ACC Country

Inside Carolina Basketball with Roy Williams comes on my FSN South feed at 8am every Saturday morning. I DVR it, because I am rarely up – or coherent – that early on Saturday. However, I was up early today and caught the show. It was lacking input from Roy himself, due to the weekend format of the NCAA Tournament. Other than that, it was pretty much the standard show: sequential highlights from last weekend thru the week, this time encompassing the entire ACC Tournament, and even yesterday’s first round game against Mount St. Mary’s. The extra basketball content, bumped the fluff piece that they usually run, but they still had time for a player spotlight (on Hansbrough for the second time this sesaon) and a quick interview thing with Dean after his being honored in Charlotte last weekend.

Krzyzewski’s show comes on right after Roy’s. While I’ve seen little of it, I’ve been told it is propaganda-like, full of spin and other such ludicrosity. Being up this morning, I figured I’d give it a look to see what the buzz was out of the Rat’s lair, particularly after their Saturday exit in the ACC Tournament and especially after their escape Thursday night. I was not disappointed.

INSIDE BASKETBALL WITH DUKE’S COACH K

Even the name of the show is arrogant. “Inside Basketball.” Because Coach K knows EVERYTHING about basketball, including, but not limited to: how to fold like an accordion in March, how to run a mid-major offense at a major program, and how to take advantage of an Atlantic Sun Conference team’s mistakes in the final minute to defeat a 15 seed in the Tournament by one.

I missed the host’s name, but he’s with Bob Harris, Duke radio guy, as usual, and this time they’re in the new “Duke theater,” where the team gathers “to watch game tape.” He left off the “…and making out with Collins and Wojo in the back row.” The host asks Bob what teams stands out to him in March, and I’m thinking to myself, “Wait, actual national discussion on Duke’s show? Are they willing to acknowledge another program is competitive?” Of course not, Bob’s answer is “the ‘78 team.” They segue straight to the 1978 ACC Final in which the Devils defeated Wake Forest to win the league crown. Mike Gminski’s hair is just awesome here, sporting the Art Garfunkel look. And they mention then-coach Bill Foster. This is jaw-dropping in of itself, because I had always thought that Duke basketball did not exist until Krzyzewski became coach.

Ah, I had forgotten the “shrines” to former players they show on the way to commercial breaks. This one’s for Trajan Langdon. Where are the images of the final 10 seconds of the ‘99 title game? We come back briefly for a “Duke Flashback,” which I thought was what the first segment of the show was. Nevertheless, this one was the 2000 ACC Tournament, in which freshman Jason Williams led Duke to the tournament title.

“It was great to see that film of the ‘78 team.” Wasn’t it, though? That’s much better than looking at the highlights of the last three weeks of this season. And now we jump ahead a decade to the 1988 team, which “kicked off the next era.” Are we going to address ANYTHING relevant to today West Virginia game? Get this though… that ‘88 Duke team featured both Danny Ferry AND Billy King. Not only does Duke turn out NBA draft busts, they turn out NBA GM busts, too! They show Quin Snyder hitting free throws to win Duke’s “only trip to Allen Fieldhouse.” This is notable for two reasons: 1) that was Duke’s last non-conference road game outside of the Big Ten Challenge and St. John’s every other year, and 2) that was Snyder’s most success at a Big Eight/XII school. This Duke team also accomplished something that the three most recent Duke squads couldn’t accomplish combined: beat Carolina three times. We finally get our first Rat sighting 12 minutes in, rambling in broken thoughts about how good King was defensively.

This sends us to more ads, with Johnny Dawkins and David Henderson as our backdrop. Speaking of Dawkins, after seeing him on the sideline Thursday night, Krzyzewski needs to hurry up and retire and hand the reins over to J-Dawk. Why? Because Dawkins would INSTANTLY join Al Skinner and Leonard Hamilton on the list of “angry black ACC coaches.” Seriously, I don’t think I’ve seen any of those three guys smile..

We’re back, and my guess is we go to the 1991 team, but the “decade” gimmick is lost on me, as we’re obviously jumping 10 years at a time, and it’s been 10 years since the vomit-inducing ‘98 Wojo team, as the hosts gush over Wojo, while we get hots of Wojo flying all over the floor and then getting flattened by a stiff screen by a Clemson guy. Anyone who’s seen the post-game press conference after Wayne Turner and Kentucky eliminated the Blue Devils in the South regional final knows that this was a special team for Coach K, and to hammer home this point, Krzyzewski handles all the talk on this segment. Some highlights:

” This team was built on the years of struggle after my sickness and injury.” “Sickness” and “injury” being used here in the flimsiest way possible.

“Roshown [McLeod] became a great player and a number one draft pick.” And how’d that turn out?

They then show the infamous Krzyzewski/Wojo hug after the UNC/Duke Senior Day game in Cameron, and they linger on the hug a little too long for comfort, as it is arguably the gayest hug of all-time, edging out Rocky and Apollo’s beach hug only because this wasn’t a movie.

And then Wojo sums it up nicely: “We came up short.” Wojo’s basketball career and life condensed into four words.

More ads, with the Bobby Hurley shrine our backdrop this time. And we get the Duke Sports Journal, telling us that the Duke women’s golf team is ranked #1 in the nation. A preppy school top-ranked in the nation in golf? NO WAY!!

Bob says that this trip down memory lane has “been a lot of fun.”Having watched Duke’s last few games, this must’ve been like waking up from a nightmare. With less than 10 minutes left, I take it there is going to be ZERO mention of the ACC Tournament failure and the Belmont embarrassment. The host then wonders aloud “if the 2008 team can do that.” Yes, let’s wonder. Expound on that thought further. Rather than do that though, let’s let K talk some more, as we get a little montage of the 2008 team with commentary from Krzyzewski.

K says this team was “most ready to play in March,” whatever that is supposed to mean. I’m sure this statement is backed up by the facts, given that Duke is a no-call hook on Nelson and desperation Henderson layup from being 2-4 since March 1. Duke also has “emerging players like Zoubek.” This statement coming from the same school who once took out a full page blank ad in a newspaper to remind everyone of the uselessness of Eric Montross. K says after the middle of the season, they “hit a wall.” Funny, Coach, you seem to have a habit of “hitting walls” late in the season.

On the Carolina game, “once we got over being so emotional, we had the lead against them.” Krzyzewski, it’s YOUR JOB as HEAD COACH to keep them from being “so emotional.” And who cares if you had the lead against them? If that’s the case, let’s talk about Belmont getting the lead in the second half after they got over being so emotional. Or how mighty Duke was only able to win the game after a couple of iffy calls down the stretch and a coast to coast layup by the only Duke player on the court who wasn’t out of gas at the end. Speaking about defense, “talk is huge.” Nobody would know better than Coach K how “huge” talk really is, particularly when that’s what the Duke program is disintegrating into. K ends it saying thatdefense works the best “if you coordinate with better players…” And before I can make the joke, K finishes his thought with the weak qualifier, “…and they’re all better than they were earlier in the season.” But hey, if 6-4 over your last 10 is “better” than 22-1 over your first 23, you can believe that if you wish, Coach.

And that wraps up our show. Well, after watching this heart-warming celebration of Blue Devil basketball, all seems well in the land of the Dookies. Having not seen any evidence to prove otherwise, I must assume that they rolled to the ACC Tournament Championship, a top seed in the NCAA Tournament, and an easy win in the first round of the Dance. This team is surely headed for another National Title.