100 Seasons of Duke Basketball: A Legacy of Achievement

Rating:
Summary: Brill the best
Review: I worked for Bill Brill for 15 years. Not only is he the ranking authority on Duke history; he's the guy I ask when I want to know what's happening with the program right now. He's my kind of writer; he's informative and readable.

Rating:
Summary: More than just a story, it's memories
Review: In 1905, the coach at Wake Forest proposed that his basketball team play the team from Duke (then called Trinity). Duke didn't have a team, so they organized one, practiced for three weeks and hosted the visiting Wake Forest team. Duke lost 24-10. Thus began the legend.

This book covers that game in some detail, and then covers the coaches and players that have created the legacy. This is an unabashed feel good book. The author has been watching Duke basketball since his freshman year of 1948. This is his third book on Duke basketball. He is a member of the U.S. Basketball writers Hall of Fame.


Rating:
Summary: Perfect for basketball mavens
Review: No one, with the possible exception of Mike Krzyzewski, understands and appreciates Duke basketball like Bill Brill. He attended Duke as a student, and as a journalist covered each of the Blue Devils' 14 Final Four appearances. His insight and passion are obvious in his writing, whether he's chronicling old-timers from his era, or hip-hoppers from the 21st century. This book makes an ideal holiday gift, not only for Duke fanatics, but also anyone who applauds excellence in college athletics.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent ---- Duke at its best!
Review: This book contains a foreword written by a CLASS ACT, Mike Krzyzewski. Much unlike Gary Williams, who pulled Tamir Goodman's scholarship according to my sources. Inside you will learn how the Blue Devils win with class ----- and as a result are the envy of the ACC. Aside from discussing Casey Sander's arrest and JJ Redick's drug abuses, the author does a great job providing an inside view of the finest collegiate institute in America.

Rating:
Summary: Coach K you basta, you owe me for last year
Review: Yeah, he's a good coach all right--long as he dont forget on which side his bread is buttered. If you get my drift.

We've always made sure that Duke is the only team in America that plays perimeter ball yet gets dozens more charity shots than their oppoenent.

10, 15 extra shots a game? Thats worth a bob or two, I figure.

Anyway, you know what to do K. Wojo's been a little bit slow coming around this month. Catch my drift?

You gotta big game comin up against Tech. YOu gonna need us. DOnt let what happened to you in the Ucon game happen again.

And I DONT appreciate gettin yelled at! You dont have to reggie love me, but your gonna respect me.

Catch my drift?

Guy from Maryland named 74umgrad broke this down pretty good. I didn think that anyone was on to us for all that!

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I thought I'd take the time to do some research on the free throw as it has affected the outcome of ACC games since the entry of Florida State into the conference in the 1991-1992 school year through the end of the 2002-2003 school year.

I looked at all games played during these twelve years between conference teams, both in the regular season and post-season, and I concentrated on games where the winning team scored fewer baskets from the floor (two- and three-point baskets counted the same in my analysis) than the losing team. I then looked at the free-throw differential in these games, and further tracked those games where the winning team scoring fewer field goals made up the difference with at least eight more free throw attempts than the losing team.

Data available does not take into account the ebb and flow of a game, when during the game the free throws were attempted, and all sorts of other issues.

I selected a difference of eight free throws or greater because in close games, one team will start fouling the other to get the ball back, and this can inflate the differential to a meaningless number. I found the following:

Duke 164-57, 33-7
UNC 142-79, 29-8
UMD 125-90, 14-26
Wake 124-90, 27-12
Tech 93-118, 16-17
UVA 92-116, 18-21
FSU 79-130, 16-31
NCSt 75-141, 16-23
Clem 68-141, 6-30

The first set of numbers represents the won-lost record of the team in all games against conference teams, whether during the regular season or in post-season play. The second set of numbers represents the team's record in what I call "close games", those games where the winning team scored fewer field goals but had a free throw differential of at least eight more attempts than the losing team. Some observations:

1 - There are only three teams with winning records in the close games, and they are all Tobacco Road teams. They are dominant, with winning percentages in these games of 83% (Duke), 78% (UNC), and 69% (Wake).

2- There are clearly two tiers of teams here; yet, Maryland, in the upper tier, has a worse record in the close games than all but bottom-feeder Clemson.

3 - Maryland has the highest percentage of close losses of any team in the conference, at 29%. FSU is a distant second at 24%.

4 - 1Wake Forest, 1NC State, at 122%, 121%, has the highest percentage of close wins in the conference, closely followed by 1NC State at 21% and UNC, FSU, and Duke, all at just over 20%. Maryland is eighth of nine in this category at 11%, ahead of only Clemson at 9%


Some other interesting numbers occured on a year-by-year basis:

1 - In 1992, when Duke won the national championship, they had a 17-2 record against conference teams. Seven of those games were close games, by my definition, and the Devils won all of them. In 1995, when the Devils were 2-14 in the regular season, both of their wins were close wins. Only in 1996 and 2003, when they were 1-3 and 0-1, did Duke have a losing record in close games.

2 - Duke was 10-7 in all games against conference opponents in 1993, and was 5-0 in close games.

3 - North Carolina did not have a losing record in close games in any of the twelve seasons; in fact, during the last two years, when their combined record against conference opponents was 11-24, the Heels were 5-1 in close games. Over the twelve-year period, North Carolina had some truly astounding free-throw advantages in some of the close wins: 33-9, 32-7, 24-5, and a breathtaking 31-2 advantage in a game against Florida State.

4 - During the four-year period from 1994 to 1998, part of which time Tim Duncan played at Wake Forest, the Deacons, 49-24 against conference foes, were 16-0 in close games. During the 2002-2003 season, when Wake Forest was 14-4 against ACC teams, they were 4-0 in close games, with advantages in free throw attempts of 20, 20, 24, and 29 against FSU, Tech, Maryland, and Clemson, respectively.

5 - Maryland has had a winning record in close games only in 1995 (2-1) and in 2002 (1-0), the year of the national championship.

6 - Of the four national champions to come from the ACC in this twelve-year period - Duke in 1992, North Carolina in 1993, Duke in 2001, and Maryland in 2002 - the Terps were the only team to have no close wins in the NCAA Tournament. Duke's six-game run to the 1992 championship included four close wins.