Just in time for tomorrow’s first televised game, the good folks at Grantland are running my primer on the ‘Friendship Games.’
When you’re finished, come back here and click “continue reading” for some bonus content below.
This is placeholder post. I prepared a Duke goes to China primer last night, but Grantland wants to use it so I’ll be linking to that this afternoon.
For now, Duke is playing its first game against the Chinese U-23 national team in Kunshan. It’s the only one of the team’s four games that wont be televised, and Taylor Doherty’s Chronicle live blog isn’t working, so I’m following @DukeBluePlanet’s twitter feed.
GOD, what is this, 1930? But with twitter?
Today, in advance of Duke’s first games in China, I’m introducing a new feature. The premise is simple- I evaluate the twitter accounts of every Duke basketball player for the past week, list the highlights, and give them an entertainment score out of 10. Here’s the official logo:
The word I would use to describe my rating system is “holistic.” There are no formulas, no science, just the feeling I get in my gut. Here’s where it gets really tough: whoever wins the week with the highest score will have to face Kendall Marshall, who reliably has some of the strangest, funniest, and weirdest tweets of any athlete I’ve come across. If a Dukie can do the unthinkable and take him down, the Tobacco Road Twitter Belt will be theirs.
Now, in order from worst to first, here’s how the week played out in the twitter world of Duke basketball.
Every Monday, we'll be choosing one comment from the previous week that made our hearts swell with joy, pride, or love. Then we'll be choosing another that made the rest of our organs swell with shame, hilarity, or disgust. All comments are printed as written.
There was some great stuff last week, but the positive comment of the week is a no-brainer. It comes from a reader named Dot Harward on Devil Wolf's excellent Duke football post:
Loved your article! I have loved Duke football as a child then as a Duke grad. At 82 years I still love Duke football. Now at 82 years I find it difficult to walk from the parking lot to the stadium, but I am determind to be ther this year.
YES, DOT! YES!
New readers –
This is launch week on Tobacco Road Blues, the new site dedicated to Duke and UNC sports. This afternoon's post comes from Nate Friedman, a contributing writer and the first fully-UNC affiliated author on the site. He'll be covering UNC sports, and football in particular. If you're interested in writing for TRB, follow the contact link to the right. Enjoy.
-Shane
“It doesn’t make sense.”
I’m echoing several national-level writers, including ESPN’s Pat Forde and Heather Dinich, as well as CBS’ front man Gregg Doyel. All said that UNC had legitimate reason for firing head coach Butch Davis (Doyel in particular wanted his head on a platter) on Wednesday, July 27. All suggested this was a long time coming. All were shocked at the timing of the decision.
I understand the calls for Davis’ head, despite his relatively clean hands through this whole sordid affair. When the NCAA’s improper benefits investigation ballooned into a full-fledged scandal involving a tutor, academic plagiarism, and looming sanctions, it became seriously hard to believe the administration line that Davis knew nothing.
Did Davis orchestrate this whole mess?
An hour ago, I got this text from my girlfriend:
"Omg Tyler Hansboro is in my yoga class."
As many readers know, I have a special affinity for the big fella who never lost in Cameron. Normally, I would've been at this class with her, but a knee injury suffered last night while playing ping pong has me sidelined. DAMN YOU, CURS'ED LIFE!
I told her to remember EVERYTHING, but I think the text arrived late. Still, she came away with some good details. Here now is her full report of the episode I'm calling
(Props to @chrisalyss for the wordlplay.)
Girlfriend:
So I'm waiting in the lobby a few minutes before class starts, and a really tall guy with a dark-haired friend came in. He walked to the desk, and the woman there asked if he'd ever been to the studio before.
New readers –
This is launch week on Tobacco Road Blues, the new site dedicated to Duke and UNC sports. Today, we’re changing it up. This morning’s post comes from Devil Wolf, a new contributing writer. It was originally posted here. As you’ll see, he’s a huge Duke football fan, and he wrote this wonderful essay to express what that label means. If you’re interested in writing for TRB, follow the contact link to the right. Enjoy.
-Shane
“Well, who do you cheer for during football season?”
And just like that, the conversation ended.
We were having a great time in Washington, DC last summer at this really nice outdoor bar in the courtyard of a downtown hotel. My friends and I were in town for a wedding, and like most conversations at most bars, we all began talking about sports. I ended up with a group from the other half of the wedding party, a nice group of folks with a passion for soccer hailing from Philadelphia and Chicago mainly, and I was holding court defending my beloved Reds from Liverpool against the group who were all Arsenal supporters. “Is soccer your favorite sport?” they asked. “Well, I love soccer, but where I’m from our first love is college sports,” I replied. “Yeah I bet, Tarheel country right?” But even that didn’t ruin the great mood I was in. “Big Duke fan,” I said. “We pretty much hate the Tarheels.” They laughed, and we shared a few jokes at the expense of the evil empire over there in Chapel Hill, and then it happened …
New readers –
This is launch week on Tobacco Road Blues, the new site dedicated to Duke and UNC sports. All week, we’re going to be running two of the ‘greatest hits’ from Seth Curry Saves Duke!, our previous blog, every day. The new content begins on Monday the 15th.
Today’s afternoon post was written on April 6, 2010, the morning after Duke beat Butler for the national championship. As you will see, I had a bee in my bonnet about the perception of Duke and all the hate, so I felt the need to write this diatribe. This was me at my most partisan, and I hesitated to include it here just because it won’t necessarily be the tone of this site. But it did have an impact, and anyway, tomorrow we’re going to feature some Carolina writers. So this will be a final hurrah, a nostalgic tip of the cap to extremism. Enjoy.
-Shane
Here’s the problem with all the Duke haters: they don’t allow for any gray area.
New readers –
This is launch week on Tobacco Road Blues, the new site dedicated to Duke and UNC sports. All week, we’re going to be running two of the ‘greatest hits’ from Seth Curry Saves Duke!, our previous blog, every day. The new content begins on Monday the 15th.
Today’s morning post is actually a compilation of all the “graphic illustrations” produced in the last year. I put that term in quotes because using it without them would probably insult anyone who did actual graphic illustrations. A great professor named Bart Wojdynski taught me how to use Adobe Illustrator at some point in February, probably thinking I would use the knowledge for something educational or morally uplifting. Didn’t happen. Everything that follows is crude, and the bias level is high in a way that will be less typical of TRB. Enjoy.
-Shane
My first effort, the “Choose Your ACC Team” flowchart, done in early January
New readers –
This is launch week on Tobacco Road Blues, the new site dedicated to Duke and UNC sports. All week, we’re going to be running two of the ‘greatest hits’ from Seth Curry Saves Duke!, our previous blog, every day. The new content begins on Monday the 15th.
Today’s afternoon post was written on November 13th, 2009, as Duke prepared to play its first game against UNC-Greensboro. It was the season preview for the basketball team that went on to win the national title. I’m including this one because while going through my old posts, I couldn’t help but notice the first sentence under the “prognosis” section:
There’s no way this team contends for a title.
Even back then, my predicting instincts were keen. Enjoy.
-Shane
Let’s get (deep, restorative breath)….pumped.
First, hot off the presses, one of our starters is out with a broken wrist. His name is Mason Plumlee (younger brother of current Dukie Miles), and he looks like this: Continue reading