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As Duke fans, watching the news break of Mike Krzyzewski’s retirement was pretty personal. He’s always seemed like someone we know very well even though we don’t know him at all, having only spoken to him a couple of times over the years (Boswell is a different story there). We seriously doubt he has any idea who any of us are except for Barry and Jim.
So we’ve processed the news in a different way than other fan bases might and have covered his retirement plan with more affection than most sites.
Not that we’d expect UNC, Kentucky or Maryland fans to genuflect or anything but you get our point.
We have to give it up to our friends over at the Loud House, a Syracuse site, where they’ve been very clever about using the retirement news to generate traffic. The latest example is a list of recruits that Duke took away from Syracuse over the years. Here’s who they feature:
- Jordan Tucker
- Patrick Tapé
- Alex Murphy
- Greg Paulus
Not to knock any of these guys, but other than Paulus, a guy we respect immensely for never complaining or making excuses when his playing time shrunk, none of them did much at Duke or after.
They might have listed Jay Bilas, because he’s said he seriously considered Syracuse. He might seem like an odd fit basketball wise, but for all we know, he might have already been thinking about a broadcast career and Syracuse’s S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications has cranked out tons of talent, including Marv Albert, Bob Costas, Ian Eagle, Pete Thamel and Mike Tirico, among many others.
And we don’t know if Christian Laettner seriously considered Syracuse, but we do know Jim Boeheim wanted him to. And then there’s Greg Newton who grew up just across the border from Niagara Falls. Both of those guys should fall in what you might call Syracuse’s Sphere of Influence.
Finally they might have listed the one guy Syracuse did get, in the end anyway: Michael Gbinije, who started at Duke before transferring to Syracuse where he had an admirable career.