Oh, baby.
It's money-makin' time on The Train, and I am feeling good.
The Blue Devils are going into the conference tournament as the ACC's No. 1 seed. They've had a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament locked up since the end of January. And they've got the country's best offense, they're tops in the RPI and-last I checked-they've still got J.J. Redick.
Quite frankly, that's all you need.
(Um, scratch that. We all saw what happened to the Patriots.)
Alex, are you kidding me? Have you spent the last week on Mars? Were you hiding under a rock? Duke lost twice. There's no way you can spin this one. The Train is derailed. It's flipped over sideways in a ditch outside Cameron Indoor Stadium. Admit it. This stupid column idea is kaput, over. Tell the people to take off their "Get on The Train" t-shirts and go home.
The Blue Devils lost in Tallahassee to Florida State, which hadn't had a .500 record in the conference since 1993. If that isn't enough for you, they lost to North Carolina on Senior Night at Cameron. This team is in the toilet.
To paraphrase Tar Heel coach Roy Williams, The Train couldn't give a [poopy] about North Carolina.
And to paraphrase anyone that has ever cared about ACC basketball (ever), The Train couldn't give a [poopy] about Florida State.
The Train (U.S. Patent No. B3946006 pending) didn't even make the trip to Tallahassee for the Florida State game. It was actually worried about being crushed in the inevitable court-rushing frenzy at the end of the game, so it just chose not to be there. Kind of like Duke's starters at the end of the game.
(Those kids might have rushed the court if the Seminoles lost. It was crazy in there. They sell beer in the Donald L. Tucker Center. Imagine the Carolina game with kids getting drunk at the game instead of before-that's what it was like. One kid lost his shoe and had like 25 people fall on him in the first stampede and then still participated in the second one.)
As for the Carolina game, The Train couldn't get in because its tenting group didn't get to the white registration secret location fast enough. Not that it wanted to anyway. No, The Train spent last weekend in the shop, tooling up for the stretch run to Indy.
Was I surprised to see Duke lost two games in a row to close the season? Of course. It's always shocking when a Blue Devil team suffers consecutive losses.
But before we convene the Cameron Crazie Woe Are We Our Momentum Is Gone (And Right Before The Tournament) Convention, featuring special guest speakers Nancy Negative and Polly Pessimism, let's examine what, exactly, the Blue Devils lost by dropping two games last week.
Long answer: a perfect ACC record, a rivalry game and a chance to close the Cameron career of one of the best senior classes in program history with a win.
Short answer: Absolutely nothing.
After the Carolina loss, Coach K said the game was only big because it was against North Carolina. He added that he thought maybe his team had already mentally moved on to March after clinching the ACC regular season championship Feb. 22.
Redick said the game didn't mean a lot "in the big scheme of things." Shelden Williams said the Blue Devils were lucky to lose the games last week and not later, more important contests. Sean Dockery said that the team would learn from the loss and proclaimed, "We'll be back."
The Train never likes losing, but these two losses-in two completely meaningless games-can only help the Blue Devils down the road. Duke has a week of practice before the ACC Tournament and another week before the Road to Indy begins in earnest. Every mistake the Blue Devils made in losing back-to-back games this week will almost surely come up in those practices.
And Krzyzewski, the consensus choice for Best Coach in the Universe (ask Jerry Colangelo), will fix them. Redick said Coach K uses those weeks of practice better than anyone.
Maybe 27-3 isn't as good as 30-0. Maybe 14-2 isn't as impressive as 16-0. But The Train was chartered for a trip to Indianapolis, and The Train is going to get there. I, for one, still have my ticket to visit the home of famed Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley (it's only fitting that they made it into a museum).
And, oh, one last thing. The last time a Duke team lost its final home game of the season was 2001.
Choo, choo.
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