For the first time since I got here seven years ago, I actually feel guilty writing about basketball during football season. But not so guilty that I won’t do it.
Anyway, as we count down the seconds until Countdown to Craziness, it’s just really hard to think of anything else. I mean, Matt and Kim? That’s awesome. I don’t know if you saw, but one of their songs was on “Gossip Girl” this week. Yeah, I know. Unreal.
On a more serious and less embarrassing note, the start of basketball season is (for some fans) the first time they really examine the men’s basketball schedule.
This year, you’ll notice all of the usual suspects—16 ACC games, a high-profile early-season tournament (the Preseason NIT), the Big Ten/ACC Challenge (Wisconsin), St. John’s, Georgetown, the Annual MSG/Meadowlands Game Against a Good Not Great Team (Gonzaga), and the Occasional Game in Chicago Against a Good Not Great Team (Iowa State).
Before I go any further, I should say that the men’s basketball program has elevated scheduling to an art form. Check out Duke’s RPI strengths of schedule since 2004: 4, 4, 1, 3, 8, 1. Every year, the team’s nonconference schedule seems to simulate the NCAA Tournament—even the “cupcakes” wind up at the top of their conferences, competing for a No. 15 seed in the Big Dance—and the players gain valuable experience playing in large neutral-site venues.
But of course, there’s always room for improvement.
A few years back, I talked to Marty Clark, a reserve guard on the 1992 team, which of course won the second of the Blue Devils’ back-to-back titles. He told me a story that encapsulated what that group was all about.
That year, Duke played Canisius, a small Jesuit school in Buffalo, in Buffalo’s HSBC Arena. It was a homecoming game for all-everything forward Christian Laettner, who grew up about 25 miles away in Angola, N.Y. With his family and friends in attendance, Laettner refused to shoot for the entire first half. When Coach K confronted him at halftime, Laettner said that his family knew how good he was, but he wanted to show off his teammates.
Other players and coaches described that year’s team as the greatest show in the country—they played Boston University in Boston, UCLA in Pauley Pavilion, Shaquille O’Neal and LSU in Baton Rouge. While it would be exciting for this year’s team to play those types of true road games, I was most intrigued by the idea of the homecoming game for Laettner.
Playing a couple of games like that every year—in the cities closest to the hometowns of each of the team’s seniors —would be a fun change of pace. (Coach K might even be on to this already, seeing how Duke is playing in senior Jon Scheyer’s hometown, Chicago, this year.) The games wouldn’t have to be against teams from power conferences. It could be as easy as moving this year’s game against Penn from Durham to Philadelphia to give senior Brian Zoubek a chance to play close to his hometown. It could be playing a game next year in Portland, Ore. for Kyle Singler. Two years from now, Duke could even play in Poland so that Olek Czyz’s friends and family could see their buddy play. Maybe not.
Making this small change has no downside, except maybe giving up a couple of winter break home games or disappointing some New York City alumni who have grown accustomed to seeing the Blue Devils play there every year. But the potential benefits are numerous.
For one thing, the seniors would probably enjoy the chance to play in their hometowns. Maybe it gives a junior eyeing the NBA Draft another reason to consider coming back to school.
For another, it brings Duke Basketball to parts of the country that almost never see it. True, ESPN beams the Blue Devils into most every house in the country (21 times this year!), but basketball is different—better—in person. In terms of growing the game of college basketball, taking one of its best teams to two or three new cities each year couldn’t hurt. And even though it seems like every Duke grad lives in the Northeast, there are probably a couple in just about every city in the country who would love to see the Blue Devils play in person.
Finally, the atmosphere at these games would be somewhere between the “neutral” games Duke plays in New York each year (Madison Square Garden might as well be called Cameron 2.0 when Duke plays there) and the road games the Blue Devils play in conference. In fact, these games might come pretty close to replicating the feeling at a Duke game in the NCAA Tournament—some Duke supporters and alumni, some opposing fans, and some college basketball fans who will show up just to boo the Blue Devils.
Clark and the other players on the 1992 team talked about their team having a swagger: walking into another team’s gym and knowing they were going to win. Aside from having Christian Laettner and Grant Hill on your team, one way to get that swagger is to walk into lots of different gyms—home, home-away-from-home, road and true neutral courts—and win.
No, Duke Basketball’s scheduling is not broken. Far from it. But why not tinker? If the only games that really matter are the NCAA Tournament, what have you got to lose?
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