Olympics, Nelson and New York…oh my!

I tend to enjoy a little break over the summer time, completely ignoring Big Duke Balls. Instead I focus on family, vacations, my last place fantasy baseball team and I begin to prepar for my upcoming football draft. This is my life and yes, it’s a good one. However, this doesn’t mean we don’t pay attention. Let’s take a quick look at what we’ve missed since we’ve last posted.

- Obviously the big news is Coach K leading the men’s basketball squad in China. For the first time in a long while, I will be excited to watch Olympic basketball. Anything less than a gold will be a disappointment. I tend to agree with the experts who say that the team lacks another big man. I see no reason for Jason Kidd to be on the team (too many point guards) and no, I’m not just saying that because Kidd single handily knocked out Duke from the 1993 NCAA tournament. I did read somewhere that Coach K wasn’t a good fit (sorry I can’t find the link). Why would pro athletics listen to a college coach was the basic argument? I disagree with this logic. The player’s have responded well to Coach K so far, seeing him more as a teacher than a boss. To me, there are only a handful of coaches who could have pulled this off.

Interesting fact about the Olympic team I didn’t know #1: Dean Smith (yep, Carolina’s Dean Smith) recommended Coach K for the head coaching job to Jerry Colangelo.

Interesting fact about the Olympic team I didn’t know #2: If the United States wins the Gold Medal, Coach K (and his staff) don’t get a medal. I never knew.

Interesting fact about the Olympic team I didn’t know #3: During the first day of practice, Coach K played Marvin Gay singing the National anthem and there were actually a handful of players who were hearing it for the first time.

Floppin’ Fines

There goes Greg Paulus’ NBA career.

Fines Will Be Imposed For Clear Cases Of Flopping

I kid. I kid. Cut me some slack, it’s the summer.

Costas Then…

I’m going to go a little off script here and forget about the Duke Blue Devils for a moment (Forgive me). I just got done watching the Costa Now special about the media & sports. If you missed it, Little Bob had a segment about sports blogs that featured Will Leitch of Deadspin fame, Buzz Bissinger (all you need to know is he’s old and wrote Friday Night Lights a crappy book about high school football) and Cleveland WR, Braylon Edwards.

In short, Buzz went off on Will, ripping him and blogs because they are all vile and vulgar. Of course he did this in a vile and vulgar way, but what the hey. Costas of course, doesn’t like blogs either, so it was a fun night.

Let’s do some quick hits to help these journalist understand what blogs are really about.

- For the most part, Buzz proceeded to read comments from the comments section of Deadspin, while Bob quoted a different writer on Deadspin. If you guys are such great journalist, shouldn’t you at least force Will to defend a a post that Will actually wrote? Guess who did that at least? Braylon Edwards. Good for him.

One Plumlee, Two Plumlees

And just like that, the 2008-09 Duke Blue Devils have some size in the paint.

We decided to take a break from our summer break to talk a little Plumlee.

First, let’s state right off the bat, this kid is not the savior. He’s good, don’t get us wrong, but he’s not a Patrick Patterson-type. He has a lot to learn about being a post-player in the paint. At best, he appears to be a stronger (leaner), more athletic Josh McRoberts. The big difference is, he doesn’t need to be the savior, he doesn’t need to be the #1 option. Miles will have three jobs; rebounds, defend (cough, cough, block shots) and when shots aren’t falling outside, score in the paint.

Depending on who you read, Miles is either the 17th best incoming PF (Scout) or the 29th best PF coming in (Rivals). My best opinion guess…somewhere in the middle. According to Scout (and keep in mind, who knows when they last updated this):

Part of a state championship team as a junior. Native of Indiana. Productive basketball player who can do things on offense and will block his share of shots at the other end. Versatile player. Strength will help him expand his game.

Goin’ Drinking and Oh, Kansas Won Something

Folks, the season is finally over and Big Duke Balls will be taking a little break to drink, sleep and watch old Blue Devil games on DVD. I will occasionally be posting as things happen throughout the off-season. I will also do recruiting updates from time to time. If I get in the mood, I might even write a solid post here and there.

Congratulations to the Kansas Jayhawks. Amazing comeback in the end, including that clutch three with two seconds to play. The most satisfaction I got from watching the game was to see how the game ended, or rather how Memphis lost this game. No disrespect for the Tiger players, but for them to lose because of missed free throws, that was just classic.

As Duke has to live with the constant, I told you Duke can’t win with out a big man all off-season, Memphis will have to live with the, I told you the Tigers’ free throw shooting would kill them.

Poor Kentucky

Based on this UK message board, It appears Kentucky Wildcat fans are having a hard time letting go. Shouldn’t you be more pissed at Patino for not guarding the inbound pass, or yelling at the player  standing behind Laettner, who was suppose to be fronting him?

People of Kentucky, didn’t your 18-point comeback in ‘98 bring you any closure?

FINAL FOUR - Who Do I Cheer For?

