wilkes

I'm with you, Bud. You're one smart cookie.

Dont get me wrong but you have to appreciate the fact that Duke puts 3 or 4 white boys on the court quite often. And as far as pulling for a school that has the majority of NC students ( If your talking about ball players) none of unc's starters are from NC there all from north of here, Except for one from California. And also unc's top 5 scorers are from YANKEEVILLE, Well you might not be able to count Ginyard he's from VA. Anyway i'll stick with Duke!!

the university of NYC is PUKE.
go carolina go carolina go ta heyull PUKE!

It is important to realize that Duke has a great basketball tradition and program as well, but most of us should understant that the student body is made up of mostly out of state students. Pull for a school that has a majority of NC students.

...Maybe next year!!

all i know is WHOSE RANKED #1?
yeah,thought so.
CAROLINA !

And to you, Bud!

Merry Christmas to all Blue Devil fans...To the heels fans...well...

The thing that is going to hurt this team at some important point this season is a weakness exhibited by almost every team that Roy Williams has ever coached, that being their inability to make 3-point baskets. The '05 championship team had guys who could knock down 3's in McCants, Felton, Jawad Williams (on occassion), and Melvin Scott. Those guys, however, were brought in by D'oh, not Roy. If you look back at every Kansas team that Roy recruited and coached, you will find a paucity of outside shooters. Good college big men, augmented by athletic wings and savvy point guards...but few if any really good 3-point shooters.

This team has one guy you'd even want to perhaps even think of shooting a 3, and that's Ellington. I'm not really all that comfortable with him hoisting 3's though. Shooting 33.3% from 3 is the same as shooting 50% from inside the arc; at some point in the post season, the Heels are going to find a team shooting much, much better than 33% from downtown. And when they do, another 1-9 from 3 (prior to scrub time) is going to bite them in the tuccus.

So, yeah, yesterday was great fun. But it proved what I've feared since October; even against substandard teams, UNC can't hit 3's. And that, fellow Heels fans, scares me much more than anything else.

Them Heels are going all out today there playing UC-Santa Barbara...They should have played that one during prime time! LOL

I love how me and Grr disagree on the Yankees,but then completely agree on the Tarheels,gotta love sports.where is AYKM,with his NC state stuff?I've been lookin forward to is since baseball season ended.

That was even a "home" game they had. Notice, even though Pitt is closer to Cameron Square Gar...I mean, Madison Indoor Stadium, and plays in the Big East, which has held all but one of its tourneys in the cozy confines on 34th street, the Dookies were STILL the "home" team. Buauahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha.

Play a true road out of conference game, Rat Boys.

Well Duke is 10-1 man they played sorry the second half!!

The schedule is set a good year in advance, and with home/home series, it is set far in advance. Carolina has renewed the rivalry with Kentucky for the next 6 or so years; there are of course downturns in every team's fortunes, just as when UNC fell hard in the early part of the decade and Kentucky was very good. UNC was also slated to play Louisville in Vegas, but the Cardinals fell to BYU, whom UNC played and defeated. By the way, BYU is ranked. So that is one team. Also, Carolina played OSU in the ACC snoozefest challenge, another game against a team that could well be ranked by season's end. Of those games, none were played in Chapel Hill; one was a neutral site game (yet very close to BYU) and two were on the road.

Duke's games against ranked opponents have been played at neutral sites (Maui) or at home. Duke doesn't DO home and home series, and even when they've played schools in the Challenge, they find a way to get the game moved off campus of the school they are playing (Illinois in the United Center some years back).

Every school schedules cupcakes, though schools like Gonzaga and Memphis, that play in inferior leagues, obviously schedule MORE marquee out of conference games, since their league schedules drag down their RPI as the season goes on. Duke and Carolina often fall in the middle of the extreme, and with the usually rugged pace of ACC play, you can't expect either school to have 12 out of conference games against 12 top 100 RPI schools. The difference between the two is that Duke DOES NOT enter into home and home series with schools apart from Michigan (which has been downtrodden since 1994) and St. John's (which allows them an extra game in their coveted NYC once every other year; also, note the Johnnies haven't been relevant in 5 years). I doubt seriously if they return the favor to go to Pitt next season; if they DO play Pitt, it will be a neutral court affair.

