Duke obsession

For the life of me, I cannot understand the obsession that UK fans have with Duke basketball. I'll admit that I'm not a big fan of Duke, but there's no way in Hell that I would obsess over another program that my team has only played seven times in the past 25 years. I went to the Cat's Pause message board during the basketball season, and it seemed half the posts dealt with Duke. Even with all the things happening with the UK program, there was still a topic called "Duke Sucks" with 54 responses. I realize that UK doesn't really have a true conference rival, but does anyone think that Duke fans sit around bitching about UK? WTF? The Laettner shot was years ago. Get over it. I don't hate Arkansas because U.S. Reed his a half court shot to knock Louisville out of the tournament in 1981.

The latest UK rant came on the front page of the sports section of the Lexington Herald-Leader, and if anyone thinks that newspapers don't pick wire articles to support their opinion pieces needs to read it. The gist of the article was that Mike Krzyzewski got an unfair recruiting advantage from his American Express commercial. Strangely enough, inane mouthpiece for the Big Blue Nation, John Clay, has written at least three columns criticizing that very thing while throwing out words like "reprehensible" and "nauseating". Funny. I bet his reaction would have been different if Tubby Smith was the ones in the ads. Of course, Tubby has one title in one Final Four. Coach K has three titles and nine Final Fours. I think that's the real beef here. Jealousy. UK has faced Duke five times since Coach K took over. They've lost four. American Express wanted Coach K because his success in recruiting has led to success on the court. He doesn't need the commercials for recruiting. And anyone who doesn't think Tubby Smith would have taken those commercials is in complete denial. Just get over it. Duke has surpassed UK in national prominence. But don't worry. Coach K will eventually retire and UK will probably still have Tubby.