Duke finishes the season at, well, 12-7. Odd little coincidence there.

By the way, if you are unfamiliar with the history of lacrosse, it’s worth reading about. It came originally from Native Americans, and their version of the game was vastly different than today’s.

For one, hundreds of warriors might play. For another, the “field,” for lack of a better term, could be miles long. There was immense gambling too, with stakes up to and including wives and children.

It was a central part of life among many nations for a long time.

According to Russell Shorto, in his brilliant book “The Island At The Center Of The World,” shortly before the Europeans colonized the East Coast, there was a catastrophic reduction in population, caused by exposure to European disease, with some estimates that up to 90% of the population died off.

In fact, when the Dutch and English came, one reason why they found allies among the natives was because some tribes were so decimated, and desperate, that they sought alliances with the newcomers in order to defend themselves against rival peoples.

There were many more serious things happening at that time, but you have to think that a serious disruption of the sporting tradition had to really hurt, as any lost ritual would hurt.

The Spurs continue to roll on, having put the Clips in a 3-0 straitjacket on Saturday.

Stephen Schramm points to Coach K’s last run with the Olympics as a positive, as well as Mason Plumlee’s return and Amile Jefferson’s arrival as well.

Lenox Rawlings questions whether or not Jefferson is an immediate game changer, and he may well not be, at least not in the conventional sense. As a freshman he won’t have to be.

If he is solid defensively, that could be a game changer in and of itself.

Schramm might have mentioned, perhaps in conjunction with Jefferson, the arrival of Rasheed Sulaimon.

The two of them together could nail down a ferocious defense. Plumlee has been an excellent defender throughout his career, and Tyler Thornton is very tough on D. Having that many defenders will mean lots of blocks, turnovers and fast breaks, which is probably what the staff, and fans, prefer.

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Still, it’s certainly not likely to lessen the love-’em-and-leave-’em faction at FSU and perhaps Miami (the ‘Canes may have at least temporarily limited options due to the football scandal, which is likely to limit talent, wins and at least for a while, hubris).

The ACC is outside looking in at the moment and will have to be creative to deal with this.

One of the things we’d like to see, assuming it’s okay by the NCAA, is a league-run scouting program, one which is relentlessly thorough and which distributes the same information to each school.

We’d also like to see a league-wide commitment to using bleeding edge technology wherever possible, although we’re not sure how or where. We do know that the NBA is starting to use analytics in a fascinating way, just as MLB has. Perhaps that’s a starting point.

Who knows? As Pete Thamel says, things may not work out until a playoff system is settled. Wherever it goes, we hope that the ACC is smarter. If you can’t be bigger, you pretty much have to be smarter.

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