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Duke Basketball 2023-2024

What fate awaits this Duke team?

  • Total voters
    29
  • Poll closed .
I'll happily chill with the Rome's rule stuff, which really is mostly tongue in cheek, even if I do tend to think the suffering and pleasure come in cycles. I'd like to point out that I always post about the "good cycles" too. But I don't think a New Orleans outcome actually determines a Duke outcome.

ETA: And by "chill," I just mean I'll only post about it once a week instead of daily. But if UNC wins tonight, New Orleans loses tonight, and Duke loses tomorrow, I'm spamming that shit.
 
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Durham, I agree with everything you said. I took a break from being an involved fan a few years ago and it did wonders from my mental health. My extreme negativity about the program was preventing me from enjoying CBB almost entirely (always enjoyed the women’s game, and although I support the Duke program, I am not attached as a fan so I’m watching any women’s college basketball purely for entertainment). I do feel like, as a fan base, we have been unable to have perspective that allows us to actually enjoy and anticipate watching the games.

Taking a break from watching, taking a big break from being an active poster on here, and not following recruiting anymore has done wonders for my enjoyment of the program. I have enjoyed the first two years with Jon more than I enjoyed any season since 2010 (probably the last time I truly enjoyed watching).
 
Thinking about it more (and actually reading the long posts), I have to push back some. I LIKE the tone of this place.

I will be disappointed if this is no longer a place where I can express my torturous position of feeling like I have to keep up with this sport and simultaneously hating it and feeling it's terrible for my mental and physical health. There's literally nowhere else I can express that.

I don't think Duke Twitter gets more right in their fandom. To me, they're actually worse about celebrating the moment. They're constantly dismissing the current players and looking ahead for saviors. They don't focus much on process, only results. For all our negativity, I do think this board is much better about dissecting the actual mechanics of the game and analyzing stuff through a process-oriented lens. They also wildly overreact to every win and loss.
 
Speaking only for myself, I was in my 20s when this site started up. I’m 40 now, so I’m a lot grumpier and more pessimistic about everything, not just Duke basketball.

As far as not watching games live, I’ve had kids in that time which definitely changed my perspective on whether or not watching sporting events live is important to me. Priorities have certainly changed. And like Rome, I can’t control my emotions watching a damn basketball game, so it’s better for me to avoid it, especially if I’m trying to be any kind of example to my kids.
 
Also staying away from KP has really enhanced my enjoyment this year. I still check it out occasional but I no longer go there after every game. I no longer fret about “not winning by enough”, I no longer gets pissed off when in the middle of a blowout a walk on from the other team banks in a 3 point heave. I can feel happy for him instead of going”fuck that just ruined our defensive efficiency for this game”.
 
physicsfactor said:
Speaking only for myself, I was in my 20s when this site started up. I’m 40 now, so I’m a lot grumpier and more pessimistic about everything, not just Duke basketball.

As far as not watching games live, I’ve had kids in that time which definitely changed my perspective on whether or not watching sporting events live is important to me. Priorities have certainly changed. And like Rome, I can’t control my emotions watching a damn basketball game, so it’s better for me to avoid it, especially if I’m trying to be any kind of example to my kids.
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You don't feel this way about the football program I imagine. I get Duke Basketball will never feel like rooting for a startup again, even if I think shedding K's baggage should have been a move closer to that direction. But to put it succinctly while I have no issue with this pathology being expressed -- even if I increasingly find myself less able to relate to it, especially as you describe it intensifying -- as part of a broader discourse and interaction, I do wish the board ethos(?) was less centered on it the way I perceive it has become the last season or two. Like, normatively, it makes sense the median perspective and attitude should be of one that can bring themselves to watch the games live, yes? I feel sometimes like i'm ten years old again at my old jewish grandparents' table listening to them talk

There's no consequence to this, it's not like a make or break issue, this board is still 9/10 in quality with no other Duke fandom corner of the internet coming even close, so I don't want anyone to feel like they have to justify themselves against my regurgitations, I will stand down and let this thread return to its regular programming.
 
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Yeah idk, I found the vibe on the board to be as close to perfect as you can get on a sports forum until the Scheyer era began. Last couple years just haven’t been as good there from my perspective, either.
 
DurhamSon said:
physicsfactor said:
Speaking only for myself, I was in my 20s when this site started up. I’m 40 now, so I’m a lot grumpier and more pessimistic about everything, not just Duke basketball.

As far as not watching games live, I’ve had kids in that time which definitely changed my perspective on whether or not watching sporting events live is important to me. Priorities have certainly changed. And like Rome, I can’t control my emotions watching a damn basketball game, so it’s better for me to avoid it, especially if I’m trying to be any kind of example to my kids.
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You don't feel this way about the football program I imagine. I get Duke Basketball will never feel like rooting for a startup again, even if I think shedding K's baggage should have been a move closer to that direction. But to put it succinctly I while I have no issue with this pathology being expressed -- even if I increasingly find myself less able to relate to it, especially as you describe it intensifying as part of a broader discourse and interaction -- I do wish the board ethos(?) was less centered on it the way I perceive it has become the last season or two.

There's no consequence to this, it's not like a make or break issue, this board is still 9/10 in quality with no other Duke fandom corner of the internet coming even close, so I don't want anyone to feel like they have to justify themselves against my regurgitations, I will stand down and let this thread return to its regular programming.
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No, I don’t get as emotional about the football team or any other “favorite” team of mine in any other league. It’s always been that way for me with Duke basketball. Not sure why, but as long as I’ve been a Duke basketball fan, I’ve been maniacal.
 
