Yeah, in 2010 they said Baylor's length and athleticism would be too much for Duke. Then they said West Virginia's strength, toughness, and athleticism would be too much for Duke. I remember seeing an article written after our loss at Maryland that year that the writer thought that game showed why Maryland was better built for the tournament than Duke. Of course we all remember Pat Forde's "10 Teams that can win it all and 1 that can't" article along with Doug Gottlieb's "alarmingly unathletic" comments.
I have found CBSSports to be a bit more level-headed in regards to how it views Duke. There was a lot of praise on the CBSSports tournament show last night after the game, even Seth Davis was giving Duke's defense well deserved praise and Mateen Cleaves said he was worried about the matchup. Today they have their Final Four rankings and picks, they do have us 3rd behind Wisconsin but they say it's "centimeters" difference between Duke and Wisconsin and it's primarily based on their feel that Wisconsin has played slightly better in the tournament. Can't complain about that because our offense wasn't really there this last weekend. All but one of their "experts" picked Duke to beat Gonzaga and all but one has picked Duke to beat MSU, and unbelievably Gottlieb picked us in both matchups.
I don't really watch a whole lot of those opinion/debate driven shows on either channel though, most of it is like reality television, scripted and guided in one direction or another by writers, producers, the network, etc.
This post was edited on 3/31 12:53 AM by mo.st.dukie
