That intensity spilled into the stands as Krzyzewski, livid when he heard a Carolina fan yell to him on his way off the court at the end of the half, "You've got (official Larry) Rose in your pocket," had security eject the fan from the arena.

The fan's name: Scott Williams, Roy Williams' son.

By contrast, the behavior of fans at Cameron was upsetting. Cameron Crazies don't treat anyone with respect, and I question sometimes if they respect their own team. They have made specific, hurtful references to players relatives, grades, health conditions and campus incidents.

The Cameron Crazies have endured because the school has condoned their behavior. No announcers have had the gumption to speak out on this matter.

The calls weren't consistent, and some situations made absolutely no sense

Trust me: the first time Bryant drops a dismissive, contemptuous f-bomb on Krzyzewski during a time out, the resulting Coach K nostril flare -- is that special, special spittle on the corner of his mouth? -- will be well worth your efforts.

It is nearly midnight. Brendan Haywood's foul shots with 1.2 seconds to play were the difference in North Carolina's 85-83 victory against Duke. The drama has left Cameron Indoor Stadium, but the upraised fists remain. Several dozen Duke students are on the floor, standing silently with fists pointed toward the ceiling. "I don't think we're going to leave until every North Carolina person is out of the stadium," says Stephanie Spalding, a senior from Sarasota, Fla. "They just need to show us respect."

But one bone of contention that people have with Duke is that it does not acknowledge in any way, shape or form that its championship last season was tainted. That the officiating in the "Final Four" was so slanted in its favor that it caused the crowd in Minneapolis to voice their opposition by booing the officials.

There is no need to rehash the fact that Williams committed an obvious third foul in the first half against Arizona that was not called. Or the fact that numerous whistles went Duke's way in the semifinals with Maryland before the Terrapins' Terrence Morris was whistled for a questionable fourth foul early in the second half.

They told me a lot of things like they always do in recruiting,' Collison said of Duke coaches comparing him to other players. 'At Duke they tell you you have all this freedom. You can basically do anything you want out there. If you believe everything they tell you, it's probably the best place to go.

'When you see what they've got and look at it from the outside, you see it might not be everything they say. I like what coach (Roy) Williams said. He said, ‘You earn the freedom you get by showing what you can do.'

'As a high school kid, I can definitely see how people can get caught up in a lot of that. They (Devils) make you think it's the place to go.'

Krzyzewski went on to rant that officials are being unfair to his team because they're intimidated by others saying Duke gets the benefit of calls. This season, Krzyzewski is apparently angry officials have only called 82 more fouls on Duke's opponents. Kentucky, by comparison, was called for 18 more fouls than its opponents this season.

Snyder, a former Duke player and assistant who has been Missouri's coach for five years, oversaw a staff, that in the committee's words, "took risks" in recruiting. There were 40 allegations of rules violations, and the NCAA began investigating the case in September 2003.

Duke fans adore Laettner - he was the epitome of toughness and clutch play at Duke. Generally speaking, he was given a pass on foolish behavior. We don't mean that he took advantage of his status in the way many athletes do, but he was often contentious and difficult to deal with. We've heard students who were at Duke at the same time who simultaneously revered his basketball ability and deplored his social behavior. Some of his teammates said the same thing

Mike Krzyzewski. Dick Vitale, Jay Bilas, Billy Packer and all the stooges for the Duke men's basketball coach could not cover up his classless display at the end of the Blue Devils' choke against UConn in the NCAA semifinals.

He blamed the refs for the loss, then followed with the charade of being interested in coaching the L.A. Lakers in order to have the Duke administration prove again how much it loves him.

Little of what's said about Redick is fit to print here, but a student I met in Chapel Hill, Jelani Ramos, summed up the most common criticism of Redick: "I feel like Coach K is the emperor, and J.J. is his next-in-line Sith crony." After receiving a funny look, Mr. Ramos continued. "Look at him, though. Compare pictures side by side. J.J. has gotten paler, his hairline's receded a little and his ears have gotten pointier over the past four years."

With Vitale praising their "spirit" as a model of what a college basketball fan should be, it is any wonder that other fans are now trying to outdo such nonsense?

We have to get back to the days of fans cheering on their own team instead of trying to humiliate the opposition. That Duke University fans are held up as a model says all you need to know about what is wrong with sports today.

Does ridiculing the other team show team spirit? I doubt it.

Every home crowd loves to win, but the actions at Cameron go beyond anything I've seen elsewhere. They smack of the elitism that is part and parcel of the Duke campus mentality. Duke prides itself on being a high-class institution, and, in many quarters, bills itself as the "Harvard of the South." Yet, go to Harvard, view its institutions and the way its students and fans interact with others, and you'll see they bear no similarity to Duke whatsoever.

'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.'

Krzyzewski said Tuesday that Duke never has been under investigation by the NCAA and that if Duke did something wrong in this case, "we should be punished."

"I have no problem with that," he said.

"I love Duke and I couldn't ask for anything better. It's a tough school, but if you ask for help, and you work hard and you show them the work, it's going to pay off."

Early Monday evening inside Cameron Indoor Stadium, after an alleged "serious'' flirtation with the Los Angeles Lakers, Coach K listened to the school president he barely knows gush about his integrity and his importance to Duke, and gloat about the world's good fortune that Mike Krzyzewski won't be leaving amateur athletics.

The whole thing just made you feel warm and fuzzy.

Unless you've watched one too many reruns of the Sopranos, or were curious about whether any money exchanged hands.

"We were able to do a few things for Mike in his contract,'' mumbled Alleva, Duke's athletic director, when asked whether the "lifetime'' contract Don K signed in 2001 had been modified.

Just because something is an accident doesn't excuse it. Henderson came down recklessly and with force and should be suspended. "I wasn't trying to hurt him" isn't good enough. He didn't try to stop either. There was nothing in that video that suggests he tried to pull up and NOT hurt his opponent.

Richard Brodhead, president of Duke, was terrified at the thought of losing basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, a key fundraiser for the university. When Coach K -- after fleecing Duke for some new stipulations to the "lifetime" contract he'd signed just three years earlier -- announced he wasn't interested in coaching the Lakers, Brodhead talked about Duke's hoops coach as if he'd starred in a real-life re-make of "The Passion of The Christ."

I think whoever our second team is could definitely contend for the ACC championship right now

The students at Duke don't have the same passion to paint their chests blue and make fools out of themselves in support of their team as past generations.

Sure K-Ville still filled up with tents before the second semester officially began, but I think that has more to do with the fact that tenting is the "thing to do" rather than because the tenters are all passionate fans. If they were, then they'd all be coming to games, and maybe we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.

Steve Wojciechowski smacking the hardwood floor with both hands while exhorting his Duke basketball teammates to get a defensive stop.

These are the images associated with the members of the Anne Arundel County Sports Hall of Fame's 15th induction class, which will be enshrined Oct. 19 at Michael's 8th Avenue.

Taking all of the aforementioned data into account, it would seem the common theme among Duke's recent teams is that they spend most of the season playing above themselves. Krzyzewski certainly deserves credit for adapting each year to the personnel on hand and maximizing their talent, but eventually the gas runs out and/or they get exposed by more talented teams -- the very kind of teams they avoid playing early in the season.

Could this year be different? It's certainly possible. Much has been made of the fact that Duke is running a more wide-open, perimeter-oriented offense this season. The Blue Devils are also deeper than they have been in a while, a deficiency that often caught up to them during the Redick/Williams era.

Consecutive mid-February losses to Wake Forest and Miami are hardly an encouraging sign, however. If history is any indication, they're a harbinger of things to come.

'It's so Laettner. He's supposed to be like this all-America, this glamour boy, Mr. GQ. If you know Laettner, it's such a Laettner move to do something like that.'

