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If you’ve never listened to JJ Redick’s podcast The Old Man and the Three, you’re missing a good one. Redick is an interesting and articulate host who has definite opinions and who can draw his guests out. It’s a good time most episodes.
In his most recent episode, Redick had Atlanta Hawk and former Maryland Terrapin Kevin Huerter on and naturally, Duke-Maryland came up. Here’s what Redick said:
“We got bring back a just a Duke-Maryland classic. Again, it’s a non-rivalry. I’m not saying Maryland’s a rival, but Maryland fans ... Maryland fans are responsible for three years of therapy.”
Don’t encourage them, JJ.
For his part, Huerter said this, and in some ways, his comments are more interesting:
“That’s all people talk about. Oh my God. I don’t think I could walk through campus without someone coming out to me and talking about how they were in the ACC and when we were playing UNC, when we were playing Duke. And there’s still so many fans in Maryland, obviously that they want to play Duke again, but want to be back in the ACC. So we got to definitely bring back some of those.”
Honestly we’ve pretty much lost track of Maryland. We were aware of Huerter in college but only barely. The Terps just fell off our radar and like Redick, and most Duke fans, we never saw them the way they saw us.
Case in point: one year when Maryland was pretty good - really good actually - we had an extra ticket.
Couldn't sell it.
When we got to the point where we were ready to give it away, we couldn’t find anyone to take it.
So it was never the same for Duke fans.
Nonetheless, it’s interesting to hear that Maryland fans don’t just miss Duke but the ACC and some, anyway, would like to come back.
How would that go over?
Well in the age of expansion maybe it would. Someone said somewhere the other day that the two most logical expansion targets for the ACC were Maryland and South Carolina. South Carolina would be taking a pay cut from the SEC so that seems unlikely but it’s an interesting argument.