WHY DUKE IS A DEVIL IN DISGUISE

As a long time fan of North Carolina basketball, a fanaticism that dates back to the days of James Worthy and a certain All-time great that goes by the moniker Air Jordan, its hard for me to stomach the success of their cross-town rivals, the Duke Blue Devils. But its hard to ignore the achievements of a team that has won three national championships, has celebrated more Sweet Sixteen’s than Cher and has been at the top of the College basketball rankings for what seems like every year since 1986.

The Blue Devils and head coach Mike Krzyzewski have amassed individual and team records, player, coach and team awards and are by far one of the most successful men’s college basketball teams in the past two decades. But to what do the Blue Devils owe this incredible success?

1. Coaching
Duke has had a long string of hard nose, disciplinarians at the helm of the program who were committed to hard work and discipline including Eddie Cameron (1929-42) who left Duke with three Southern Conference Championships and an impressive 226-99 record. In nine years (1960-69) Vic Bubas led the team to four conference championships and three Final Four appearances while steering them to 213-67 record. But it is Krzyzewski’s leadership, which began back in 1981, that will go down in the record books as the most imposing and the most enviable. Under Krzyzewski’s direction the Blue Devils have appeared in 10 Final Four’s with three of them resulting in championships (’91, ’92, 2001). They’ve also won 11 ACC championships. There have been eight ACC Player of the Year recipients from Duke since 1988 beginning with Danny Ferry and the most recent, J.J. Redick won the award twice (’05, ’06). Coach K’s accolades are too numerous to list here, but there is no doubt that the guy can coach and that he has a knack for developing relationships and instilling lasting life and basketball philosophies within his players, a fact that is evident by the number of former players who are now coaching in the Division I ranks. Two of his standout players are coaches on his current team; Steve Wojciechowski has been on the coaching staff for seven years now and Chris Collins has been around for six.

2. Recruiting
As long as Duke keeps churning out one winning season after another there will never be a shortage of talented high school players lining up to put on a Blue Devils jersey. Thanks to Coach K’s success in broadening the basketball knowledge of his players and bringing out the best in even his less stellar recruits (which have been very few since Krzyzewski took over), the number of top flite players at Cameron Hall have been sufficient to field two elite teams that can compete on any given day. Tommy Amaker, Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Elton Brand, Bobby Hurley, Shane Battier, Wojciechowski, Ferry, Chris Duhon, Johnny Dawkins, Carlos Boozer to name a few.

3. Philosophy
Coach K expects a lot out of his players but he prepares them for every scenario that they will face on the court. Discipline has been a staple in the Duke repertoire and everything begins on the defensive end of the court as evidenced by the number of National Defensive Players of the Year awards won by Duke players since Billy King first won the award in 1986. Duke teams are well known for holding their opponents to a lower points per-game-average but they are also known for their efficient attacking offense and there is probably no other team in the nation that prepares more readily for an opponent than the Blue Devils.

The Blue Devils are making yet another run at a National title in this year’s NCAA Tournament. They have already demolished Binghamton 86-62 and wrangled the Texas Longhorns 74-69 to advance to the Sweet Sixteen where they will first tangle with Villanova, a team who walloped UCLA in the second round. Barring any misfortunes, Duke could go on to meet the winner of the Pitt-Xavier game in the Elite Eight.