After a couple of days worth of articles, one thing is pretty clear: there's a
lot of strong emotion coming from the Kansas side, and it's not the Kumbayah type, either.
An article yesterday talked about the periodically tense relationship between Roy
Williams and Coach K - at least from Roy's perspective. Another featured Nick
Collison talking about his recruitment and his feelings about Duke.
Today? Well, Keith
Langford is tactfully neutral ("Ive never had any feelings about Duke," he
told the Herald-Sun. Ill just let Duke be Duke." ), Jeff Graves is
providing some bulletin board material ("I always hated Duke,
especially when Laettner hit that shot. Some people like me want to play against
Duke. Ive always wanted to beat them."), and a guy who writes for KUSports.com
just finds Duke, well, evil.
With an attitude like that, this guy should move to College Park. He'd fit right
in.
We don't hate Kansas, at least not here at DBR. We don't pull
for them - Mizzou is our Big 12 school, of course - but you'd have to be crazy not
to respect Kansas basketball. First of all, it's the birthplace of the game.
Secondly, they have one of the great gyms in all of basketball. Third, Roy Williams
is a tremendous coach who pulled their biscuits out of the fire after Larry Brown left
them high and dry and on probation, and there's never been a whiff of impropriety about
his program.
We do find his fairly predictable petulance over various things
(the Internet stands out in our memory) to be irritating, but it's not like he has to
consider our opinions or anything.
About the only thing you can pick on Kansas about is their
post-season record, but that's always kind of a red herring.
Anyway, just to be clear, it's not like we hate Kansas. We
consider them every bit Duke's equal and we have great respect for their team and the
immense tradition. We hope it's a great game, and that both teams play with heart
and passion, as they always