Indeed, the only hole here is one that Dawkins had nothing to do with - the fact that Amaker and Snyder, two other Dukies who went on to seek their fortunes in the college game, bombed with some force. Amaker succeeded at Seton Hall but not at Michigan, his next stop, and is now being accused of working the edges of recruiting game at Harvard, while Snyder played his way out of Missouri and is now reclaiming his career with the Austin Toros of the NBA's D-League.

The Bulls are done Wednesday. Jim Boylan is done Thursday, Chris Duhon and Ben Gordon Friday, and if we're lucky, Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich Saturday.

Disclaimer: Duhon might not be booted out until Saturday if he doesn't get his wake-up call. Think about that: Duke has such high entrance requirements, and it produces guys who can't set an alarm clock.

Brodhead and Bostock, with formal input from a full search committee and probable input from Krzyzewski, have to find a person who must be capable of figuring out the post-Krzyzewski future of Duke athletics -- whenever it arrives.

Alleva did produce an athletics program that continued its remarkable success in men's basketball and reached remarkable heights in its nonrevenue sports.

But he had his detractors. He pushed out lacrosse coach Mike Pressler after lacrosse players were accused of rape, and Pressler said Alleva told him, "It's not about the truth anymore."

He was injured in a boating accident in 2006 when his son was driving the boat and officers said they smelled alcohol on the younger Alleva.

And John Feinstein, a Duke graduate, once wrote in The Washington Post, "Everyone at Duke knew that Alleva was a pleasant man whose next original idea would be his first, someone whose main asset when applying for the job was the fact that his racquetball partner was Mike Krzyzewski."

'The first couple of weeks here, I didn't eat three meals a day. I sometimes just forgot. Small things like getting a haircut, keeping up your hygiene...things you don't pay attention to because Mom and Dad take care of them.'

(My editors don't give me enough space to fully explain the hypocrisy of an institution that shuts down its message boards when a few too many people speak poorly of Duke players-because they are just students and kids after all!-yet think it's OK to use an exclamation point to punctuate their headline about a Wake Forest recruit who has been arrested for allegedly shooting a woman with a BB gun.)

And how does Love feel about being compared to Duke? "Aw, that's an insult man," he said with feigned disgust.

The person to blame is... oooh boy this is hard to say... Mike Krzyzewski (covering my head for fear of lightning bolts striking me). We had a great opportunity this year. We had a great team. We were one game from being the top-ranked team in the country, and it all fell apart. All those high school All-Americans, all that talent, and we weren't even the top private school in North Carolina (that'd be Davidson). That blame has to be placed on the man in charge.

And this is what our basketball program has come to: me, a Blue Devil for life, publicly skewering a man I've idolized since my youth.

But, in the past few years, I'd really come to depend on Duke losing in the Sweet 16. For four out of five seasons between 2001 and 2006, that's exactly what Duke did. In fact, Duke's Sweet 16 exit was something I greatly looked forward to each tournament: a prime-time game on a Thursday or a Friday night; an ashen-faced Coach K slouching off the court after a humiliating upset defeat; little children in J.J. Redick jerseys crying in the stands. Ah, bliss!

But then something bad happened: Duke started going out before the Sweet 16. Last year it was in the first round to Virginia Commonwealth; this year it was to West Virginia in the second round (after narrowly avoiding a first-round loss to mighty Belmont). Now, at a certain level, it's obviously satisfying to see Duke suffer the humiliation of such early-round defeats. But, at the same time, it's a huge inconvenience, as well. I mean, it used to be that a Duke hater could block off a few hours of one night knowing that he'd get his full share of Duke-enfreude. But now, I've got to watch Duke play in the first and second round games, too, lest I miss them losing. Quite frankly, it's a huge time suck.