As you may have heard -- it was all over the Pentagon, banner headlined in Stars And Stripes; Don Rumsfeld thought he might copy the trick -- ever since Kapitan K totally humbled his troops, the troops have totally humiliated the opposition. Essentially, stripping the Dookies of the engraved nameplates over their lockers, the action pictures off their walls and the very chairs from under their weary bodies -- which is exactly what Mike Krzyzewski did following that shocking 77-76 loss to Florida State a couple of weeks ago -- has re-invigorated the NCAA's once and future rulers.

The newspaper report, from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, suggested the parents of two Duke players -- junior guard Chris Duhon and former center Carlos Boozer, now a rookie in the NBA -- received disproportionately high salaries from employers who happened to be Duke boosters. Both players' families moved to the Durham area when their sons reported to Duke.

This is all a complete farce intended to generate publicity for K and engender an outpouring of support from the fans. K will love telling high school recruits that the Lakers offered him tens of millions but he tued them down and the high schoolers should, too. Since he already has K Court and a lifetime contract, what more does K want from Alleva--naming rights to the school?

It's a different world in the NBA than in college, especially where I came from, Duke. We were isolated, oblivious to a lot of things that were happening around us.

A better solution is to blame Coach K's system for making above-average players look fantastic, which is better than his protege Quin Snyder's system of making fantastic players look below-average. (Don't worry, Quin; you've got the best hair in the whole damn unemployment line.) In this vein, Redick might just be better off bagging the NBA and joining Coach K's bench a la Steve Wojciehowski, although he'll have to slap the court an awful lot in his last dozen games to be as annoying as Wojo was in his playing days.

Stop pretending that football matters. It's transparent. It's also agonizing. It's like watching a trapped animal gnaw off a foot.

It's important to understand that unlike at most colleges, even those in the private sector, there's no motivation at Duke to become competitive in football. Other than the coaches and the players, no one even cares enough to press the issue.

I believe the students lack ingenuity because tenting has largely become a freshman phenomenon. I am not trashing freshmen-we were all freshmen once-but us older folks are just a little more clever.

Tenters complain left and right about spending time in K-ville, but I have the perfect solution: while in your tent, put down the books for a little and brainstorm for some cool, ORIGINAL cheers.

The athletics department must clean house as well. An exposed by ESPN's "Outside the Lines" identified a double standard where athletes tend to pursue the same major and courses, purportedly for their ease. This should be a genuine concern for an institution that strives to remain among top-10 universities, regardless of top-10 basketball polls. This is compounded by the secrecy that shrouds athletics admissions, as Duke seriously considers recruits who barely meet the minimum NCAA requirements for eligibility.

Strawberry wasn't the only one who elicited a few smiles about the atmosphere at Duke. Williams was asked about "how crazy" it is there.

"No crazier than here," he deadpanned. "They have about half the number of students at the game. We have 4,000; they have 2,000. They get there early, they hand out sheets to practice their cheers. [If you think all that stuff is spur of the moment that you see on television, he said, I've got an exclusive for you.] It's well done. It's well-documented. If I see another story on Krzyzewskiville, I might get a little sick."

Coach Krzyzewski, you often respond to criticism about your inflated ego, hostile treatment of referees, and foul language by citing the amount of money you have given to charity. Are we to conclude from this that you consider writing checks a proper substitute for common human decency?

While you feel sort of bad for a guy such as Nene, who is in a contract year, or Hill, who has dealt with more injuries than any person should, you have to shake your head over someone such as Boozer.

He was considered a warrior back in his salad days, grubbing for rookie wages with the Cavaliers. Since he hit the $70 million jackpot in Utah, though, he keeps coming up mysteriously lame.

Since Oct. 8, Boozer has participated in half of a practice. He hasn't played in one game. His injury -- a "tweaked" left hamstring. He keeps saying it's not serious, as he misses practice after practice, game after game.

Get this: Boozer has not worn a Jazz uniform since Feb. 14, four days after owner Larry Miller questioned his effort, saying: "I don't know how tough he is."

I think he does now -- not very.

At the press conference announcing that Coach K was staying, Brodhead revealed that, in his attempts to get Coach K to spurn the Lakers, he'd asked Krzyzewski to serve as a "Special Assistant to the President." Krzyzewski played along, assuming the role of humble servant. "The honor of being special assistant to President Brodhead was really one of the factors in coming back," Coach K said. But to anyone who'd been paying attention for the past few days, it was clear who's really the special assistant.

One cause of low attendance is that students tailgate in the parking lot and never enter the stadium gates. Tailgates are one of the only chances undergraduates have to engage in large-scale parties on campus, and many students would rather take advantage of this opportunity instead of attending the game.

The four teams from North Carolina have won it 43 times. Duke had claimed it a record five straight before yesterday. Duke star guard Chris Duhon had raised six fingers after the Blue Devils' semifinal win, which drew the ire of the Terps.

"If he wants to hold up six fingers when he only has five, he's never going to have a chance to do that again," said Maryland sophomore Nik Caner-Medley. "Don't count your chickens before they hatch."

You thought this was the sainted Mike Krzyzewski (pronounced ARRO-GANT PHONY), who runs the cleanest program in America, whose basketball players are also Nobel laureates who spend their spare time reading to the blind and turning water into wine (and not just wine, but Chardonay). Well then you've spent too much time listening to the national media, which props up and adores Duke, led by ESPN and Dick Vitale, who often has to wear a slobber bucket around his neck when calling Blue Devils games.

"I love when the crowd is on me," said Vasquez, who had 13 points, a career-high 12 assists and 9 rebounds. "They were trying to make me mad. They were talking about the president of Venezuela. I love it. It was so nice. I've got three more years, and it's going to be fun. They might be worried about me now."

For those of you not familiar with the DBR, stop reading now--finding out about this crazed website where Duke fans can idolize their team, whine on the message board and bash UNC 24 hours a day seven days a week, will only corrupt your mind.

Is it too easy to believe that officials have finally tired of Krzyzewski's intimidation tactics, perhaps after his reprehensible behavior March 3 against Georgia Tech?

In 2002, national media criticized Krzyzewski for hosting with his wife, Duke women's coach Gail Goestenkors and former Duke player Mike Gminski, a fund-raiser for Republican senatorial candidate Elizabeth Dole at the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club.

Critics thought Krzyzewski's endorsement looked too much like a university endorsement since the event was called "Blue Devils for Dole" and was held at a university-owned venue.

I can't see what my future has in store

But I move forth with the strength of a condor

It was a great score. It was old-school. Coach K never raised his voice or his hand, but he let his new president know exactly who runs things on Tobacco Road. He also sent a similar message to basketball recruits across the land: Coach K is the unquestioned king of amateur hoops. Check "SportsCenter'' and USA Today if you doubt it.

Think about it. Coach K, without uttering a word or meeting face-to-face with owner Jerry Buss, had us all believing he might uproot his family and move to the West Coast for the privilege of coaching a young man who is scheduled to stand trial for rape this year.

I feel stupid for falling for it. Brodhead shouldn't. He had no other choice.

On top of all this, UCLA handed us a golden opportunity, violating rule #1 above. Just a week before the game UCLA player Jenali McCoy quit the team, ostensibly because of media pressure. However, rumors got out that in actuality, Jelani was suspended for marijuan use. Add to this the fact that senior Kris Johnson HAD been disciplined for marijuna and the table was set... The crowd that afternoon sported the occasional paper blunt,a dn roused many a marijuan related jibe (Where's Jelani? Smoking pot!), but the crowning glory, in my mind was the 500 green construciton paper marijuna leaves. Conceived by Matt Ching and I, we bought a ream of green paper, and, recuitng some guys from the tent line (see kville), worked for an hour and a half to cut out and distribute the leaves....the media reaction was mixed: ABC wouldn't show them, and the New York Times felt we weren't respecting the players' privacy. However, vindication was ours, when later that week at the pre-Carolina pep rally Coach K thanked the crowd for its support, and said "Those marijuan leaves - they were awesome."