I actually watch more games live now than I did the last couple of years of K's tenure. If there's a player I truly enjoy watching (like Zion or McCain), I'll make sure I watch it live, win or lose. I enjoyed Paolo a lot but not at the level of the other two in terms of pure enjoyment. The UNC final four game broke me in the sense of losses no longer stick with me for more than an hour or two. Edibles help too with that.

I think the other thing that has helped me is that I have given up on the notion that Duke should win every game or it's a failure. I definitely had that mentality with K's teams in my younger years. It's a new, first-time head coach and there are going to be growing pains. As long as the product on the court is watchable and they're competitive against the best teams, then I can and will be patient.

All that being said, if they had a team full of guys who couldn't shoot, I'm skipping. A watchable offense and a team that gets better on defense as the season goes along is all I need to stay engaged and continue to watch live.
 
Devilsforlife said:
I’ve actually taken some of the recent football losses harder than any post-K basketball loss. Both UNC games, ND, and FSU left me more upset than even the second UNC game this year. If you’d have told my 2006 self that, I’d have never believed it for a single second.
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Those FSU/ND games definitely had me irate afterwards. The UNC games, not so much solely because Duke gets fucked every year they play them so mentally, I just expect that Duke will need to overcome some bullshit to win or it's another L. Been remarkably consistent over the years in ACC football.
 
One of the reasons why late-stage Coach K was so exhausting as a fan is because we are clearly 1.) the biggest brand in the sport by far and 2.) by the far most hated team in the country. Everything Coach K and Duke did was under a microscope, with outsiders searching for anything, anywhere, to criticize and attack Duke/Coach K. What made this is worse, is that late-stage Coach K added to this by really leaning into it and embracing the "GOAT" talk which was pumped out a ton by alumni and the Duke social media accounts. As a result, it felt like we always had to defend him and his legacy even when we didn't. Once Grayson started tripping people that became fatiguing because no one actually wanted to defend that but we did it anyway, lol.

The media had been crushing Duke and Coach K from the time we got eliminated in the 2006 S16 by LSU all the way up until beating Butler. JJ was hated, Paulus was mocked, UNC was killing it from 2005-2009, we couldn't land big men recruits, we kept having humiliating NCAAT losses, and it just felt like Duke and Coach K were slipping and that this was "late stage" K where he was hitting the decline and not going to find it. 2010 changed everything because no one besides KenPom actually thought Duke could win it all. Everyone was expecting some athletic team to kill Duke in the NCAAT again. Coach K had just won the Gold Medal in 2008, he stunned CBB with the 2010 title, and then when Nolan and Kyle returned for their senior seasons along with Kyrie coming in, it just felt like Duke was BACK, and we were. The mood shifted, and Duke and Coach K took control of the narrative again after about 4-5 years of Duke fading. But when they took control of the narrative, they really rode it hard and raised the expectations of the fanbase even higher, IMO.
 
I like the general vibe too, but I do think we could probably tone down the "suck all joy out of positive moments" strategies a bit. That's where I feel like things sometimes cross from amusing and relevant sarcasm to pointless masochism and self-trolling.

(And I'm well aware I'm as guilty as anybody of this.)
 
The kind of negativity that bothers me is when after a good win everything good we did is dismissed and everything negative we did is highlighted.

To me, that's a very different kind of negativity than predicting a loss before every game. That's being a pessimist. The other version is being unable to enjoy anything.
 
DurhamSon said:
^^^ I'm declaring an interdiction on this low-rent, sad sack, superstitious, mopey shit, no offense, this isn't directed to you or anyone in particular.

It's been mostly fun but I think sometime in the last two years it's passed from tongue-in-cheek frivolity to actually unhealthy, repulsive, and somewhat pathetic. I love most of the posters themselves but when we're swapping tales about squinting/obscuring the score for the other team on our phones just to be able to track it ffs -- because nobody watching the games live is taken for granted -- or just whining endlessly and reflexively about how Duke is going to lose, or the indulgence in suffering fantasies, relitigating the past, or attempting to scry vis-a-vis results in other sports and non-sports domains every single day and other superstitious recitations of rules/laws, it's grating no matter how much meta-irony it's supposed to be underpinned with. I've been on this board in all iterations for thirteen years, and been guilty of some of this behavior on more than one occasion, but there's a limit on tolerable cynicism and I think that's now been passed. I believe there's a balance to be struck between say, DBR, and what has become of this board, that would be a much healthier way to consume Duke Basketball for all involved, in my opinion. Duke Twitter is actually worse about this with regards to Scheyer but I think much closer to the mark in their attitude towards Duke basketball fandom long-term and game to game. Like just a little more joy would go a long way, to put it (probably too) simply. I want to revel, boast and take collective pleasure in kicking other teams’ asses or relishing the idea of doing so to our next opponent no matter the chances. I wish I could articulate this better because I don’t want it associated with the genre of simple minded fan who doesn’t countenance any criticism whatsoever that we’ve all rightly ridiculed over the years, and I do unironically still think this is by far the smartest and most realistic collection of Duke fans anywhere

Didn't want to write a tome about this, just something that's bubbled over in my mind as I stepped back the last two weeks, not a call to fight anyone, I'm still trying to improve this mindset in myself.
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