BTW, tom, the lane violation was absolutely the right call. You can't run in from beyond the three-point arc like the Asheville guard did until the ball hits the rim; if you could, there would be no point having anyone on the block. However, the non-goaltend in the first half, and the egregious blown OOB call, may very well have cost NCA somewhere between three and four points, and probably the game.

Matt - I would actually enjoy a thread on here about Coach K. I don't have much in the way of "expertise" like some of our esteemed friends here, and my perceptions tend to be of the "obvious" kind, but even I think there is something to talk to there. Maybe it's the dog/owner or girlfriend/boyfriend syndrome in that he looks lackluster because his team does???? Anyways, I would love to read the thread if posted.

In relation to Duke: Baylor did not look that great. I'm not saying we will go far necessarily, but we haven't been "screwed" like many people I know have said. As today's results have proven - the Selectostiffs did a pretty good job this year.

Talk to you all tomorrow.

After defending HIMSELF against the molestation and suspension with his horrible quotes, the above just puts the exclamation to the word "ASSHOLE!"

Yep, I've been in front of the TV all day and would say that there are approximately 10-12 commercials being used more than once or twice per telecast between the four networks, and those are showing up about 4-5 times each per two-hour slot. Of those, about two have any repeat watchability.

On TNT, though, I can watch Jessy Schramm deliver the "they didn't expect . . . resistance . . . on this level" line from Falling Skies, even if they cut it, about four kajilion times before tiring.

Add "benefiting from an outrage-inspiring NCAA Tournament referee hose job" to the list of Syracuse's interesting events this season.

Lord, if the site would dispense draught beer, I'd never leave!

Someday someone will explain to me how a website can get 12,000 unique visits in three days but only have 46 people vote in a poll that is right on its front page. Geez. VOTE IN THE POLL PLEASE??

As to the "meh" that many of us seem to share. To me, it goes back to Kyrie's injury. I have never been so certain of a repeat with some of my all-time fav's playing with a kid good enough to be rookie of the year in the NBA. And then the reinvented team with Nolan at the helm was almost as good, and I still thought were the favorites, though no longer certain. And then, through nobody's fault, he came back, and that final team was the lessor of the three.

NC State firing Valvano did it to me for almost two decades. What happened to Kyrie and last season was the one season "meh" for me. I hope it's back next year.

The compelling stories for me this tourney? State winning 2 or 3 games, and FSU having a shot at going deep. Duke? W/Kelley, S16 is expected. W/O, I hope we get past the first round. Meh.

also, this year has been one of the most enjoyable for me personally. the Led Zep themed season is my favorite.

Also, I did watch the 1991-92 in review on Tru last Sunday. My favorite parts were when the players were interacting with the current members. I don't about you guys but I would love to see Christian Laettner as an assistant. You think the Duke hate is bad enough now? However, the bad pub he's getting with he and Brian Davis's sports agency in litigation is making a lot of headlines. Which we know the Hole press just loves. John Edwards and Mike Nifong say Hi guys.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/03/13/1929370/dukes-kelly-to-test-injured-foot.html

(a) Aren't you glad that we don't have solid citizens like Glen Rice Jr. on our team? He may actually be headed for prison.

(b) Perhaps Official Syracuse Guy can offer an explanation that makes sense, but I am increasingly horrified by the state of affairs with the Orange. Bernie Fine, the drug allegations, and now Melo ineligible. Boeheim has managed to stay above the melee so far, but these are a lot of hits for a program to take in a short space of time. I'm dumbfounded.

I completely understand the views of those of you who - - to oversimplify your views a bit, with apologies - - aren't entirely comfortable with this Duke team. Up until a few games before The Dagger, I didn't much like several things about Rivers. But he seemed to change his attitude and won me over.

As it stands now, I am not as much of a fan as I'd like to be of Mason Plumlee or Andre Dawkins. Neither one seems to be putting in any effort whatsoever, and it's baffling. I think the blame has to land at Krzyzewski's door, but he can't control everything.

Watch Rivers jump and Mason come back. Oh, joy!

Thanks so much for the responses, folks. Please keep talking.

I guess I'm surprised there hasn't been an obvious change to the game plan/strategy in the last month. Other than the really fine game our guys had against FSU in Fla., we've seemed lost on offense. As if we keep waiting for the reappearance of the 3-point shot to save us, but it never comes.

Yet when we try to get the ball into the paint and try to push the ball up court good things seem to happen. And still we keep reverting to the strategy of dribbling the ball around the perimeter until we can throw up a bad three-ball shot.