The Duke family tree is not a mighty oak. In seven seasons as head coach at Seton Hall and now Michigan, Tommy Amaker has made one NCAA Tournament appearance and has a career winning percentage of .555. Quin Snyder has made four NCAA trips at Missouri, but he also has been named in 17 violations of NCAA by-laws in the organization's investigation of the Tigers program.

I like that Coach K truly cares for his players after their playing days are finished, even guys like Maggette and William Avery, whose early NBA departures rocked the program. I dislike that in recent years some of his players' parents have been moving to the Durham area with their sons and getting jobs with companies run by Duke boosters.

As the two teams left the court following another Duke 103-80 blowout, Krzyzewski stopped for some consoling words with the wounded Hicks.

Lucky for Wake -- or maybe unlucky -- the Kapitan didn't rip the poor kid's name right off his jersey.

It wouldn't be a Duke game on CBS if the voices didn't do everything but nominate one of the Blue Devils for sainthood. On Sunday, it was Bill Raftery's turn to remind us about a book titled "Profiles in Courage" and how Chris Duhon is a "profile in courage."

Why? Because he's playing banged up? Or because CBS needs Duke to have a designated hero?

"Chris Duhon," Verne Lundquist, Raftery's play-by-play partner, said. "What a player. What a man."

What nonsense.

The report also examines how Boozer and Williams have gotten into position to graduate in three years by taking heavy course loads in summer school.

Boozer and Williams both took two independent-study classes during Duke's second summer session. The show states that during half of the six-week session, Boozer was out of town practicing and playing with the U.S. team competing in the World Championship for Young Men.

Now, the Crazies are peopled with young blood, the freshmen. That seems to be what it's come to in Durham -- the student section has been taken over by frosh in recent years. And get this: There is a significant sentiment even on campus that regards the once-revered Crazies with embarrassment, that looks down on them. They don't seem clever, and they don't seem spontaneous.

They rely on lame attempts at biting humor, body paint and capes. And that isn't enough anymore, because at the end of the day, at the end of the game ... it's only Carrot Top material.

Many of us waited three hours in the driving rain on Friday night just to see Dicky V go wild...

There was a buzz around the Final Four, though, that if the foul involves Duke, the Blue Devils will get the benefit of the call.

There were several moments in Duke's 82-72 victory over Arizona for the NCAA championship Monday night when fouls that seemed obvious weren't called, including one first-half collision between Jason Williams and Jason Gardner.

Williams had two personals at the time and a third would have been crucial. It turned into a no-call, though, leaving usually mild-mannered Arizona coach Lute Olson gesturing at the officials.

J.J. Redick -- Maybe it was the Sportscenter profile of Redick last year when he whined that fans on the road are too mean to him.

Maybe it's all the hype about him as a shooter when there was a point last year where Redick would have had to make 75 straight three-point shots to tie the shooting percentage of Arizona's Salim Stoudamire.

Maybe it's just the fact that I want to punch him. I don't know -- there's just something about the guy.

He's evil, they're all evil. But he takes the cake. He's a shorter, geekier Laettner.

However, in 1995, a tired Coach K left after an embarrassing loss to Clemson and watched from afar as his mediocre Blue Devils finished the season with 13 wins and 18 losses. Although those results were rightly put on Coach K's record, he and the university quickly petitioned the NCAA to remove them. Bowing out to its most popular and powerful coach, the NCAA did just that.

Would a "leader of men," a self-proclaimed "idol of responsibility," really hand over his own losses to an assistant who was put in a harsh position? But, passing along responsibility is one of K's most prominent abilities.

Still, Krzyzewski has had to make sacrifices. As a special assistant to Duke's president, Richard Brodhead, he had to cut back on last-minute meetings with visitors and other special duties he performs. Krzyzewski discussed the job with Brodhead and athletic director Joe Alleva, and both supported the move.

Krzyzewski also has cut back on his speaking engagements, though the requests have only increased during his U.S. tenure.

"Financially, that knocks off a chunk," he said, "but timewise I had to do that.

Through his 25 seasons as Duke's coach, Krzyzewski has had a few, shall I say, flat tires or disappointments or troubled figures who either couldn't or wouldn't adjust to that motion offense and that man-to-man defense.

Back when you had to say his name, not just Coach K, Duke had recruited Joey Beard, who was supposed to be awesome. And Crawford Palmer was not far behind. And Bill Jackman went home to Nebraska.

They are few in number but, for certain, add Shavlik Randolph to this shallow, thin list of prep stars the gurus figured could one day be among Duke's better players.

The hatred of Redick stretches across the country. In an e-mail, a fan from McLean, Va., wrote, "Redick's most unforgivable sin, besides worshipping a false idol in the statue-like Coach K, is subjecting the world to some of the most horrible poetry ever written, putting him in the same category as Jewel and Kevin Federline, both of which I'd rather see playing basketball."

First and foremost of these attributes has to be Krzyzewski's hypocrisy. For a man such as Coach K to claim that his program is clean and on the up and up, is completely laughable.

Numerous Duke players have come to play for K under suspicious circumstances. Chris Duhon and Carlos Boozer both saw one of their parents receive a high-paying job under the eye of notorious Duke boosters. While a long paper trail extends straight from their jobs to Coach K's office, not a thing has ever been done.

Without his K-ness, Duke will revert to run-of-the-mill good: A powerhouse program, to be sure, but no longer the contemptuous evil empire of college hoops, the irritating stand-in for every overachieving valedictorian know-it-all who ran for student body president. Stripped of juggernaut status, the Blue Devils will instead be, well, a lot like rival North Carolina -- a worrisome development, same as the rise of William Hung, but wholly unworthy of all-consuming anathema. Easy and safe to ignore.

Erik Meek-ish, if you will.

Guy Who Should Have Come Out Last Year: Josh McRoberts — Actually, he should have come out straight from high school and he would have been a lottery pick. Instead, teams saw terrible body language and a player who didn't want the ball when the game was on the line.

Duke's senior-laden rotation fell to a group of Tigers that included six freshmen. The Blue Devils' star player, Redick, had one of the worst shooting games (3-18 FG) of his career (again) at the worst possible time. Lost behind the Redick meltdown was the fact that the team's complementary players -- Greg Paulus, Sean Dockery, Lee Melchionni and DeMarcus Nelson -- shot even WORSE than Redick, finishing a combined 3-19 from the field

Unlike the NBA, the coach does almost anything he wants in college basketball. He talks to the media when he wants on non-game days, which for Coach K is about 10 minutes per week. He can get away with it because, well, he's Coach K.

When a well-known college basketball writer named Gregg Doyel wanted to do a biography on the Duke coach, Coach K didn't want any part of it. A letter was sent to all of his former players and friends which said something like, "Coach K would appreciate it if you didn't help Doyel with his unauthorized project."

Colangelo has a fellow political traveler in Mike Krzyzewski. Coach K is a longtime Republican donor who made waves when he hosted a 2002 fundraiser for North Carolina senatorial candidate Elizabeth Dole at the university-owned Washington Duke Inn. His group, to the consternation of many non-Republican faculty and students, was called "Blue Devils for Dole."

Thank you very much, for reminding me of the reason why I left Duke. Peolple like you cannot and willnot (sic) ever understand my situation. I'm sure daddy worked very hard to send your rich self to college. While real people struggle. I would also like to extend an invitation for you not to waste your or my time ever agin. Never being considered a part of your posh group of yuppies really hurts me to the heart. Yea Right because I don't care about you or your alumni.

It gets emotional, but the Duke reserve had to be physically restrained from hitting referee Bruce Benedict following the Hoosiers-Blue Devils game. Although we aren't sure Christensen was actually going to punch Benedict, he did sort of throw his fist in rage. Not good. Making it even worse is we are not sure what he was mad about. There was no significant foul on Boozer's shot. If a foul had been whistled on that one the Duke referee conspiracy theory would have to be believed.

