Maryland Basketball: Is That A Sharpie In Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy To Get The Calls?

Duke Blue Devils (22-1, 10-0 ACC) at
Maryland Terrapins (15-7, 5-4 ACC)
Comcast Center - College Park, MD

First off, congrats again to Gary Williams. Finally getting that record-breaking win is a terrific accomplishment. It’s a disgrace that he hasn’t been named to the Hall of Fame yet. I’m sure the invite will be coming soon, unlike the one for Art Monk which seems like it will never be issued (more on that at another time).

All right students. You’ve waited all season for this. You’ve kept your loyalty points up all year by scanning and leaving. Now you actually have to show up for a game and make some noise. I know the concept of noise is foreign to anyone who is currently a junior or below, but it’s time to make some.

That “clean” program from Durham pays their yearly visit (although how long the Duke-Maryland guaranteed home-and-home is going to last is anyone’s guess). As soon as they enter Comcast Center, their presence alone turns what is usually a well-behaved student body into a bunch of animals for three hours. In other words, turns them into a bunch of Eagles fans. But I digress. It didn’t used to be this way. When I was an undergrad and an underclassman, we used to show up and be loud for EVERY game. Not just one or two. Again, I’ve previously talked at length about how the current group of students are horrible fans, and I don’t need to go into any more detail about that. They’ll be there for this game.

I do have some space to devote to the Duke ref bias, which has reared its ugly, Coach K-like head in the last couple of weeks. Just check out this number. Against BC and FSU, Duke shot 80 free throws. Their opponents shot 24. Just a bit of a discrepancy, wouldn’t you say? As I stated before, analysts and Duke apologists everywhere try to tell everyone willing to listen that Duke gets that advantage by attacking the basket more than other teams. Which, of course, is completely false. Duke hardly attacks the basket at all. The Dookies are a jump shooting team with Backne leading the way. They will go inside to The Rapist and Big White Stiff once and awhile, but no more than any other team. In fact, Boston College is a team that works the ball inside more often and better than most teams in the nation do because they struggle shooting from outside. So the theory that Duke attacks the basket, while teams like BC do not, is just bogus.

Here is the real reason that Duke gets the calls. Because they’re Duke. Because the higher ups at the ACC realize that this is one of the weakest products they’ve ever put out on the floor. Can anyone remember the ACC being so down? So what are conference officials to do? Just like they did in 1991, 1992 and 2001, other notable weak seasons for the ACC, they take the “best” team in conference and build them up. Similar to what the Big 12 does in football. They build them up to look unstoppable. They market the entire conference around one team, and in this case, one player, to make the conference look better than it actually is. And since the Dookies are the so-called clean cut, All-American program, they are the team that benefits from the ACC generosity and the refs incompetence. Interesting enough, ’91, ’92, and ’01 were the three worst RPI seasons in the ACC until this year. It should come as no surprise that Duke “won” the national championship all three of those seasons. So the ACC plan of building one uber-team worked. The hype machine not only got Duke through the regular season and conference tournament, but March Madness as well. Like James Earl Jones said, “If you build it, they will come.” The ACC has interpreted that to mean, “If you hype them, and give them enough calls, they will win.”(And they will make us tons of money!)

Unlike Carolina in 1993 and 2004, and unlike Maryland in 2002, Duke ran through a weak conference, with the benefit of getting calls from the refs who were under orders to do so from the league offices. As a result, they picked up a number one seed from the Tournament Committee and ran through a weak bracket on their way to championships. And just in case they run into any trouble in March, the ACC and Duke make sure the refs are similarly biased in the Final Four. In 2001, not only did horrendous officiating victimize Maryland, but Arizona as well in the championship game. Lute Olsen went on several famous tirades after the game complaining about the officials. And if it was just one coach who complained, you could ignore it as a case of sour grapes. But there have been many coaches, who have complained multiple times, about the Duke ref bias. After a while, it fails to become a series of separate incidents and instead becomes a trend and a clear-cut plot. Duke, when left to their own devises in close games, will choke more often than not. In their 2002 game against Indiana, the refs didn’t give Ratface and company the close calls. Not surprisingly, they lost to the Hoosiers. And that classy Duke program left the floor with their heads up high. If you don’t count 10th year senior Matt Christiansen physically attacking one ref while Evil Knevil Williams chased after another one while sobbing uncontrollably. No word if he did so on a motorcycle or not. Class acts all the way.

