that's unfair, and tarnishes , in the eyes of a lot of fans, dukes accomplishments. with the celtics back in the day, with larry bird an them, it was the same thing. they had a bomb team, really, but when the refs were so lopsided you couldn't help but hate them for it.

>I'll give you some of that.
> I said the same
>things about jordan for years
>now. He reached on
>defense, rebounded over the back,
>leaned in to fouls after
>pump fakes, never got travelling
>called, pushed off on offense,
>etc.

i used to hate that too, because he was more than good enough to do it w/out help. in his earlier days, he didn't get those calls, but once he became the league, the refs had this unspoken thing.

But if you
>can take inventory of what
>you can get away with
>- why not do it?

of course you take advantage if you got it like that (not like you have a choice of giving the ball back).

> Jordan did it his
>whole career (as does every
>veteran in the nba)

-- uh-uh. journeyman cats who've paid dues for like 10 years get hoed on the regular by the young rookie-of-the-moment-jordan-heir. (that is, as long as they keep their image clean and are good pr for The League)

>You have to change your game
>just for Duke

-- true dat. in the maryland post, i said as much. gary williams has coached in the acc for 12 years now. he, and everybody else who follows college basketball should be used to it. lute olsen should hae schooled his kids on it by virtue of scouting tapes. STILL, it messes w/ the players heads, makes them self-conscious, tentative, and takes them out of their game.

i played football in md, but in h.s. i played bball too, in south jersey, and my school was the only predominantly black city/school in the league. bruh, we used to get cheated on in chess club and odyssey of the mind and shit. muhf*ckas like, we disqualifyin your robot. homecourt didn't matter for nothing. opposing teams would routinely shoot at least twice as many foul shots as us (and we were a squad that believed in taking it to the hole).

at least w/ duke, on nat'l tv, opponents get the courtesy of a "make-up" call every now and then, but we didn't even get that. and knowing that, and preparing for it, it still doesn't prepare you for the feeling of getting called for a foul when all you do is stand straight up and down, then you go down on the next possession and folks are just grabbing you w/ know whistle.

just as
>you had to to beat
>jordan, or dean smith (four
>corners), Wilt Chamberlain (3 second
>rule), John Wooden (damn near
>every rule at the time
>that was instituted into college
>basketball was either at his
>request or at the request
>of his opponents).
>

the interview w/ lute olsen is interesting. there's a taboo on mentioning that you got shafted by officiating. the interviewer then blatantly asked the question and he had no choice to admit that the officiating was less than stellar. of course, he was classy and tipped his hat to duke as deserving victors, but you could hear the break in his voice.

the last 5-7 minutes were relatively clean, but again, duke is a great team anyway. if you have an unseen opponent who can, at pivotal points in the game, destroy their momentum, especially in a game as streaky as basketball, you have a very, very, very good chance of winning.

back to your statement about taking advantage of the officials bias, but, as heads used to say back in the day when they were about to get jumped, i wish they'd "shoot somebody a fair one".

peace & blessings,

x.