Funny, isn't it, how once again, a college coach sees the advantages of exploring his options when he abhors having his players weigh those same options? Not just any coach this time, though, this particular coach. Hope nobody fingers him as being greedy or selfish or shortsighted or disrespectful or untrustworthy (after all, he made a commitment to his players to stick around, didn't he?).

You can't talk about stuff like this without mentioning 1984 and Herman Veal. Why a Maryland player? Well, after Duke played Maryland, and taunted Herman Veal for alleged sexual assault (we can't remember the outcome), throwing condoms and panties and the like, the basketball world went ballistic. Ken Denlinger blistered Duke in the Post. Terry Sanford wrote an open letter to the student body calling for a different approach to games and asking for cleverness rather than meanness.

The next game was UNC.

The Crazies showed up with tin foil halos, and chanted "we beg to differ!" when the refs made a bad call. They welcomed "our esteemed guests from Chapel Hill." All in all a great day in Cameron.

Dean Smith didn't think so. Asked afterwards, he groused that one day of good behavior didn't make up for years of bad. This from the guy who pounded on the scoreboard, who called another player "Mr Choke," and who was thrown out of the Final Four and who recruited Makhtar Ndiaye and Jeff McInnis.

Who's gonna believe Carlos Boozer next time he promises to do something?

Why should anyone take the word of these lowlifes again after the double-cross they pulled on the Cavaliers?

'I felt the whole system let me down,' Carrawell said. 'Whether it was NBA scouts, my agent, NBA (general managers), Coach K not lobbying enough for me -- never in history had an ACC Player of the Year gone so low.'

That night we wore Duke blue solely for safety's sake. Since significant quantities of alcohol had been added to an already intense rivalry, we decided to avoid any unnecessary pre-game conflict. Our concerns were well founded: Even though we were standing behind UNC's bench during the game, we were subject to numerous taunts, threats and projectiles.

Students must provide their social security number to register a tent, check in via e-mail and abide by the whims of the head line monitor, an elected student who governs K-Ville, mediates disputes and makes the rules.

Maryland comes into Cameron tonight as the hottest team in the country, perhaps the hottest team in the nation...

A 19-year-old Ohio woman who accused three Midwest City basketball players of rape told a Columbus television station Wednesday that she won't ask prosecutors to pursue charges. But the woman's decision doesn't rule out the possibility of charges being filed. Police could still turn the evidence over to a grand jury for consideration...

..."Prosecuted or not, they know exactly what they did, and they have to live with that," she told the television station.

But after the U.S.' stunning defeat - yes, despite our recent failures, these losses still shock - Coach K should dump his $100,000 motivational speeches in the Pacific. Because, at the moment, American basketball fans just want answers, not sermons

By choosing the path of denial, Coach K is now drawing comparisons to his mentor Bobby Knight, another man reluctant to admit a mistake. Coach K doesn't have Knight's (public) temper.

They share a self-righteousness and a terrible, immature reaction to losing. That can be a lethal combination, especially when Greg Paulus is your best point guard. Yeah, Duke isn't done being an ACC also-ran. The Blue Devils don't have a point-guard replacement in their 2007 recruiting class. Looks like they'll be counting on big man Josh McRoberts to break the press again, and that means there'll probably be a few more last-seconds elbows thrown in frustration.

So your NCAA tournament bracket is shot to pieces. You had Kentucky, Stanford, Gonzaga, Mississippi State or some upstart (uh, Wisconsin) and now your pool pick-sheet is worth as much as a Dominican baseball player's birth certificate. But there are still two more weeks to go, so now who do you root for?

Easy. You root against Duke, for that program and its head coach are - and we don't think we're in any way exaggerating here - the epitome of all that is evil.

There's an e-mail that has haunted Elton Brand and won't go away. He's never admitted to it, not until now. Chillin' in his modest downtown apartment with teammates Ron Artest and Corey Benjamin, watching Duke ball UNC, Elton confesses--but only because I asked. "So E," I say without Corey or Ron hearing. "Did you really write that e-mail back to that white girl when you were at Duke?"

Elton looks around, rubs on the red Coogi sweater, and spits honesty. "I'll tell you, I did.

If we're trying to inspire our impressionable youth with a commercial, don't we owe them a view of the full range of the tools of victory? How in the world do you omit central components of success such as referee intimidation with language that'd peel the cheek off a Soprano? Did an editor accidentally leave that part on the floor? Did mushrooming gas prices prompt the non-payment of so many AMEX bills that the company just couldn't afford a full accounting?

Or possibly the aggrieved honchos from other universities complained of Duke's recruiting advantage from the ad as a crutch argument, when really they felt sorry for Krzyzewski.

After all, it's hard to imagine a seasoned coach complying to recite ad copy this self-aggrandizing.

Such saturation coverage for a program that has won one national title in the last 10 seasons, one fewer than both Connecticut and Kentucky during that span, combined with the hyperbole, is why some fans cheer for Duke to fall.

Student attendance has been slipping over the past five years, and when the men's team finished 22-11 last year, more than half the home games were played before empty seats in the student sections.

"It was minimal at first, and then last year, it was a dramatic decrease," Bazzani said. "Last year, you could walk in 15 minutes after tipoff and still get great seats.

There was something depressing about the football game this Saturday, and it wasn't just the score. It was the low attendance and lack of student support for the team

Moser would not give details on student attendance, but it's clear that this year, Krzyzewski and others in the athletic department are urging students to attend. The basketball office spent time with the graduate students, who have a different ticket process, and Bazzani said Krzyzewski challenged the Duke freshmen to get involved and support the team.

As Bazzani recalled, 'Coach said to the freshmen, 'I'm putting this as a challenge to you. We're going to have a policy of no empty seats in Cameron this year. I'm personally challenging you to be Crazies, to be Duke, to be better than anybody who has passed through those stands.

Several years ago, Smith pointed out that he thought it was tougher for Duke and Krzyzewski because there is so much more attention paid to college basketball these days. Every Duke game is on national TV, and Dick Vitale seems to do about half of them, screaming about the greatness of Krzyzewski and Duke until normally reasonable people start to throw things at the television set. But there's more to it than that. Unlike Smith, who never endorsed anything, Krzyzewski has become a very wealthy pitchman for corporate America; he's written books on how to win and on how to lose and on how to tie. (Or so it seems.) He has put himself out there and, in doing so, made himself and his program a target

'Coach K has never in his life reacted in the way he reacted to DeMarcus,' said DeMarcus' father Ron Nelson in a May 30 article in the Vallejo Times-Herald. 'They said he went home and told his wife he finally found someone he fell in love with on sight.'

As a whole, Duke didn't play well in the NCAA Tournament. The Blue Devils were bounced from the Sweet 16 for the fifth time in seven seasons, which doesn't sound very dynasty-like at all. They didn't lose to a superior opponent, didn't lose on a last-second basket, didn't lose on a controversial call, didn't lose to a once-in-a-lifetime shooting night by the opponent. Some of those factors may have made it hurt less last night, but they'll likely make it hurt even more in the long run.

They knew we -- the media, sports fans -- were gullible. We ate it up. Coach K was going to throw away a 24-year legacy to take over a team led by a star player scheduled to stand trial for rape. If you believe that, you probably believe Kupchak thought this would be the ideal time for Roy Williams to think about leaving North Carolina.

Duhon's ''disappointment'' in being benched by coach Scott Skiles for Game 3 of the conference semifinals against the Detroit Pistons -- after he missed a film session the same week -- matches the disappointment of team officials in Duhon's penchant for partying over the years.

Skiles is said to be as tired of that as Duhon apparently was when he ''overslept'' and missed a practice on New Year's Eve weekend. If that's news to Duhon, it makes two wake-up calls he has missed.

It hasn't gone unnoticed that the three-year veteran is as recognizable at hot spots such as Ontourage and Rockit Bar as he is at the Berto Center, or that his name is as much a staple of bold-type gossip columns as it is the sports section

Duke's Cameron Crazies are known for toeing the line with their taunts to opposing players.

