Category: College Basketball

Bleeding Blue Devil Blue, Part II

As I consider how I came to bleed Blue Devil Blue, it occurs to me that it was about much more than basketball, although that’s where it started.

Growing up in Southwest Virginia in the 1970s, it was a rite of passage to develop a reliable jump shot because you never knew when a pick-up game would break out on some dusty, country court near you. In those days you didn’t run down to Wal-Mart for a prefabricated, adjustable, pop-up goal. My Dad fashioned mine from wood the old-fashioned way–very slowly, by hand–and set it at the regulation 10 feet.

At first, I was so small that my only hope of making a basket was to stand directly beneath the goal and fling the ball upward in a desperate Rick Barry-style underhand heave.… Read the rest

Bleeding Blue Devil Blue, Part I

At the stroke of twelve on a crisp mid-October night, madness ensues–the fanatical screams of blue-blooded partisans comingle with the metronomic thump of leather on a freshly waxed hardwood floor…

College hoops is in the air and just in the nick of time, babyyyy! Having endured the most boring World Series in recent memory (told you so) and the inauspicious debut of the “new” NHL, many are restless for a more adventurous journey in sport. The road to the 2006 Final Four will be long and arduous, ending in April in Indianapolis in what will surely be (because it always is) the most closely contested and nailbiting finish to any sport in America.… Read the rest

Finally

The messiah is coming. No, not that messiah, the one that is going to rescue USA basketball from total implosion. It looks like Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski ( Coach K) is going to get the nod and none too soon I might add. Rather than begging off and heading to the Bahamas next time the Olympics roll around, Kobe and company will be falling over each other to play for this guy. He quite simply is the best in the business and is the definition of the word class.
… Read the rest