So this brings me back to last week. Duke won two games, by a total of three points, while getting almost four times as many free throws as their opponents. Again, we have a weak ACC. Again, we have a conference that needs a premier program. Again, we have multiple coaches (Seth Greenburg, Al Skinner, Leonard Hamilton) complaining about Duke getting calls. This isn’t a myth. This isn’t a conspiracy. This is happening. It is happening on the road and at home. Deron Washington getting thrown out of a game for kicking Original White Stiff, while during the same game, that same White Stiff threw multiple cheap shot elbows and got away with every one of them. There was The Rapist, nearly knocking that poor BC player unconscious in the lane late in the game, and getting away with. Then there was the situation last weekend. The Rapist got into an altercation with a FSU player. Naturally, the FSU player was tossed. Again, that “classy” Duke program can’t do anything wrong. So while playing a man down, FSU hung in there for 45 minutes if you include overtime. Still, when push came to shove, some more questionable calls down the stretch literally handed the game to the Dookies. It’s a wonder that a team that has an almost 4:1 ratio of attempted free throws can only manage to beat their opponents by a single point, at home, in overtime.

But something happened in the game against FSU. The ACC, realizing that the refs were so blatantly and obviously giving Duke calls, suspended that crew for their next assignment (We still don’t know if the ACC suspended them because they were giving an unfair advantage to the floor-slappers, or because they were giving them such an obvious advantage. Remember, the league is in this scheme too. They’ve got to be careful.). So maybe, just maybe, the officiating is starting to turn around. Maybe.

The fact of the matter is, this Duke team is not that good. They’ve run the table so far in the ACC. Oh wow, impressive. Execpt for this minor detail: the ACC hasn’t been this bad in decades. Every decent team that Duke has gone up against has given them considerable amount of trouble. They needed a half court shot to win one game. They needed the refs to win twice last week and earlier this year against Memphis. This is not a championship caliber team. This isn’t even a Final Four caliber team. One bad shooting night by Redick (who by the way, between poetry sessions, has apparently been busted for possession several times in the past few years...clean program my ass) in March, and he has had plenty of those during his career, and the Dookies are out. They will not win six games in March with a weak bench, with inconsistent offense from their role players and most importantly, with a freshman point guard. The major undoing of this team will be Greg Paulus. Mark my words. I’m saying it right now. When (not if) Duke loses in the tournament, it will be because of Paulus. Ratface is a fool for expecting a freshman point guard to lead this team.

Looking ahead to March, you can expect the NCAA to give Duke a comfy bracket. Eventually, they are going to run into a team that plays some resemblance of perimeter defense. Once they do, it will be bye-bye Ratface. Half the teams in the Big East (most notably, Connecticut, West Virginia and Pittsburgh) will either out-score the Dookies or make life miserable for Just Jumpers. Teams like Illinois, Ohio State and Wisconsin would also give Duke fits. And Oklahoma’s backcourt would have a field day against the smaller Blow Devils. Even Memphis I’m sure would love another shot with un-biased referees. Just look what Georgetown did to them. And there are plenty of teams that are much better than the Hoyas (just not in the ACC). When Duke gets knocked out, I wonder if Just Jumpers will take the Williams approach and cry or take the Christiansen approach and act like he’s in a bad episode of Cops. Either way, it will be fun to watch. I have that to look forward to next month.

I say that I have that to look forward to because I have a feeling that I won’t have much to look forward to tomorrow. Duke didn’t beat Maryland last month as much as Maryland beat themselves. Most Terps turnovers were unforced errors. I don’t expect Maryland to make that many mistakes in this game. However, whatever game plan Gary has will probably not be followed by his players. Let’s just say that falling behind by 13 to Virginia isn’t a good sign when it comes to players executing a game plan.

Again, expect this game to be closer than last time. The crowd will be in Maryland’s favor. The Dookies won’t get a chance to pull out their sharpies and sign the court, which was a ridiculous idea to begin with. Plus, I understand the Ol’ Left Hander will be in attendance. That should add a bit of emotion to the place. Still, Maryland doesn’t have much of a chance anyway. I’m picking them only for romantic, impractical reasons (hey, it’s almost Valentine’s Day). My head says Duke by at least 10. My heart says…

Maryland 80
Duke 76

Elsewhere in the ACC…

It looks like that 6-0 slate of predictions was a one time deal. I was 3-3 last week. Overall, in ACC games, I’m 31-17. Here are the picks for the weekend.

Saturday
Virginia Tech at Virginia
A battle to see which Commonwealth team is more Virginia-y. I’ll take the Hoos.
Pick: Virginia 68, Virginia Tech 60

Clemson at Boston College
Just like last week against Tech, BC will make this game a lot more interesting than it should be. The Eagles have simply not found a consistent way to use Marshall as their third scorer after Smith and Dudley.
Pick: Boston College 81, Clemson 69

Sunday
NC State at Georgia Tech
This has all the makings of a Cedric Simmons 20-point, 8 rebound type of game.
Pick: NC State 74, Georgia Tech 65

North Carolina at Miami
If you have any clue who is going to win this game, please get in contact with the Predictor before tip-off. Otherwise, I’m going to bet on Tyler Hansbrough against Miami’s weak inside defense.
Pick: North Carolina 78, Miami 74