Two years ago, they waved their keys at UCLA players who were driving cars rumored to be purchased for them by alumni. That same year, they wore safety goggles to taunt a handful of Tar Heels afflicted with pink eye and brandished tissues after Carolina guard Shammond Williams cried during a timeout. Rumor has it that during the Jordan era at UNC, they even threw tongue depressors onto the court to make fun of Michael's penchant for sticking his tongue out.

As for Redick, for the third time in four years, he came up small in the regional semifinals. Unable to get away from tenacious freshman defender Garret Temple, he was a dismal 3-for-18 against LSU.

Anyone can have a bad game, you say? True. But how about last year, when Redick was 4-for-14 as the Blue Devils lost to Michigan State in the regional semis? And what about his freshman year, when he scored only five points in a bittersweet 16 loss to Kansas?

Forget about how many points a guys scores against Wake Forest or Clemson in January or February. It's what he does in the NCAA tournament in March that people remember.

Now, the truth is that, in every team sport, even a great player can be shut down. That's when his teammates have to step up. And when his coach has to come up with alternative ways to win.

What I found quite sickening was the fact that going to watch Duke basketball obviously has nothing to do anymore with watching an outstanding sporting event, but is an occasion to participate in a large-scale exercise in group hysteria and group identification by means of creating a common adversary-what Jamal Middlebrooks called "the forces of evil" and the "accursed pagan foe" on Monday.

Krzyzewski said it was purely coincidental that this new partnership with NCAA president Myles Brand intensified about the time the Lakers came calling.

Oh, sure - wink, wink.

``It was not unrealistic to believe the state of college basketball hung in the balance with his decision,'' said Duke athletic director Joe Alleva. ``He's one of the, if not the one most recognizable name in college basketball today. He takes great pride in his ability to mold not just a player, but a man, and the realities of the game today is that you just don't have the time to achieve these objectives like you once did.''

This is not the way this fourth generation Dukie grew up viewing his favorite team, nor is it the thing about which Dick Vitale continually boasts every chance he gets.

Nose rings, visible tattoos and orange hair are as hard to find as battered Escorts. More than 70 percent of the Blue Devils belong to fraternities or sororities. Overwhelmingly white, Duke even has a new chapter of a black fraternity, Omega Psi Phi. It has four members.

Give Duke credit for one thing: By no means does it load up on cupcakes like many other elite programs. However, in recent years, it has also shied away from playing nonconference games against elite opponents (note that only one of those seven tourney teams from last season, Pittsburgh, advanced beyond the first weekend) not to mention nonconference road games of any kind.

Covering tonight's loss to Maryland, I noticed that the environment was much better than it was at the Georgia Tech game. But for a game of this importance and against Duke's second-biggest rival, it was a little subdued. And I couldn't help but be dismayed at the lack of creativity of the Crazies as a whole and specifically the ones around my seat on press row.

I'm convinced there are a lot of creative, passionate Cameron Crazies out there. But it just seems like I'm sitting in front of those that really don't know the game and end up embarrassing the Crazie population.

A few critics correctly pointed out John Wooden in his UCLA days rode the refs hard, too. But no dynasty in this country gets a pass as often as Duke does. George Steinbrenner needs a flak jacket with the New York Yankees. Not coach K.

They don't slap their palms on the floor in the NBA. (If Shaq gets any thicker this offseason, he might not be able to see the floor beneath his feet, much less bend over and slap it.)

Duke even had other big guys in mind while recruiting Collison. KU's All-America candidate grinned when recalling his phone call to Krzyzewski informing him he'd chosen KU.

'Actually, when I called to tell him I was going to Kansas, he was like, 'I don't care. We got a commitment from Casey Sanders anyway,' Collison said of Sanders, a 6-foot-11 senior from Tampa, Fla., who averages 4.6 points and 5.2 boards a game compared to Collison's 18.5 scoring, 9.3 rebounding marks.

Krzyzewski also took a page from his mentor, Bob Knight, throughout the night as his behavior left a lot to be desired.

Mike Krzyzewski. Dick Vitale, Jay Bilas, Billy Packer and all the stooges for the Duke men's basketball coach could not cover up his classless display at the end of the Blue Devils' choke against UConn in the NCAA semifinals.

He blamed the refs for the loss, then followed with the charade of being interested in coaching the L.A. Lakers in order to have the Duke administration prove again how much it loves him.

Three weeks ago, Duke's perpetually arrogant fans chanted, "Not our rival," as the Blue Devils beat Maryland by 23 points.

On Sunday, Maryland's team of kids -- with five freshmen and four sophomores -- stuffed those words back down the throat of a powerhouse Duke team that deeply wanted to win its sixth straight ACC tournament. Oh, the Blue Devils have a rival now, whether they like it or not. Its name is Maryland.

'I heard Coach K tell Trajan to get the ball,' Moore said. 'I felt if he got it, he wasn't going to do anything with it. It was crunch time. It was him against me. I knew that my will to win was going to take over, and it did.' Langdon dribbled into the lane, spun around in an attempt to free himself for a shot. Moore was with him every step of the way, including the extra one that Langdon took after the spin. He was called for traveling with 5.4 seconds left.

The number of people who still haven't seen Stoudamire is dwindling, thankfully, as is the number of people who think Duke's Redick is a better shooter. There really shouldn't be any debate anymore as to which player is a better shooter because, as Shakur said, the numbers are so overwhelming in Stoudamire's favor, to ignore them is to admit to some agenda.

Alleva's performance before the lacrosse debacle, has been undistinguished to put it politely. Duke football, terrible when he took over, is now worse. (Brilliant move turning down Bobby Ross, who has only won a national title and coached in the Super Bowl to hire the immortal Ted Roof). Alleva also hired a crony of his to coach baseball and kept him around through one losing season after another until accusations by ex-players that the coach had encouraged them to used steriods finally forced his hand.

When the lacrosse story first broke, Alleva's initial public reaction was, "this is an unfortunate incident." Huh? Unfortunate? Losing to LSU in the Sweet Sixteen was an unfortunate incident for Duke. This goes well beyond that. Alleva has basically been told since then to shut up and not say anything publicly because he can't be trusted to keep his foot out of his mouth. Someone should have told Trask the same thing. Two weeks ago he was quoted in the Duke student newspaper, The Chronicle, as saying that he was aware there were behavioral problems with the lacrosse team (he did not mention that he had seen a written report on the subject) but felt as if the school had a handle on those problems.

Apparently not.

For every one of these success stories, there are two counterexamples, though. Turn on any Sixers game, and you can see Shavlik Randolph looking like a lost kid who still needs his mom to drive him to practice and cut his steak for him. When David Stern's marketing machine makes its own dairy brand targeted at teens, former ACC Player of the Year Chris Carrawell's career will be listed as "Missing" on the milk cartons.

Before losing to UNC in 1989, the student body, referring to Carolina's star center J.R. Reid, raised a sign that read, 'J.R. Can't Reid This.' The same statement was chanted, even though Reid was actually a quite intelligent and scholastically accomplished student athlete. This is the stuff of class?

Dean Smith was badly troubled by the latter incident, which he understandably construed as a racial slur. Because Coach Smith had also recruited two of Duke's big men, Christian Laettner and Danny Ferry, he coincidentally knew what these players scored on the SAT. In a press conference, he rebutted the crowd's baseless innuendo by explaining that J.R. Reid and frontcourt mate Scott Williams accomplished a higher combined SAT score than did Laettner and Ferry, both white. Smith took pains to avoid disclosing any specific scores, nor did he provide any individual comparisons. In response, the same group that slanderously labeled Reid illiterate berated Smith for his audacity in disclosing the completely true, but purportedly 'private,' information of its players.

[Dean] Smith and Krzyzewski haven't gotten along since 1984, when Krzyzewski insisted there was a ''double standard'' in the way ACC referees worked -one for North Carolina, another for the rest of the league.