One final note on Carolina's scheduling: It has been a tradition since Coach Smith took over that the Heels would schedule a "homecoming" game for every scholarship player durin ghis time in Chapel Hill. That's why the Heels were in Piscataway on Sunday; it was a "homecoming" game for Danny Green, who grew up 90 minutes from Rutgers. His brother plays at Manhattan, and made the game. Duke doesn't have a similar policy, simply because Duke, under Rat Face, doesn't do out of conference TRUE road games unless held at gunpoint by the ACC (the ACC challenge). When Duke enters into a home and home with a school you can expect to be relevant 8 out of ten years, let me know. Until then, remember, Carolina has had home/homes in the last decade with Kentucky, Arizona, UConn, and UCLA, with Texas slated for the next few seasons after this.

Alright lets see how many ranked teams Duke plays before there conference schedule starts.
Duke-3
UNC-0
You talk about carolina playing Kentucky this is not the Kentucky of old there 4-4 right now and the last time i checked UNC schedule they play 5 consecutive road games and none are ranked. One of the 3 ranked teams Duke has played and beat is Marquette which is ranked #10 right now and they have another tough game Thursday night against # 11 pitt. Lets se who does UNC play this week...Nicholls State who the **** is that...LMAO. Oh yea Merry Christmas!!

That's why I'm here to keep the Dookies under control.

TRRRUST me, about the only school that Duke can ever hope to disparage in the non-conference scheduling department is Syracuse, who generally plays every basketball playing school from Alaska in the Carrier Dome each season. And Boeheim wonders why they were left out of the tournament last year.

I was just throwing that out as a funny. When I posted that, I had absolutely no idea who Duke was playing. I've been too busy with other things to notice much about basketball this year.

Hmmm, Casper posts that 11 minutes after Duke tipped off against the Mighty Great Danes of...Albany, they of exactly ONE NCAA trip in their history. Nice call, Casper. Let me point out a couple of things about Carolina's schedule:

1-They will play SIX consecutive games on the road, including a trip to Kentucky. Thus far, the only TRUE road game Duke has played...oh. Wait. They still haven't played on the road (3 games in Maui were neutral court).
2-Rutgers is a member of the Big East, one of the 5 MAJOR conferences, and, year in and year out, one of the 3 top conferences. Albany is from the America East Conference, which generally ranks somewhere in the lower rungs of the 31 Division 1 conferences.
3-Carolina played Rutgers AT the RAC, a lovely old barn of a building. Duke played Albany at home, in Cameron, also a lovely old barn of a building, but still, home sweet home.
4-Duke's toughest non-conference tests will all be played AT home or in what is cozily referred to as Cameron-North by the thousands of Duke Alumni in the NY area, ie, Madison Square Garden. Why do you think they keep up the St. John's series?
5-The next time Duke schedules a yearly, home and home series with a MAJOR college basketball program (ie, Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, Indiana, you know, the traditional long time powers) will be the FIRST time they've established such a home and home. Oh, they might schedule a Cameron and...Madison Square Garden!...but the prospects of Duke ever willingly going to Rupp, Allen Field House, or Alumni Hall rank up there with the chances of K going 4 minutes without unloading a "GD" or F-bomb on the sideline.

Every elite team has some cupcakes on the schedule early on. That's how the game is played. The trick is to boost your schedule with savory morsels that test your team prior to the meat of conference play; up until this year, Carolina had Arizona AND Kentucky as key home and home opponents; as memory serves, they will be adding Texas next season to compliment the yearly game with Kentucky. Duke will continue to schedule Albany and Princeton.

Yeah, UNC had to play, who was it, Rutgers last night? That would be about like the San Antonio Spurs playing West Middle. lol

Go Duke!

ESPN 2 7:00 pm