was a supposed renovation of Wallace Wade Stadium’s toilets.

Johnson certainly deserves credit for the Yellow Jackets’ surge, but he earns superfluous praise because of the uniqueness of his offense. Some saw his maiden season as a test of the triple option’s effectiveness in a BCS conference, regardless of the fact that Navy consistently won with lesser athletes against quality teams with Johnson at the helm. Indeed, the offense didn’t lose a beat in the transition, and moreover, proved more potent with better athletes, led by sophomore B-back Jonathan Dwyer, the ACC  Player of the Year. By the time the Yellow Jackets beat the Bulldogs between the hedges last week, the triple-option naysayers were about as quiet as the Georgia crowd. Their whispers had been overwhelmed by another question: Why don’t more teams employ the triple option?

That doesn’t mean, however, that Johnson would have enjoyed the same success in Durham this year. In fact, Cutcliffe’s pro-style offense was a better fit for Duke’s personnel. Thaddeus Lewis, who quietly enjoyed one of the best seasons of any ACC quarterback, is ill-equipped to run the triple option. His backup, Zack Asack, is a more natural runner and racked up 84 yards on the ground when Duke resorted to the junk offense against Virginia Tech Nov. 22, but it would have been an immense waste of talent to keep Lewis on the sideline. The Blue Devil running backs would have embraced the run-happy system even if the offensive line didn’t, but one of Duke’s offensive strengths was its stable of wide receivers. Defensive coordinators wouldn’t have had to scheme to neutralize Eron Riley, because the offense would have done the job itself.

And then there’s the issue of intangibles—Cutcliffe has revitalized a fan base by simply interacting with students, showcasing his gregarious nature to anyone who will listen and refusing to confuse short-term victories with long-term progress. Wins are necessary (and four would have sufficed for any Duke fan this year), but mediocrity will not be tolerated for much longer in Wallace Wade, and Cutcliffe seems to understand that he can establish other hallmarks of his desired program while the wins aren’t quite there yet.

The state of Duke Football last year was unlike almost any other program, and Johnson likely wasn’t interested in such a fixer-upper. The ability to competently diagram X’s and O’s or manage timeouts wasn’t—and still isn’t—the only prerequisite for winning at Duke, especially when the football program still remains in the shadow of a certain coach who just led the best NBA players to a certain gold medal. It’s not Johnson’s fault that being a cheerleader, at least for some time, wasn’t an attractive part of the job. It probably wouldn’t have appealed to many. The fact that Duke found a man who could both coach and drum up support, even when he had no proof that his promise of a looming revival was no more than coachspeak, was—and still is—a testament to the University’s search process.

In the end, comparing the merits of Cutcliffe and Johnson is a pointless, speculative debate. If the past year has proved anything, it’s that Johnson has thrived at Georgia Tech and Cutcliffe belongs at Duke—and everyone is better off for hopping off the carousel when they did.

We’ll provide a list of the five people you’d want at your table tomorrow night (and perhaps even the five biggest turkeys Thursday or Friday), and then it’s your turn to pitch in and pass the gravy.

Who are you thankful for?

David Cutcliffe’s arrival. No-brainer, right? Last year at this time, the Blue Devils were not only 1-10, but also physically, mentally and, for all purposes, progressively stagnant. Ted Roof was on the brink of termination (Thanksgiving also calls for political correctness), and Duke hadn’t yet capped off another season of misery with an overtime loss to North Carolina. Less than a month after we gobbled down Thanksgiving dinner last year, though, Cutcliffe had reason to be thankful when he was hired for his first head coaching gig since he was fired at Ole Miss in 2005. In a season particularly rife with pledges and denunciations, Cutcliffe promised and then delivered on the only change that mattered: He won. Although the Blue Devils probably should be bowl-bound by now (a credit, no doubt, to Cutcliffe and his staff), any Duke fan will settle for at least four wins–and the potential for five with a win in the Tobacco Road showdown Saturday. (And on a personal note, the difference between Cutcliffe and Roof’s relationship with the media is the difference between turkey and tofurkey. Or mom’s home cooking and Popeye’s. Or something like that.)

Nolan Smith’s decision. After Duke’s win in the 2K Sports Classic last weekend, multiple media outlets focused on Smith’s presence at point guard and, more importantly, his near-decision to transfer away from Duke after Johnny Dawkins left for Stanford in May. Before Mike Krzyzewski left for his Team USA responsibilities, he sat down with Smith and essentially boosted his ego, reassuring the sophomore about his importance to the team. Smith decided not to leave, and the Blue Devils are better for it, after he supplanted Greg Paulus in the starting lineup and has grown as a legitimate leader (and dunker extraordinaire) in the season’s first six games. Even in the early season, it’s become clear that when Smith plays well, so too does Duke.

Joe Alleva’s departure. “The way I always judge somebody in a job is the way you do the hard things well,” John Feinstein told me last year. “Joe had two hard things at Duke–football and lacrosse–and he was 0-for-2.” Alleva’s role in the 2006 Duke Lacrosse case was deplorable (his “boys being boys” comment, a drunk boating accident in the aftermath and his handling of the athletic department side of the debacle come to mind), and his legacy was also sullied by a steroids scandal in the baseball program and the loss of legendary women’s basketball head coach Gail Goestenkors. And while Feinstein was correct to point out that football had tainted Alleva’s tenure–his two hires, Carl Franks and Ted Roof, went 13-90 over 10 years–his comment seems relatively outdated now. Alleva’s last momentous move at Duke was the hiring of Cutcliffe, which, by all accounts, has been a hugely creative and successful maneuver. Alleva is no longer Duke’s problem as LSU’s athletic director, but he might be remembered better in Durham than he ever thought if Cutcliffe keeps it up. And let’s not forget that Alleva’s departure paved the way for Kevin White’s hiring, which has been almost universally lauded, or that Alleva hired Trent Johnson, which allowed DawkinsPlumlee to come to Duke. to move to Stanford, which prompted Miles Win-win-win.

Mike Krzyzewski’s gold medal. Tom Butters’ move might have been questioned in 1980, but few have ever debated Coach K’s merits since. Krzyzewski’s leading Team USA to a gold medal in the Beijing Olympics, though, served as a new installment of glory in his career and, consequently, gave Duke fans another reason to praise Butters’ innovative instinct to hire a Bob Knight disciple despite his young age and lack of experience. The true effect of Krzyzewski’s Olympic publicity won’t be felt for years. Duke Basketball will continue to be the most-recognized college basketball program in the world, and as basketball continues its assault on undeveloped countries, a Duke presence will only help the University’s global reputation. That, in turn, leads to a spike in admissions applications, expansion of outposts in other countries and greater worldwide prestige–all because of a basketball coach’s success in his second job.

The Sports Blog’s creation. Actually, we’re more thankful to you for returning to this fledgling site after the first mediocre post that you read. We’re nothing without you, our readers, and in this week of giving thanks, we wanted to end this post with a wholeheartedly genuine thank you. We’ll try to reward your attention with more of everything between this Thanksgiving and next. Have a happy holiday, folks.