I know that Duhon learned to slap the floor from Wojo.

Duke is the exception to the notion that everybody loves a winner.

Between 1988 and 1992, the Hall of Fame coach guided the Blue Devils to five consecutive Final Fours and two national titles. But in the nine seasons that followed, he managed only three Final Fours and one national championship. In the five years since, Mike Krzyzewski's record has been less than overwhelming: one final four and no national championships.

To wit, when the Georgia Tech team dared to gather at center court, standing atop the Duke logo before the national anthem, Blue Devil center Carlos Boozer pointed and screamed at the whole Jacket team. Think C-Boo was PO'd he couldn't sit down in the locker room?

Maryland's players have been serenaded with chants of "Fear the Classroom," a reference to the zero percent graduation rate announced in October (and one Gary Williams tweaks in some way or another at every opportunity). Another sign: "If you can read this, Gary Williams won't recruit you."

You're too good of a player to be celebrating like that."

That's what Virginia Tech's Zabian Dowdell told the Herald-Sun Krzyzewski told him following the Hokies' upset of Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium over the weekend. So I'm guessing Coach K must've been offended Wednesday after Georgia Tech handed the Blue Devils a 74-63 defeat here at Alexander Memorial Coliseum and forced him to observe students pouring onto Cremins Court from both end zones, he being the Celebration Police and all.

During last week's Maryland-Duke game (page 4), the ever-clever Cameron Crazies were duped into heckling their own school. Using false info (planted by a Terrapins fan) that Maryland forward Nik Caner-Medley's girlfriend's name is "Myra" and her pet name for him is "Piggy," the Crazies made pig noises and showered Caner-Medley with chants of "Piggy." Myron Piggie, of course, is the former AAU basketball coach and convicted drug dealer who gave money to several college basketball players, including Corey Maggette in 1997 before he signed with Duke.

As a '94 graduate of Duke, I'm ashamed that the once witty and creative Duke student body has gotten to the point where their spontaneity and their cleverness is not only canned, but totally void of anything that resembles originality. In fact, the students were duped into ridiculing themselves this past week against Maryland with the "piggy" chants.... Get rid of the cheer sheets, and get back to basics-funny, spontaneous, and if it has to be, downright embarrassing to the opposing players. Duke students are more concerned with the foolery that gets their mugs on TV than actually creating an atmosphere that gets opposing players thinking about something other than drilling three-pointers in the mugs of Dukie students.

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.

He indirectly blamed UNC coach Roy Williams by saying Hansbrough, an All-American, shouldn't have been on the court. "The game was over before that -- the outcome of the game, let's put it that way," Coach K said Sunday. "That's unfortunate that those people were in the game. ... I mean, 20 seconds left. You know what I mean. What I'm saying -- I'm not blaming anybody. It's unfortunate. We should have both probably had our walk-ons in. ... If they're still playing, we're going to play."

Did Coach K order the code red? I really don't know. But I know this; they got hammered by Carolina…again. And they didn't like that Hansbrough was still on the floor late in the game and they were looking to send a message. Well, they did, with the message being, we're not nearly the program we used to be either in ability or class.

Krzyzewski essentially admitted it was intentional when he said, 'The game was over before that. I mean the outcome of the game, let's put it that way. That's unfortunate, too, that those people were in the game in that play. Maybe this wouldn't have happened.”

Translation: If your guy wasn't still on the floor at the end of the game, maybe my guy wouldn't have jacked-him in the grill. Ie. It was deliberate.

Coach K has spent most of his time with the media explaining Henderson's innocence, and very little expressing concern for Hansbrough. I counted 222 words on his version Monday of Henderson's foul, and two words -- "It's unfortunate" -- on Hansbrough's bloodied mess of a face.

Maryland is not going to be as good as last year, period

According to a report in the Charlotte Observer, there have been multiple media inquiries to the NCAA as to whether the commercial amounts to a loophole recruiting pitch for Duke.

If I wanted to, I could devote this column to questioning some of Krzyzewski's decisions on and off the court over the last few years. I could suggest that the talent he brings to Durham isn't developing like it should, or that his team plays at too slow a pace, or that he hasn't evolved his recruiting and coaching strategies to fit the NCAA's new one-and-done rules, or that his commitment to the U.S. National Team takes away too much of his time.

Not that any media body could ever approach Krzyzewski for a comment if it were proven. Coach K has a very standard, very strict, no-interview policy. Not on the sideline, not in his office, not over the phone, Coach K is completely untouchable if he does not instigate the contact. To add even more absurdity, to gain access to his office there is a touch pad that screens fingerprints. I kid you not.

I've been hearing a lot of people ask out loud (or email me indignantly) 'How on earth did Billy Packer think that Gerald Henderson's hack job on Tyler Hansborough was unintentional?'

My guess: Billy Packer is hallucinating

Working in the Wilson Recreation Center, between Christmas and spring break, we are privileged to witness firsthand the tradition of K-ville daily, as we walk from Card Gym parking lot to Wilson and back-at best stepping around smelly garbage, wet bedding, cans and other litter-at worst trying to avoid broken glass, vomit, blood, urine, feces-even used condoms. ...

As parents and grandparents, it is scary to see kids living in such deplorable conditions for 6-8 weeks. Is this what an expensive education at an esteemed university comes down to? Is it okay to make a horrendous mess because someone else will clean it up? The employees performing the cleanup should receive premium pay, probably even hazard pay.

We appreciate that basketball is a big part of the Duke experience, and are all in favor of school spirit and team support, but in its present state, K-ville is a blight on the landscape of an otherwise beautiful campus.

It was printed in newspapers. It was said on television. Even Dick Vitale mentioned it during an ESPN game.

The word around the Duke campus was that the father of power forward Carlos Boozer Jr. once played at Maryland with John Lucas. But when Lucas, a Terp from 1972-76, was asked about it last week, he drew a blank.

``He didn't play at Maryland when I was there,'' Lucas said of Carlos Boozer Sr.

They should. because there is no doubt they are playing with the best shooter outside the NBA. What? You thought it was J.J. Redick? Oh, I forgot. Salim Stoudamire doesn't have his own personal ESPN publicist, the way Duke's Favorite Son does.

Now, I love Dick Vitale and consider him a friend; I really do. But I'm officially pleading with him to stop embarrassing himself on this topic. There is no argument, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Last season, as they left the court after their 84-77 victory over N.C. State, the Blue Devils held up all five fingers, showing off their consecutive tournament titles. So how would they handle six?

"We are not going to tell you our secrets,'' Duhon said. "Be there with your cameras ready and we will surprise you.''

That character would be tested when Dockery traded the concrete jungle of Chicago for the quiet beauty of Duke University. It was a full-blown case of culture shock.

"I could definitely sense that," said J.J. Redick, a fellow junior guard who roomed with Dockery during their freshman year. "From what I understand, there weren't a lot of white people at his high school. And at Duke there certainly are a lot of white people."

They are generally well spoken, clean-cut, polite to a fault, studious basketball practitioners, led by a Hall of Fame coach who calls voting-age players, 'my kids.'

You'd let most of them baby-sit your kids.

The refs. Krzyzewski used to rail that Dean Smith got calls because he was Dean Smith. Now the rest of America says the same thing about Coach K.

Especially after the 2001 Final Four, when the Dookies seemed to get every favorable whistle against Maryland and Arizona. The sight of Jason Williams, already in foul trouble, body-surfing on the back of Jason Gardner - no call! - remains vivid.

Does Reggie Love's return to the team foretell an increased enrollment for the exclusive basketball 'fraternity' Phi-Drinka-Forty.' the group Love and Chris Duhon started for the apparent purposes of binge drinking and squandering NBA and NFL talent?

Finally, basketball fans all over the country got what they wanted - the two best teams with everything at stake - but the referees had to step in and have their say on the outcome of the game, an 82-72 Blue Devils victory.

