Apparently Mike Krzyzewski is upset that the local media has not mentioned the fact Duke is #2 in the country.
Are you freaking kidding me?
Obviously Coach K is bristling at UNC sucking all of the available oxygen out of the room this season and doggone it HE WANTS HIS #2 RANKING IN JANUARY RECOGNIZED!
“That’s pretty good,” K said. “I know it’s not that big here, but it’s pretty damn good. So when this group makes No. 2, it’s a new group, they should be celebrated for doing something good.
Yeah. Duke made #2 last season, beat the Heels in Chapel Hill(without Ty Lawson playing) and promptly wet the bed from that point on ending their season by scraping by Belmont then losing to West Virginia.
This is also a tad hypocritical because had anyone in the media actually asked K about the ranking he would have said something like: Well obviously we are pleased with where we are at but right now it is January and we are more concerned about what the rankings are at the end of the season not now.
According to Joe Giglio, K was asked about the ranking which is what brought on this little tantrum. Carry on.
Then again, how big of a deal is this? Duke started the season in the top five. Moving up to #2 was pretty much expected as long as Duke keep the loss total between 0-1 versus a average schedule. It does not strike me as nearly a big of an accomplishment as say, Wake Forest, ascending to #4 from the bottom but for K he would like to see it in print I guess so he can put it in his scrapbook.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the RAT has talked about the unimportance of rankings throughout his tenure.
For Coach K to complain about a lack of press coverage is laughable. I would say the same thing about Roy if he complained.
He may have but I emailed Giglio and he said the response came from a question about the ranking so I had to nix that part of my post.
It is ridiculous. It is ridiculous because they were #2 last season at one point and completely fell apart. I mean who celebrates midseason rankings except teams like Tennessee who have never been there before?
and Pitt….
I have not paid attention to how Pitt is handling it. I do know last season when UT beat Memphis they acted like they won the title because they were going to be ranked #1 on Monday. On Tuesday they lost to Vandy and it was downhill from there losing in the SEC semis and then getting smacked in the Sweet Sixteen by UL.
Getting back to UNC, as people are worried about our interior play, I am interested in hearing people’s opinions about what Tar Heel squad had the best interior play in terms of defense and rebounding.
Off the top of my head, I am thinking that maybe the 1993 Heels with Montross, Lynch and Salvadori and to a lesser extent, Sullivan and Reese, would be the pick. Or would it be the 1976 Heels with Kupchak, Lagarde and Davis? The 1984 Heels with Daugherty, Perkins and Jordan? How about the 1987 Heels with Reid, Wolf, Popson and Scott Williams?
What do you guys think?
Maybe because of their big letdown last year after being #2 the media was smart enough to know that Dook at #2 this time of the year is really not newsworthy?
OK, for the record…WOW, great job coach k! That new group is awesome!
That made my head hurt, but it’s done.
UNC being #1 was a big deal because EVERY FREEKING REPORTER AND JOURNALIST VOTED FOR THEM. They didn’t back into that spot because someone else lost.
We’ll return too.
Wilf, good point about the “new” group. Taking a close look at the Davidson game boxscore, one will see that only Elliot Williams (out of the current freshmen) saw the court and that was for 5 minutes.
Coach K has already reduced his rotation. Look for Singler, Sheyer, Smith and Henderson to be “emotionally fatigued” by the time they come into the Smith center.
Mark my words, Plumlee will be the latest “Duke big men that disappear”
1982–James Worthy
1993–George Lynch
Those two would make ANY interior Championship caliber. A friend mentioned the other day that this team doesn’t appear to have that type of player (Hansbrough’s offense-exception noted), and I’m not sure he was off the mark–we’ll see.
doesn’t he sound like a kindergartener talking about his #2? i read someone saying that dook has always been a #2, a big steaming pile of #2, which coincidentally is the definition of a dookie.
=)
It was interesting watching those games from 1982 on MASN. I looked everywhere but I couldn’t find Roy. Sitting next to Dean were Fogler and Guthridge.
Al McGuire loved Dean Smith. He kept on and on about how great a coach Dean Smith was. He later said he wished his son had played for Smith instead of at Marquette. Al McGuire also seemed to realize how great Jordan was, way before the rest of us. The Kentucky and UVa games were very early in the 1981-82 season but McGuire could already see it.
Matt Doherty and Jimmy Braddock were better than I recalled. And except for Braddock, Dean Smith rarely substituted back then, very different from what we have gotten used to.
THF, It really didn’t seem to me that K was making that big deal out of it. It wasn’t one of his major whining performances. K needs to play 9 men regularly or the team indeed will die at the end of the season. The reason is the intense defense they play; five players can’t do that defense for the whole year and be ready to play their best in March. He should know better because that’s exactly what happened to them last year. As much as he can’t stand it, he should be giving Pocius, Plumlee, etc. some decent playing time.
I don’t need to cue up the “UNC gets more love from the media because most of them went to school there” rant because it’s already out there on other Web sites. First of all, I have yet to see proof of that. Survey the sports staff at the N&O, Herald Sun, Charlotte Observer, etc., not to mention TV and radio sportscaster and let’s see what we get. What I find hypocritical is that K limits his access to the media and then complains when they don’t write enough about Duke. Seriously.
I don’t know all of them but these are the ones I do know:
Joe Gilgio(N&O): NC State
Joe Ovies(850): NC State
Adam Gold(850): Maryland
Bomani Jones(850): UNC
David Glenn(850): UNC
Bomani (UNC grad school) and Dave Glenn (UNC law school) are about as unbiased as they get. Hell, I think Bo even plays the contrarian and rags on UNC more than others. In the Triangle I can also think of WRAL’s Jeff Gravley (NC State), NBC17’s Penn Holderness (UVA) and WTVD’s Mark Armstrong (I think Utah).