I just keep thinking the coaches will come up with something new rather than sticking with what clearly is not working.

I hope for the best, but I said at the beginning of the year -- even when we were over-achieving (as opposed to our under-achieving of the last three or four weeks) -- that we would not get past the second round, third at best in the NCAA tourney.

It's really a shame in the sense that we were ranked way too high nationally for much of the year, which set up unreasonable expectations about what we might achieve in the post-season.

I keep hoping I'm wrong. And I'll cheer on our team till the end.

Another consistent theme is the difficulty of warming to this club (as expressed by SFSF and others). Maybe it's because the teams from the last couple of years were so easy to support (Nolan remains one of my favourite Duke players ever, and how can you not love the Zoubek narrative?) that this one suffers by comparison. Maybe it's because this team doesn't give the impression of always giving 100%, especially on defence. Whatever the reason, even my most fanatical friends are a bit "meh" about this team.

I said at the beginning of the season that making the Sweet 16 would be a successful year, and nothing has changed my mind. And I think I would rather go out in the 16 then get to the 8 and have Kentucky blow us out, which is a very realistic possibility. Unless that would involve us losing to UNLV in the 16 - don't much fancy that option either!

http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/17848224/article-Duke-s-Ryan-Kelly-still-on-mend--not-cleared-for-practice

So they do this a lot. They also set up a lot of Duke-Connecticut matchups. It's a little bit of a pathology, but you can also say that Duke and Kentucky make it pretty easy on them by giving them lots of opportunities to be slated against each other.

This season, I wasn't stunned by the Duke/Kentucky thing, or the second-round prospective Notre Dame game. Both Ron Wellman (Wake's AD) and Joe Alleva (our former AD whose ouster Krzyzewski at the most engineered, at the least didn't fight) were on the committee, so slating Duke against Kentucky and making Krzyzewski play one of his former assistants were probably fun for them.

Fats, I don't think it's very hard to get nine other people to go along with any particular line of thinking if one member of a ten-person group feels strongly about anything. Juries operate pretty similarly.

However, I agree with what Fats says about there being a few too many storylines out there for Duke NOT to have any given committee stumble into several of them. We've made lots of tourneys and had lots of success. I actually didn't even think of the Xavier factor until Tom mentioned it, even though I was at that game personally! I also didn't think about UNLV in that manner - - talk about a program that has seen a few changes in the last 20 or so seasons. Baylor, sure, but we also would have had storylines of sorts against Georgetown and even Marquette (regular season, not tournament), the other three seeds. We could not have been paired with Florida State. I think that was just coincidence.

The real shock is that this is the best job I can remember the Selectostiffs doing in ages and ages. Moreover, our bracket is fair and NCCH's is not a total walk. Anyway, got to play the games.

I really don't think they do. Too many people (really, it's committee work) working with too much data/too many variables in too short a time.

If you look at others seeds, in other regions you can draw similar patterns if Duke had been slotted there. It's partly that the same programs are often consistent, and it's partly that Duke has 70+ wins in the tournament under K. That's a lot of vengeance possibilities, particularly if you're going back 20 years, AND including the regular season...

Have to agree with the opinion on K this year. It seems like he couldn't find the right mix to get this group to solidify. There have been flashes, but then we get games like that inexplicable blow-out against the Holes.

Regarding our transfers, Matt did a great job updating us on the recent losses. Here's a take on the transfers dating back a bit further:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/342469-duke-basketball-analyzing-the-devils-transfer-trend

Anyway, I feel oddly optimistic about this week-end. Notre Dame looked like garbage in the Big East tourney, and there's no reason a team like Lehigh should challenge us. I'd be happy to take on UK and send that Cretin Calipari back to the drawing board for another team of one-and-dones.

However, it's just like Feinstein to say that this was one of best coaching jobs ever by Krzyzewski. John doesn't follow the program all that closely these days, and it shows when he makes comments like that. This was a below-average coaching effort by Krzyzewski, and it wasn't even close. I've held off holding forth on that topic, but I might stop.

Thanks very much for the comments. There's no need to agree with me or hold site-popular opinions in order to post. As long as everyone is civil, differences of opinion are interesting.

I suspect every game (as long as that lasts, and it may end Friday) will be horrifyingly uncomfortable for us. A chance for the sweet sixteen, but I think by 3 games, there is no way the luck doesn't run out. Hoping Dawk's good game is coming up very soon, or else it won't happen til next season.