Pack up your tents.
And while you're at it, you can cancel those plans to drive down to Atlanta in April. Also, make sure that you show up before the weekend at the ACC Tournament, because the Blue Devils just might not make it past Friday's quarterfinal.
Make no mistake about it: This Duke team is in trouble. The last time a Blue Devil squad lost its first two ACC games it was 1996. That year, Duke finished 18-13 overall and lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to Western Michigan.
The most troubling thing might be the way they've lost the past two games. Against Virginia Tech, Duke trailed until just about 10 minutes remained. A 7-0 Duke run gave the Blue Devils their first lead, but after that, the rest of regulation was back and forth.
The Duke that opponents used to fear never seemed to stop with a 7-0 run and a two-point lead. The run would extend longer, dragging out into something like a 17-3 run that all but ended the game. Those late 1990s, early 2000s Blue Devil squads might've started slow sometimes, but they sure knew how to finish. (See: Duke vs. Maryland, Cole Field House, 2001; Duke vs. Maryland, Minneapolis, Final Four 2001.)
Despite that very mortal 7-0 run, DeMarcus Nelson still stepped up to nail a huge game-tying three-pointer. It was a classic Duke-just-finds-ways-to-win moment-especially after a stop on the other end sent the game into overtime. But then the Blue Devils lost in overtime, which hadn't happened with Coach K on the sidelines in Cameron since January 1985. Seriously.
The Georgia Tech game was more of the same. Duke was just about dead in the water, trailing 55-45 with 8:29 left. But its 8-0 run over three minutes looked like vintage Blue Devil Basketball. The Yellow Jacket fans were silent, Georgia Tech looked confused and Duke seemed poised to win the game.
But then neither team scored for almost two minutes, and when someone finally did it was Georgia Tech's freshman guard Javaris Crittenton, who threw down a dunk (after just abusing Lance Thomas and stealing the ball from him) that sparked a 10-0 Yellow Jacket run. Duke didn't score from the 5:29 mark until 1:40 remained. Game over.
Look, I know it's not fair to compare every Duke team to the 37-2 squad from 1999 or the national championship group in 2001. It may not even be fair to compare this year's team to 2004's Final Four team. But hey, that's life.
So far, except maybe for the first half of the Air Force game and the second half against Georgetown, this group of Blue Devils has been absolutely average. At 0-2, Duke is second to last in the ACC. And there's really no reason for it. Maybe the Blue Devils are young, but six of them were McDonald's All-Americans.
This weekend's game in Coral Gables against a Miami team that has already knocked off both Georgia Tech and Maryland is a huge one for Duke. Should the Blue Devils lose and fall to 0-3, it might be time to start assigning blame. And if the players are talented, but the results just aren't there, then it might be time to start asking the guy running this show what exactly is going on.
Of course, we don't do that around here.
So let's just say that if I'm not eating these words on Sunday, it's going to be a long season.
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