"They say Virginia is for lovers, but there's hate here for out-of-towners," boasts the Virginia Beach-based rap group Clipse in its song "Virginia." While the street poets are referring to rival gangsters and thugs, the same could be said about the University of Virginia's fans' attitudes toward the Duke men's basketball program.
"I'd say the attitude towards the team is hostile," said UVa student Matt Trogdon, who is an associate sports editor at the student newspaper The Cavalier Daily. "There's a saying we have around here: 'There's only one thing in the world worse than Carolina, and that's Duke.'"
The Cavalier fans will get their first and only chance of the year to heckle the men's basketball team Saturday at 9 p.m. in Charlottesville, Va. The Blue Devils will have to overcome many things if they are to be successful in University Hall. No. 8 Duke (16-4, 6-4 in the ACC) has lost its last four road games and remains winless at Thomas Jefferson's academy for the past two seasons.
"It's hard to play down at UVa, but you [have] got to keep your composure and just stay focused and try to get a big win," Duke's leading scorer Dahntay Jones said.
Head coach Mike Krzyzewski said his team was not complaining about the scheduling of the road games.
"That's the way it is," he said. "We play our schedule. We're not going to cry about things.
We're big boys. We're going to go to UVa., play hard and try to win."
The Blue Devils defeated the Cavaliers 104-93 in their Jan. 15 meeting this year in Cameron Indoor Stadium. In a physical game that featured 59 fouls, Duke needed a career high 34 points from freshman J.J. Redick to down the interior-oriented Virginia team (14-8, 5-5). Although the Blue Devil frontcourt has improved with solid play from Nick Horvath, Shavlik Randolph and Shelden Williams of late, the power forward-center tandem of Elton Brown and Travis Watson, who scored 19 and 26 points, respectively, in the previous contest against the Blue Devils, will likely have its way in the paint once again.
At the guard positions, Duke should continue its superiority, though the Blue Devils can no longer count on Redick as a scorer. After tying a Duke freshman record of seven 20-point games after the 14th contest of the season, the Roanoke, Va. native has six games later
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