Tonight the final four starts and of course we’ll be watching it, however, we won’t be too happy. As we let all the experts pick apart the match ups and pick the winners, we really only care about one thing…who do we root for? Ugh.

North Carolina - I typically take pride in the ACC, so I tend to cheer for any ACC team against any other conference. But this is Carolina, in the final four, I can’t, can I? If the Tar Heels win a second title under Roy Williams, it would mean the torch has officially been passed back to UNC (if it hasn’t already). If I saw the Tar Heels celebrating after winning the title, my heart would sink. I just can’t, sorry.

Kansas - I don’t hate Kansas. Their fans annoy me with their sense of entitlement. You guys haven’t won a title since 1988! Plus, with all the shit Duke takes for having their players not perform at the NBA level, look at the Jayhawks….outside of Pierce and Hinrich, who you got? Gooden, Collison…maybe you consider them good. I do feel a little sorry for Bill Self, and it would be fun to see Williams lose to his old team.

Memphis - Great team, no doubt about it. They got the most talent and I actually think they have the best chance to win, but can I support a team who has more arrests this past year, than they have starters? Come to Memphis, get arrested at strip clubs, win a champion. Also, am I the only person who is sick and tired of Calipari’s “no respect” routine? It’s getting a little old, Johnny. If you want respect, stop coaching glorified mid-majors. That must be a tough sell to recruits. Come play with me for a year, guarantee 35+ wins in a pathetic excuse of a conference and then go pro in a year or so…education optional.

UCLA - Thanks to three awful no-calls, there is no team more fortunate to be here than the Bruins. Overall though, there is not much to dislike about this team. I even feel sorry for the fans, who have to be second class to USC fans in football. Plus, the Bruins have this guy (right). How can you not cheer for that guy! Seriously.

Either way, the games should be good. There is no doubt the four best teams got to the final four. We should see some good basketball by great players. Personally, I’d be happy if UNC won it, if you could promise me that Hansbrough, Ellison and Law all go pro afterwards. Deal?

Big Duke Balls predictions results I want to happen.

Kansas over North Carolin, UCLA over Memphis

Champion: UCLA

*** If I was picking with my brain and not my heart, I’d actually go with Memphis/UNC in the final, with Memphis winning it all.

Oh What Could Have Been

For most, the 1999 season will be remembered for two things. First, that year’s team was the best Duke team to not win a title. It also was the year when Duke basketball fell back to earth, joining the rest of college basketball, to watch its best players go bye-bye early to the NBA.

For me though, while 1999 was significant, it was actually 1996 when Duke first lost a player early to the NBA…a smart, athletic 17-year-old from Lower Merion High School, that reminded many of a young Jordan, passed on Duke. You might have heard of him, Kobe Bryant?

While never officially offered a scholarship, Kobe made it quite clear, if he decided to go to college, he would attend Duke University. In the end though, he picked the NBA and the rest is history.

Since then, the Blue Devils (like every other school) has had to adjust to this simple fact, kids aren’t going to stay four years. However, since I have nothing better to do with my time, I wondered what the Duke roster would have looked like over the years if kids did stay all four years.

Is the Sky Falling?

The Big Lead doesn’t want to go overboard on Duke’s demise, which makes us happy. As a loyal fan, I’m not ready to throw in the towel quite yet either. Obviously Duke has been down (in regard to the Blue Devil’s standards), falling clearly behind North Carolina as the big daddy in the ACC.

We can certainly dive into the details of why this year’s Duke class is only the second in Coach K’s tenure to not crack the final four, but first, we have to state the obvious, college basketball doesn’t have great teams anymore. With so many great players either skipping to the pros (most recently, as a one-and-done), parity rules the day.

Duke has suffered, as has lots of other schools, from this. If kids stayed three to four years like they did 15-20 years ago, the whole college basketball landscape would be different. Put it this way, Shaun Livingston would have been a senior point guard for Duke this season.

Duke Shoots Itself Out of the Tournament Again

Someday, someway, someone will have to explain to me how Duke missed 17 -straight three point shots. Tired legs? No reason for them to be tired. Great West Virginia defense? Nope. Almost all those missed 3s were wide open looks.

As the nation rejoices at another early exit by Duke, look for all the experts to come out tonight and play the ‘told you so’ game, “If Duke doesn’t hit their threes, they won’t win.” Of course, if any team doesn’t hit their shots, they won’t win their game, but what do I know? Against West Virginia, threes weren’t the only problem. After starting 13-13 at the free throw line, Duke missed eight free throws in the second half. Huge.

You want the real reason for this defeat? Rebounding. West Virginia out-rebounded Duke 45-19 for the game. Let that number stick in your head for a moment. West Virginia had 26 more rebounds! They had an 18-4 advantage in offensive rebounds. Because of this, they took 12 more shots, which is pretty important when they only made six more shots for the game. Oh, and before everyone says, this is because Duke is too small…West Virginia’s top three guards out-rebounded Duke by themselves  20-19.