From the category archives:
Well, Thursday of Championship Week was a buzzer-beater away from being a perfect storm for Duke fans. First, the Big East was hit by a massive upset bug, as Syracuse, Villanova, and Pittsburgh all went down in their respective first games of the tournament. While none of these upsets should directly affect Duke’s seed (I [...]
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Last year, the great Tim Britton took the lead as The Chronicle’s own “Bracketologist”, analyzing the impact of Conference Championship Week upsets on possible NCAA Tournament seeding, as well as predicting what seed Duke would receive. And while I can never purport to be as clairvoyant as Mr. Britton in that regard, I do know [...]
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A surprising number of ESPN staff members were on hand to watch Maryland’s upset of Duke.
Scott Van Pelt, a featured SportsCenter anchor, was in the crowd (he graduated from Maryland) and was displayed on the screen fully decked out in Terrapin attire. The sight of Van Pelt really fired up the crowd, which had a [...]
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For my print column today, I wrote about tempo-free statistics and the people who believe staunchly in them. John Gasaway of Basketball Prospectus, who wrote about Alex Fanaroff’s column last week, offered a crash course in tempo-free statistics in our phone conversation, parts of which are excerpted below.
What is your general philosophy on tempo-free statistics, and [...]
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ESPN.com columnist Pat Forde’s weekly “Forde Minutes” came out today, and the college sports expert was rather down on Duke, even after the Blue Devils’ impressive road victory over Clemson last Saturday. Forde listed the 10 teams he thinks have a legitimate shot at the national title, and as expected, the list included Kentucky, Kansas [...]
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If you can sense any residual awkward-old-man-dancing-with-a-cheerleader energy in the building while you’re watching the game tonight, this is why.
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As the calendar inches closer and closer to March, speculation is growing about the Blue Devils’ possible draw in the NCAA Tournament, especially with the increasing possibility of Duke earning its first No. 1 seed since 2006. And thanks to college basketball experts like SI.com’s Andy Glockner, fans may not even have to wait until [...]
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An inquisitive Duke fan scrolling through ESPN.com today might have just found a hidden gem. This afternoon ESPN posted a 20 minute interview with Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and former Indiana and Texas Tech head coach and current ESPN analyst Bobby Knight. The pair’s conversation covers numerous topics, including the difficulty of helping young players [...]
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One of the downsides to the modern 24 hour sports obsession—incited by ESPN, the internet, and lots of money—is the propensity for sports networks and websites to “make” news (see: Favre, Brett). Even sports columnists, normally one of the last remnants of “journalism” in today’s media environment, aren’t immune to this issue. And, [...]
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While I highly doubt Nolan Smith did much research before his Christmas Eve tweet mentioning basketball in April, one statistical analysis guru has his back. According to Ken Pomeroy’s statistical analysis of the early season, Duke is the second-best team in the nation—behind Texas, but ahead of undefeateds Kansas (Pomeroy’s No. 3), Syracuse (No. 4), [...]
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