Baby with the bath water… Playing Davidson in Charlotte is not an away game. Davidson’s campus is a good 30 - 45 minutes outside of Charlotte; my wife grew up near there. Playing Davidson at Davidson, where only Davidson students/ticketholders get tickets, aside from whatever tickets they decide to sell or are available to the public, is a true-away game. Not sure what size their arena is, but it’s certainly smaller than whatever arena they played in in Charlotte. Same is true for the rest of your examples. Playing in a gym other than the one on your campus, or your designated home gym anyway (G’town plays almost all of its games at the Verizon Center in DC now, AFAIK) is not a home game for any of those schools.
As far as the “250 - 300” math, I made an error in referring to it that way, and I apologize for the misstatement. Here’s the passage: Each year, “Duke plays roughly 25 to 35 regular season games, with 16 of them being conference games. So that leaves about 10 games to schedule out of conference (disregarding contractual obligations like the Big Ten-ACC Challenge). That means we are talking about approximately one hundred games out of 250 to 300 total. [note: should really be 250 - 350 total]” Three of those “approximately 100 games” were true away games.
And no, we’re not “arbitrarily” throwing out in-conference games. The point of the inquiry is who and where Dook chooses to play its non-conference games. 3 true road games in a decade is pretty piss poor.
And while UNC players haven’t exactly been lighting it up in the NBA of late (although Brendan Haywood was a solid contributor for the Mavericks last year on their title run, averaging 5 boards and 1 block per game), neither have Dookies. The fact still remains that Dook can (barely) claim 1 alumnus as an NBA title holder, and no bias or slant or fuzzy math can change that. Plus, holding onto the titles procured by MJ (greatest player of all time, hello?), Worthy, et al, as examplary of the program’s excellence is far from questionable.
Davidson alumnus here, and I completely agree with Mike. There is an enormous difference between the Charlotte Coliseum (capacity of over 24,000) with Davidson’s Belk Arena (capacity of just under 6,000). Additionally, Davidson fans were vastly outnumbered when playing at the former venue. Davidson playing in Charlotte is not a home game, so I would argue that it couldn’t truly be considered an away game for the opposing team.
Yep, I’m sure the gym in East Lansing didn’t have anybody cheering for MSU. As I said, the author is seeing what he wants to see in vivid black and white. Fine by me, but under those conditions, I don’t need to read the book to know what it says.
Well, OK, if I must: Why do we care where Duke plays non-conference games, in particular? What’s the point? I thought the point was about playing in “hostile environments”. If so, a venue 40 minutes from the Davidson campus and 2.5 hours from the Duke campus, should qualify. But OK, if a Davidson alum agrees that it doesn’t, great. Let’s take that one off the table. Is a venue 20 minutes from Michigan State’s home floor and 3 hours by air from Durham non-hostile? What about Chapel Hill, or Tallahassee, or College Park, unless you think those are all easy places to play. If this discussion isn’t about tournament readiness, then what point are you trying to make? That Duke is bad because they draw crowds into big venues? I don’t get it.
As for the NBA, I don’t think it really has any relevance whatsoever. I don’t much care about the NBA. To the extent that it has any bearing at all, it shows me that Coach K is pretty darn good at his job.
And as such (he said, bringing this back around to the topic), I’d be delighted to tip back a Cali cab with Coach K any day of the week. I might even learn something.
Again, from an outsider’s perspective, the home/away stats seem quite like the political charts that say “Increase in National Debt by President” and then list by percentage or number. Any person with a stake in the game sees a validation of their political opinion. This is no different. It’s absurd self-validation mixed with antagonism for opponent. It’s “cut 'em down to build us up” mentality. UNC fans, take pride in your 6 championships. That’s 6 more than my alma mater has. No need to buy into belittling your rival with manipulated statistics crafted to fit a ridiculous and un-proveable hypothesis. There’s also no need to defend as unbiased or truth-revealing a book titled “Duke Sucks.” Do you really think you would find soul crushing revelations in a book titled “UNC Sucks?” No, you wouldn’t. Because you would see it for what it is…a biased rag with an exceptionally targeted homer audience. Don’t kid yourself.
And, to address one of the book’s hypothesis (sp?), sometimes exceptionally talented teams don’t win because they flat just get beat. Most of the time, it has nothing to do with whether they’ve played enough non-conference truly-away road games. If you want to test my hypothesis, look at every other professional sport, and then take note of how frequently great teams make early playoff exits. When you take that gander, also note how many of those teams are former recent champions with rosters filled with battle tested veterans: Spurs (best record in NBA last year and with 4 rings), Green Bay, Saints twice in a row, Steelers, Yankees, Phillies, Redwings, Giants, Lakers, Heat, Cavs, Tiger Woods v. Y.E. Yang, and on and on and on.
There is a big difference between playing say Michigan State or Michigan in Detroit (which really is an away game) and playing Davidson in Charlotte. A UNC or a dook will draw a lot of fans in Charlotte. NCSU might draw fans in Charlotte also if their fans could find Charlotte.
Mike, you are being a tad unfair. Somebody told me that Danny Ferry sat on the bench and watched his team win an NBA title. Kinda like Wojo and Collins rotting away on the Dook bench and watching the occasional national title instead of leaving the nest and getting real jobs…
Mike - since you are a stats guy, I will let the numbers speak rather than speculate on whether Coach K’s skills and the lack of “true road games” hurts:
Since Coach K has been at Duke (1980) their record is basically identical to UNC’s:
4 National Championships
11 Final Fours
20 Sweet Sixteens
27 NCAA tournament berths
and from the decade of avoiding truly hostile environments, K is 329-65 with 2 National championships, 6 sweet 16’s, 1 final four, and 10 of the last 13 ACC Tournament Championships. Including, of course, last years 75–58 win over UNC. Now that’s an ass-whuppin’ !
Just trying to add some wine talk to satisfy Mr. Fu. Can’t say I’ve ever needed her to clean up a wine spill/stain, actually. Maybe I’m doing it wrong.
Reading this thread reminds me of how insufferable Duke fans are. When you get more than one of them together in the same place, it’ll take about five minutes before they start talking about how dominant Duke basketball is.
Which reminds me:
If a Duke player hits the floor, and there’s no one around, is it still a foul?
Jay - go back and read the beginning of this thread. It was the UNC fans who wrote that Coach K collects and ages Laetner’s piss and drinks the blood of dead baby seals. Class acts there.
All I did was provide some facts to counter the misinformation being presented and challenge the assertion that Duke’s lack of tough away games has made them soft and weak in tournament play this last decade. It was Mr. Heyes who responded with the witty screwing the cheerleader put down and then made sure we all know how dominant he is as a UNC grad that he can lord it over his Duke maid as she cleans up after his messes.
And we’re insufferable. Sheesh.
There you go, Bob, you can finish your popcorn now.
Tom, I apologize for contributing to the hijacking of your thread, especially since your posts are the antithesis of what this has devolved to, so this is it for me. But I won’t apologize for defending Coach K and my school against some of this crap.
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Can’t say I’ve ever needed her to clean up a wine spill/stain, actually. Maybe I’m doing it wrong.