Shavlik and his parents are all quick to point out that girls do not figure into his life at this point. They are "out of his comfort level," Kim Randolph says

Tommy Amaker's Michigan bunch embarrassed itself and -- by association -- the Duke franchise Friday, losing to Minnesota in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament. This was only the latest disgrace to the Coach K -- um, er -- coaching tree.

We trot out that bromide with caution because to credit Coach K with a "tree" at this point would be complimenting shrubs everywhere. We'll give it to you straight from the site of the latest fiasco: If Krzyzewski calls recommending one of his guys right now, make that scratchy noise with your voice and pretend like you've been disconnected.

To summarize: Quin Snyder ran Missouri into the ground before resigning under pressure earlier this year. It's going on three years since Mike Brey had a tournament appearance at Notre Dame. David Henderson is feeling the heat at Delaware after a 9-21 season. It's been four years since Bob Bender was fired at Washington where he was 26 games under .500.

Just the other day Fairfield's Tim O'Toole (Duke assistant, 1995-97) was fired with a 112-120 mark in eight seasons.

But there's more to the anti-Duke feelings than just the human instinct to recoil at continued excellence. It's not so much the success that bothers people as it is the Blue Devils' reaction to the success. Duke carries on as if it has the magic formula and everybody else has coffee grounds.

But we will confess that we find it strange that the NCAA College Hoops 2K7 video game cover boy this year is none other than JJ Redick, everybody's favorite DWI-ing long-distance specialist. Putting a guy with an arrest so recently on his record seems unusual; that it's perhaps the least popular collegiate athlete -- nationally, at least -- in recent memory makes the decision almost masochistic.

''I'm biased, but I don't think there is anywhere in the country where fans are this intense about their team,'' Blaum said. ``We're the fans that all the other fans around the country are trying to copy.''

Dockery's very public struggles with the ACT punctured the myth that Duke basketball players are scholars and other college basketball players are idiots.

The question here, however, is a simple one. If Krzyzewski didn't get thrown out of Wednesday night's game against Georgia Tech, then just what does it take to get thrown out of a game in this league?

His manners were deplorable. His language galling. His actions just short of, well, apparently ejection.

Krzyzewski picked up one technical foul. He deserved four. And the fact is, he appeared to be trying to get them

"It's been said for a while that [the atmosphere has] been down," said Andrew Eimer, a former Crazy from the class of 2003, in a phone interview before the game. "It happens to be a dorkier part of the student population. You realize it more when you're out of school."

You heard that right. The Crazies are now considered nerdy, even by Duke standards

I like that the NCAA never sniffs around Cameron Indoor Stadium, aside from its investigation of ex-Blue Devil Corey Maggette's $2,000 in cash payments from club coach Myron Piggie. I dislike it that Duke's response was upraised palms as if, aside from Maggette's association with a known scumbag, how could Duke know anything like that might have happened?

Krzyzewski has had enough success and adulation that he's now allowed to operate by a different set of rules. You need your thumb scanned to gain access to the elevator to his office (seriously). He's rarely available to the media during the regular season. And those quickie halftime sideline TV interviews? They're now the duty of the assistant coaches. Coach K is too big to be bothered.

During the tournament, I saw two reasons why so many fans dislike J. J. Redick. After he hit a big three in the second half vs. BC, he went into his brief routine where he throws his arms in the air (not a big deal) and practically preens as he runs back down the court (very annoying if you're not rooting for Duke). When things were not going his way late in the first half of the semi-final vs. Wake Forest, the TV cameras caught him shouting two big-time f-bombs at 'everybody'. It's hard to fault him for the latter transgression, though. He was just following the example of his coach.

Coach K implied -- oh, hell, he came out and said -- that the bigger victim was Henderson. Not Hansbrough, who might have to wear a protective mask during the ACC Tournament. Here's what Coach K said Monday: "I don't blame anybody. I'm just saying it's unfortunate, and the person it's most unfortunate for is 'G'. That wasn't his intent (to injure Hansbrough), and that's not what he was doing during that play."

"If I went to another school, I'm pretty sure I'd have my fair share of people who don't like me," Redick said, "but not to the level that it is... . I don't know what the word is, to be honest with you. Animosity. Resentment. Hate. Whatever the word is, the negative feelings towards Duke and towards me come from the fact that we have had success over the past however many years you want to put it in."

"We've had a lot of success. We've won a lot of ball games. We've done things the right way. So people just hate us."

That's compounded by the fact that the mere mention of Duke in a college basketball context has become polarizing, the world divided into 'Duke lovers' and 'Duke haters.'

The irony here is not the utter lunacy of suggesting that any Duke player could ever be media underrated. Nor is it the fact that this particular player was touted as the next great college impact player before he ever set foot on campus. (Vitale himself wrote multiple columns touting this "special newcomer" while Henderson was still in high school.)

No, the problem here is that Henderson, as one of Vitale's heralded "Diaper Dandies," earned and received coast to coast headlines, commentary, and notoriety for the dirtiest play in college basketball history. Somehow, a mere five games later, Henderson is being portrayed as a quiet, unassuming, underrated player worthy of more positive press. The suggestion is nothing short of a journalistic outrage.

My goal as a basketball coach is to get all five of those fingers, all five of those guys [on the court together] playing as one. I tell them, 'We play like a fist.' When we are introduced or in a huddle, we don't put our hands in or boogie or whatever you do... what we do is put our fists in: five playing as one.

But the information about his girlfriend and her pet name for him was false, planted by a person who wished for the Cameron Crazies to embarrass themselves. If the Cameron Crazies had chanted 'Myra Piggy,' it would have sounded like 'Myron Piggie,' the name of a former basketball coach and crack cocaine dealer who pleaded guilty to giving money to college basketball players, including former Blue Devil Corey Maggette, in one of Duke's scandals.

The prank worked, conceded Duke senior Stephen Rawson, the student in charge of controlling student admission to games and passing out the cheer sheets.

'We got hoodwinked on that,' he said. 'Somebody pulled a fast one on us.'

A person claiming responsibility for the false information called The Diamondback Thursday night. The caller, a 23-year-old male from North Carolina who operated under the pseudonym 'Lance Nichols,' said he received an e-mail copy of the cheer sheet for Duke's last home game against Virginia. At the bottom of the sheet is a screen name, CheerSheets, that students can instant message to 'contribute for the next game.'

I like that Coach K had the nerve, more than 20 years ago, to speak out against the officiating double standard enjoyed by North Carolina legend Dean Smith. I dislike that Coach K, now a legend himself, seeks that same officiating double standard through intimidation -- and has the nerve to say he doesn't seek it, or get it.

Last night's national championship game between Arizona and Duke was controlled by the officials, who completely ruined an otherwise classic and tremendous game.

"I want my players to be aggressive and smart for 40 minutes of each basketball game," Coach K could have said. "Gerald did not make a smart play, and for that we sincerely apologize to Roy, Tyler and North Carolina fans. We think a one-game suspension is appropriate and look forward to renewing our heated rivalry with the Tar Heels in the future.

"I've talked with Gerald, explained to him what I think he did wrong in that situation and I'm comfortable it won't happen again."

That's it. There's no real controversy. It's over.

One of the little things you might not notice about Duke basketball, but which is a telling detail, is that you'll rarely hear anyone call more than one syllable. So it's Shav, Shel, Chris, and so on. It's a smart principle, and a sign of the level of organization the program thrives on: yelling Shelden is less effective and takes longer than yelling Shel. We're not saying Shel is what they call for Shelden, but you get the point. That's an important thing at Duke.

Don Mike Krzyzewski, head of the all-powerful Tobacco Road family, consigliere David Falk and underboss Joe Alleva took Duke University's five-day-old president Richard Brodhead to the cleaners, and Brodhead still has no idea that a credit card is missing from the wallet he left in his slacks. Nor does he care.

