Sometimes we wonder what it’s like: what would it be like to have one team that we could focus on and project every bad thing onto?
Most Duke fans would say UNC, but before the scandal broke, we had developed a certain respect for the Tar Heels. They did things the right way!
That’s so over now. Now it’s not a hated rival thing, it’s more just contempt - at least for us. It was all a fraud.
We really disliked Maryland but even as we did, there were guys like Greivis Vasquez who we just...liked. We thrilled to watch Juan Dixon play (other teams anyway). Steve Blake was a schmuck but by God he was a great basketball player. No one could deny it.
But we don't really have a Duke. We can’t point to Kansas or even UNLV as the font of all that is bad in college basketball.
And we don’t have a Duke villain like so many other fans have.
Right now that villain is Grayson Allen.
We understand why it happens - don’t like it but we get it. But Allen?
He’s a good kid who has worked hard to become a tremendous player. He did make a mistake last season - two in fact - but that’s not uncommon for young men. In fact it’s almost a requirement. All of us have.
The only thing he can do now is to be so good, so solid and so impressive that everyone judges him for what he does on the court.
No one has any guarantees when it comes to a national title (right Wildcats?), but winning a second one would be a great answer to the hassles he will have to face again this season.