If you polled America, and had them listed of teams of you hate... More times than not, you will list the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Lakers, Detroit Red Wings, Notre Dame Fightin' Irish Football, and Duke Basketball. These teams always incite Facebook and Twitter updates about how much they hate _____ or the notable bandwagon fans saying GOOOO ________. I have friends who like these teams and I personally like the Lakers/Irish... so I do not call out fans for liking these teams.
I personally am not fond of Duke and when I was a teenager, I really hated Duke and talked a lot of shit to Duke fans. If you ask my dad, whenever I say something bad about Duke, he references the school picture of me rocking a Duke sweater, boom roasted. Now, I respect Duke and Coach K, I do not cheer for them but I still recognize them as a top five program in America.
At the beginning of the tournament, I picked the Dukies to the National Championship Game Final because I felt they had everything you need to make a deep run. They had the experienced leadership in Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler,and Jon Scheyer making them intimidating big three, they had size inside with the Plumlee Brothers/Brian Zoubek, and they are very deep off the bench. All of those qualties tend to result in a successful March.
The size inside got so much better when Zoubek discovered how to play college basketball in late January and start dominating inside for the Blue Devils. He can go off for a double-double any time he wants it seems now and if he stays out of foul trouble, he comes a real threat. He will provide mega problems for both West Virginia and winner of Butler/Michigan State because both teams have lack of size inside to get physical with Zoubek.
I also think the fact of the matter that Kyle Singler did not have one field goal against Baylor and the Dukies still won the basketball game. I would argue that Singler's play is more valuable to their team than Scheyer just because he can spread the floor and also take it inside more so than the basketball version of the Hebrew Hammer.
The Dukies are obviously the favorite heading into the weekend and I wouldn't doubt if the one team that no one who isn't a Blue Devil fan wants to win takes it back to Tobacco Road.
-Charlie.
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