Category Archives: This Week in Duke Tweets

This Week in Duke Tweets: February 15

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Welcome to another edition of “This Week in Duke Tweets” where The Blue Zone brings you five of the week’s most notable Tweets about Duke basketball.

1) Although it hardly needs retelling, last Wednesday Austin Rivers nailed a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to give the Blue Devils an 85-84 victory over North Carolina at the Dean Dome. Blue Devil alumni from all across the world reacted to the win in the Twitter-verse, including Shane Battier, the 6-foot-8 forward who helped carry Duke to the 2001 NCAA title. Battier was traveling to Washington D.C. for the game, as his Miami Heat took on the Wizards that Friday, so at 12:49 a.m. on Thursday, with Duke nation in a frenzy over the win, he had some fun, Tweeting:

2) The Blue Devils’ strong win over the Tar Heels shot them up in the rankings, catapulting them from No. 10 to No. 5 in the AP poll while the Heels sunk from No. 5 to No. 8. Still, not everyone is as sold on the Blue Devils, such as Seth Davis who kept Duke at No. 7 on his ballot. The true lesson of it may be, though, that beyond Kentucky, Syracuse and Missouri in the 1-2-3 slots, it’s an open field with room for anybody to step up and grab that fourth No. 1 seed.

.3) Duke played a second game last week – even though all the attention has been focused on the instant-classic against the Tar Heels. The Blue Devils defeated Maryland for the second time this season, taking care of the Terrapins 73-55 at Cameron Indoor Stadium. In the win they sported a new set of gray uniforms part of a new series from Nike. The reaction to the new uniforms? Mixed, at best. Battier chimed in again on Twitter with his thoughts in response to a fan’s question:

4) In that game against Maryland, Miles Plumlee came alive with a 13-point and 22-rebound performance. Two years ago, when Duke pushed down the stretch before an NCAA tournament run, it received help from the emergence of another senior post player. Former Chronicle sports editor Ben Cohen observed the eerily similarities between their breakout games:

5) Yesterday, the world celebrated chocolate hearts and love with Valentine’s Day. The Blue Devil, a notorious bachelor, did some crowd sourcing in search of a Valentine:

This Week in Duke Tweets: February 2

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After a long hiatus, The Blue Zone is bringing back “This Week in Duke Tweets” with five of the week’s most notable Tweets about Duke basketball.

1) The Blue Devils held a lead as large as 22 points in the second half against St. Johns, but within fewer than eight minutes saw it dwindle to just seven. Although Duke pulled out an 83-76 victory, the team allowed 47 of those points in a defensively challenged second-half showing. During that second half, noted college basketball analyst and statistician Ken Pomeroy tweeted about how the Blue Devil defense continues to slide within his rankings:

2) Against Maryland last week, Mason Plumlee dominated with 23 points and 12 rebounds on 9-of-13 shooting from the field, leading the Blue Devils to a 74-61 victory on the road. Former Duke guard and current hoops analys Jay Williams praised Plumlee for his Glenn Robinson-like domination against the Terrapins in the below Tweet. In the team’s following game against the Red Storm, Plumlee validated Williams’ praise with a similar performance, notching 15 points and 17 boards on 5-of-8 from the floor.

3) The Blue Devil basketball world has been abuzz recently ever since Chronicle sports editor Chris Cusack wrote an expose on how the team has needed to sell additional tickets due to poor student attendance in Cameron Indoor Stadium’s student section. People have spent the past week trying to decipher how this is possible, with some asking if the Crazies have lost some of their craze. It’s still important to remember, however, that Cameron will always be hallowed grounds, even if the team is experiencing a current dip in attendance. This first Tweet, from Duke alumnus Seth Davis, a college basketball analyst for Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports, links to this picture from the author admiring the confines of Cameron this past Tuesday.

4) The second Tweet about Cameron is not about the stadium – at least directly. But, one can guess as to the importance of the stadium to former Duke great Bobby Hurley, who led the team to back-to-back national championships in 1991 and 1992. The name of his daughter, who celebrated her Sweet 16 last week? You guessed it.

5) Finally, the final spot goes to Austin Rivers who eclipsed a Twitter milestone within the last week. Congratulations to the Duke guard, who earned his 100,000th follower last week. He has now climbed over 103,000 since then.

This Week in Duke Tweets: November 29-December 5

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Welcome back to the second edition of This Week in Duke Tweets, with the five threads about this week in Duke sports.

1) Duke’s early season marquee matchup was this Wednesday, featuring the No. 1 Blue Devils against the No. 6 Michigan State Spartans. Though Michigan State hung close for much of the game, diaper-dandy Kyrie Irving took over and showed the world why he was such a highly touted recruit. Former Duke guard and current ESPN analyst Jay Williams tweeted in amazement regarding Irving’s play:

2) Camping out for that Wednesday night showdown began as early as Saturday, with the first appearance of serious tenting in Krzyzewskiville this season. The tenting was rough weather-wise, with tenters being told Tuesday night at 4 a.m. that they could leave the tents due to a tornado warning. That day however, they got some love from walk-on forward Todd Zafirovski, appreciating their efforts:

3) Nolan Smith gave a shout-out to rapper Wale last week on Twitter after the Duke-Oregon game, and this week Wale returned the praise after Duke’s 82-70 victory over Butler on Saturday in a rematch of last year’s national title game:

4) Although Kyrie Irving and Nolan Smith dazzle sharing the Duke backcourt together, it’s clear that they would have issues if they had to share a remote control. They both tweeted about TV they watch, and the programs are quite different. On Monday, Irving admitted to watching Gossip Girl:

He later added commentary on the show, tweeting “Dannngggg…Serena.” Smith on Saturday night, tweeted about his appreciation for the animated TV series “Boondocks”, based off the comic strip of the same name:

5) Finally, This Week in Duke Tweets would like to thank the love it received from Casey Peters and the Duke Blue Devil:

So, Blue Devil, it’s not rigged:

Thanks, and come by again next week to the Duke Chronicle Sports Blog for the following edition of This Week in Duke Tweets.

This Week in Duke Tweets: November 22-28

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Welcome to the inaugural edition of This Week in Duke Tweets for the Chronicle Sports Blog, taking you through the top five Duke-sports related tweets of the week.

1) On Saturday, the men’s basketball team traveled to the west coast to senior forward Kyle Singler’s home-state of Oregon to take on the Ducks. Singler’s brother, E.J., starts for Oregon, but it was Kyle who stole the show scoring a career-high 30 points to lead the Blue Devils to a 98-71 victory. Fellow senior Nolan Smith tweeted about his teammate’s performance after the game:

2) When the Blue Devils beat No. 4 Kansas State, it gave Coach Krzyzewski his 800th win at Duke. Though Coach K doesn’t have a Twitter account, he got a shout-out of praise from one of his players, Seth Curry:

3) Duke’s depth and offensive versatility are often listed as its strong suits this year, and this was highlighted in their victory over Kansas State as college basketball analyst (and Duke graduate) Seth Davis pointed out:

4) Oregon is perhaps most famous as the alma mater of Nike founder Phil Knight. After the game, Nolan Smith got to meet this pioneer of sports gear, but “Chillin” is what was on his mind:

5) Finally, now that the Thanksgiving break is over, the basketball players show us there are two ways to get back into the groove of things. One the one hand, there is Casey Peters who tweeted about his relaxing afternoon with Kyle Singler:

On the other hand, Kyrie Irving tweeted about his studious afternoon with his fellow freshman basketball players Josh Hairston and Tyler Thornton:

Keep up with the Chronicle Sports Blog and make sure to come back next Monday for the next edition of This Week in Duke Tweets.