As I watched the Duke men's basketball team somehow pull out a victory over the University of Central Florida Sunday night it dawned on me. I have hated Duke's basketball team for more than half my life. As a teenager, Duke was like the the rich WASPs from a John Hughes movie. They were very easy to root against and when the UNLV Runnin' Rebels crushed them in the 1990 NCAA title game, it was glorious. But that was the high water mark for Duke haters. The following year, and with the Rebels just two games away from the first perfect season since 1976, Duke beat them in the national semi-finals. The year after that, Christian Laettner pulled down a three-quarter-court inbound pass from Grant Hill in the East regional finals to beat the University of Kentucky on their way to a second straight title.
Four more national championships have followed and, as the cult of Coach K has expanded, the students at Cameroon Indoor have become that much more obnoxious, and the reverence for the program has grown. It is so annoying. It is like rooting for Goliath. They already attract the best talent, do they need to get all the calls and all the luck too?
It is one of the cruelties of sports that so much hinges on so little - a rotation of a golf ball, a toe dragged across the sideline, a spin of the basketball on the rim; and so it was that Duke, losing to UCF by three with just a few seconds to play, somehow ended up winning by one. Because even when they miss a foul shot, they get the rebound and score. Even when they allow the other team to get off a good, potentially game winning shot, it just spins out. Because the player who tries for the put back, who happens to be the son of one of Duke's all-time best players, taps the ball a bit too hard and it rims out. Because it is Duke.
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