Maryland, College Park (7) @ #2 DUKE (2)
ACC Tournament Quarterfinal
Greensboro, North Carolina (Greensboro Coliseum)
March 15, 2013

First off, please allow me to give massive and sincere thanks to whatever folks, organization, consortium, or Galactic Empire owns the Greensboro Coliseum.  Why?  For not slapping the name of SOME BLEEPING QUASI-DOTCOM OR A FREAKING FINANCIAL "INSTITUTION" THAT ALMOST HELPED RUIN OUR COUNTRY BACK IN 2008 BUT IS, ACCORDING TO ERIC HOLDER, "TOO BIG TO JAIL" ON THE STADIUM.  Ahhh, it's an arena in Greensboro and it's called . . . the Greensboro Coliseum.  THANK YOU.  Can you imagine the pain inflicted if this place was called the 2000 Flushes Credit Default Swaps Management Solutions LLC Arena?  Yeah. 

By now, we've all read that article written by Duke's in-house organs where Kevin White discussed the future of Duke in the context of the movement toward 129-team conferences.  "Dr." White (seriously??), who is evidently a  renowned cardiovascular surgeon, came off as a little clueless in that article, but at least he's thinking about these things (and so is Krzyzweski).  It is clear that constructing a viable football program, a project that seems to be underway, would be a nice hedge against any of us having to worry about this s**t for the next 20 years, which is how long it will take for basketball to become independent of football, a notion that will probably be spearheaded by the Catholic Seven.  Good for them, and thanks again for screwing U-Con.  Oh, also, make a real ACC Network.  How hard can it be?  Anyway, White's on the case, but "Dr. Matt" thought it was weird for him to state that Duke will never be a "mid-major," because (1) yeah, we know, and (2) stop using that damn term. 

"Mid" implies the existence of a "high" and a "low."  Every once in a thousand usages of "mid-major," someone will refer to a "high-major."  "Low-major" has almost never been used.  There's more!  If there's a "major," there should also be a "minor."  And no one ever refers to a "mid-minor" or even makes clear what a "minor" is, other than a nice way to pad your academic resume at NCCH without having to attend classes or actually undertake any work.  Actually, maybe that's a good example of a "low major": an AfAm degree from UNC-CHeat.  Or perhaps that's a "fictitious-major."  Anyway, enough already, and if you're not convinced, you don't want to sound like Jay Bias, who probably coined the term, so often does he spew it.  I thought "Mid-Major" should have been the title of his magnum opus, instead of the laughable "Toughness."  Other more sensible book titles:  

"Tar Heel"
"Abused By Ellison: A Life"
"Unfounded Arrogance"
 "Annoyance"

Love ya, Jay!  Stay off my TV set this weekend.  #kthxbai

This is a pretty decent article from Friedlander.  At first, I thought Brett was just going to have a sad about the purportedly transitional nature of this year's ACC-T, but as the piece goes on, he gains team and actually takes some funny shots at BeeCee and the Hurrryclowns' sack-lacking fanbases.  But Brett: aim your peashooter at Swoffie, whose fault this all is.  And the ACC-T is never going to be held in Boston or Pittsburgh. Where do columnists get these ideas?  Madison Square Garden may become an occasional tourney site like the Georgia Dome/New Omni is now, but for the most part, the league will continue to hold the event in Greensboro, where the organization is after all headquartered.  There will be some Charlotte visits in there as well, but I thought we all took judicial notice of the fact that the 2007 tournament at the Ice Palace (*CSD) in Tampa was a load of fail unrivaled for that building until Clint Eastwood and His Magic Chair appeared there this past summer.  There's as much likelihood of a Boston or Pittsburgh tourney, or the league leaving Greensboro forever, as there is of siting the event at the Carrier Dome, which is what Boeheim will be pushing, since he loves road games about as much as Krzyzewski. 

Speaking of road games, this isn't one, so Mason Plumlee can and should show up and not be dominated by Kievostiff Alex Len Elmore.  The rest of (fka) Garyland's lineup is not imposing: there's 6-6 sophomore Nick Faust, who always gets nervous around devil mascots, and 6-5 sophomore Dez Wells, who was the big contributor in the eighterfinal against Weak Florist, with 21 points on 10 shots.  Wells, of course, transferred in from Xavier without a shirt season, because Xavier does not have Underwater Basketweaving as an undergraduate major.  Or something.  Anyway, 6-8 senior James Padgett is by now a known stiff, and then there's 6-3 junior Pe'Shon Howard, who is eminently containable, right, Seth Curry?  Sulaimon, whose decisions to play in a solid manner usually elevate Duke to another level, should guard Wells.  The Logan Aronholt/Charles Mitchell/Jake Layman/Seth Allen bench fails to impress me, and you don't have to worry about Layman being qualified as an expert witness.

MDCP beat Weak of Buzzkillick, which held a halftime lead but authored a second movement with all of 27 points (WAKE: fire this man), because the Twerps were able to drive past WFU as easily as most toddlers and AARP board members, leading to 29 FTAs.  82.7% of those personals were whistled by Karl Hess, which is not really true, but we can all pretend it is because it's so believable.  After all, Les Jones is just there for show and Ray Natili is one of the biggest swallowers outside of Florida State sororities.  

Duke should beat these scrubs because (1) Mason, who urinated away the POY award to a guy whose career is already over before the quarters of his conference tournament, should play like he did in Durham; (2) our defense should help shut down the outside and limit their scoring; (3) we won't have that kind of free throw disparity; and (4) they have no one who can even attempt to guard Ryan Kelly.     

This is not a bad matchup for Duke, so let's hope Duke stops acting like it is.  Give these jagoffs the proper sendoff, please.

Duke 82, Maryland, College Park 68.