The smudges. For all the piety, there is the inky issue of Corey Maggette, who took money from summer-league scammer Myron Piggie. Yahoo! sports columnist Dan Wetzel opined this week that a thorough investigation and resolution of the Maggette issue might result in the Blue Devils' 1999 Final Four appearance being stricken from the record. An NCAA enforcement representative said Thursday that it has investigated and found no impropriety.

And then there is the issue of former Krzyzewski assistant Quin Snyder, now up to his carefully styled locks in scandal at Missouri.

Duke, for all the hoopla, isn't immune to the various ills plaguing college athletics- from compromised academic standards in admissions to student-athletes misbehaving once they are admitted.

We're not Maryland, FSU, or UNC, and we should keep that distinction very clear. We're Duke.

"Like Wojo," I said. The name immediately sprang to mind. How could it not? Steve Wojciechowski stood in for every obnoxious, overachieving white point guard who ever played the game. In order to show the coach how psychotically into playing he was, Wojo was the kind of guy who ran to every huddle like Nutty Buddies were being handed out there by the Good Humor ice cream man. He was the sort of lead-footed guard who commentators like Dook Vitale were always saying made up for lack of native talent with hard work. Vitale and his media brethren shilled Wojciechowski right into being named National Defensive Player of the Year for 1998.

things got out of hand

Wolf faces federal charges, and yet the people who put Clemons and Wolf together are allowed to hire men like Hilliard and claim they didn't know anything.

'In this case, Quin Snyder saying he didn't know is absolute garbage,'Ridpath charges. "That just shows how silly the infractions process is. They'll sanction a Neuheisel or a Jerry Tarkanian if they have to, but if they can, they'll go after a scapegoat because it makes life easier.'

UNC beat Duke yesterday, but the story of the game was Gerald Henderson injuring Tyler Hansbrough late in the game with a cheap shot. Mike Krzyzewski -- stand-up guy that he is -- said after the game, -We'll take all responsibility, but ' and then proceeded to take no responsibility. That classy approach is from his book: "Leading With The Elbow: Coach K's Successful Strategies For Shirking Responsibility."

'The attendance last year was pathetic in terms of fan support, and that's something we're trying to rectify this year,' said Roberto Bazzani, a Duke senior who serves as head line monitor. 'Last year, you could walk in 15 minutes after tipoff and still get great seats.

'Ten years ago, five years ago, they'd turn away people at the door because we were too packed. We could sell out every game, even exhibition games and Blue-White games. It was packed.'

Bazzani said the athletics department had told him the dropoff 'was in the past five years.'

But Krzyzewski's influence in basketball and power over the university have taken center stage. Brill said Krzyzewski goes to great lengths to build rapport with students and university official-on his terms.

"It's the most controlled environment you've ever seen," Brill said of Krzyzewski's handling of the local media, school officials and the Cameron Crazies, the team's student support group.

"It's whatever coach Krzyzewski wants."

Your shot was useless from both the perimeter and around the basket, and you didn't have the lateral movement to defend anyone-not even my dad scrimmaging in a bagels-and-basketball Sunday league.

You suffered more injuries than Allan Houston (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration), and Coach K decided to go with five guards instead of substituting you into the Sweet 16 game against Michigan State last season when Shelden Williams fouled out of your final game as a Blue Devil.

I originally fell for the Krzyzewski bulls---. I took his flirtation with the Lakers seriously. Coach K's boss, athletic director Joe Alleva, sold the idea of college basketball's No. 1 employee bolting to the NBA pretty strongly during a choreographed press conference last Thursday. Alleva insinuated that Krzyzewski had been frustrated by the early defections to the NBA of some of his underclassmen. Coach K lost his two best players, freshman Luol Deng and recruit Shaun Livingston, to this year's NBA draft.

'So, is it true? Does Duke really get all the calls?' " Sweet mimics. "I'm like, 'Of course, it's true. It's Duke.' It's Mike Krzyzewski. The refs were afraid of him. He could get you calls that no one else could get. That's part of playing for Duke.

"Coach K told me I'd have to work my butt off, that I'd have to earn everything," Randolph said. "That's fine with me. I've dreamed of the NBA since I was 11 years old, and I think he'll get me ready for that."

Redick understands the responsibilities that come with being a star. After a wrong-place, wrong-time dorm incident his freshman year at Duke, Redick got a bitter taste of the dark side of being a public figure.

Redick eventually was cleared by the university of any wrongdoing, but for weeks his name was linked to police reports and marijuana.

"I don't think anyone has an idea of what the ramifications were," his father, Ken Redick, told The Roanoke Times at the time, "but it was pretty deep.

They don't have college newspapers to browbeat in the NBA, and they don't generally cotton to coaches ignoring the media for days on end. ("I love my kids," might no longer suffice as a multipurpose quote, either.)

"I think that it's obviously very hard to be a Cameron Crazy and a full time student, however students are here to get an education," said Wine, a senior.

"The fact that students are being punished for choosing to study for exams instead of going to the game--I don't think that's fair.... Obviously I was at the game. I would have been there even if I wasn't head line monitor because that's what I prioritize, but other people choose tests and we shouldn't fault them for that."

Heck, I almost hope the K-led Lakers win the title. Just so the coach puts out another tome on Coaching From the Heart With the Five People You Meet on Tuesdays in Heaven. I'll gladly buy the book. Then burn it.

Even if Carolina was up 40, Hansbrough didn't deserve to get whacked across the nose like that.

For his part, Hansbrough did absolutely nothing to provoke the incident. There was no escalating physical play, no aggressive move. He wasn't hot dogging or showing anyone up. He was just going up for a shot – while getting hammered, per usual – when Henderson delivered the blow.

Moreover Carolina was set to sub for Hansbrough had he made the free throw (which most people missed).

Some think Krzyzewski has lost some focus because of the pressures he's facing as coach of the Olympic team. Others think recruiting mistakes have been made. Paulus, who was rated the best point guard in the country two years ago, isn't really a point guard. Lance Thomas, who was all the rage coming out of New Jersey last year, played 20 minutes Thursday and didn't score. McRoberts puts up nice numbers but appears to believe that playing college basketball is beneath him at times. He's about as ready for the NBA as he is for Broadway, but he may very well depart after the season. If you believe what people close to the Duke program are saying, few tears will be shed in the locker room if that occurs.

Friday, the ACC announced that a time-keeping error gave Duke too much time in the final seconds of the Blue Devils' 68-66 victory against Clemson. Duke won on David McClure's shot roughly one-20th of a second before the buzzer, and while that's not tantamount to saying the clock mistake gave Duke a win -- we'll never know what Duke would have done had it known it had less time -- it's certain that the mistake gave Duke a better chance than the Blue Devils deserved.

Duke's famed student-fans, the Cameron Crazies, routinely distribute pre-game cheat sheets on the other team -- suggested chants, areas to ridicule, etc. It destroys the idea that thousands of students could spontaneously think up such brilliant cheers, but that's not the point. The point is, one such cheat sheet was distributed for the Maryland game, and somehow a Maryland fan managed to get a bogus bit of information onto it. According to the Diamondback, the fraudulent factoid centered on Terps star Nik Caner-Medley, whose girlfriend was said to be nicknamed "Piggy." During the game, the Diamondback reported, the Cameron Crazies oinked at Caner-Medley and serenaded him with chants of "Pig-gy, Pig-gy." As it turns out, Caner-Medley does not have a girlfriend whose nickname is Piggy.

But Duke does have a connection to tarnished summer coach Myron Piggie, who has admitted giving money to several of his club players, including future (and now former) Blue Devil Corey Maggette.

Fortunately for the Cameron Crazies, they didn't take the bait all the way. That same fraudulent factoid on Caner-Medley identified his girlfriend by her first name: Myra.

Imagine the sound of thousands of Duke fans chanting, "My-ra Pig-gy.

As for Lute Olson's claim that I am Dukie Vitale, not Dickie Vitale, I just laughed. I accept that comment as tongue-in-cheek

Duke has every ri