Is A Bit Of Negativity Seeping In?

If it is, we can all help.

Over at the News & Observer, Steve Wiseman has a column up about how Duke has played since losing at UNC on February 3rd.

Since then, he points out, Duke beat Notre Dame 71-53, Boston College 80-65, Wake Forest 77-69 and Florida State 76-67.

And as he also points out, Duke has won 15 of its last 17 games and not many teams can say that.

And over the weekend when the selection committee announced the first look at the top sixteen seeds, Duke got a #3.

Preliminary of course, but still good.

So overall, we’d have to say things are going pretty well.

And yet we’ve seen something twice now that really must be addressed. It’s got nothing to do with the team but rather fans and expectations.

Jon Scheyer said this after Duke’s win over Wake Forest: “I thought Mark and Flip were men. I thought they were really tough tonight. And these guys, anybody who doubts their toughness, or what they’re about, they don’t know Mark Mitchell, and they don’t know Kyle Filipowski.”

Then we saw this from Dave Bradley about fans and while we may be leaping to conclusions here, it’s hard not to put two and two together.

Let’s go back over a few things.

First, while no one is talking about the Transition much anymore, it’s not done. Jon Scheyer is just 61 games into what we hope is a long career at Duke. He’s started to put his stamp on the program, but he hasn’t even finished his second season. We’d very much like for him to retire here.

So far, he’s winning nearly 80 percent of his games. He’s currently at 47-14 (.770). The situations are obviously very different, but after his first two seasons in Durham, Mike Krzyzewski was 27-30.

In his first two seasons in Chapel Hill, Dean Smith was 23-15.

On a more contemporary note, UConn’s Danny Hurley was 33-29. Gonzaga’s Mark Few? 52-16. Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd? 61-11. Kentucky’s John Calipari? 64-12.

Most of them have something in common though: they had previous coaching experience. This was not true for Smith and Lloyd, who both stepped into interesting situations. Smith followed Frank McGuire, who had won a national championship just a few years prior. Lloyd followed Sean Miller, who left Arizona in the wake of the FBI scandal. But Arizona has sustained success since the mid 1980’s.

Scheyer has been successful but his situation is very challenging: he’s following Mike Krzyzewski, possibly the best coach of all time and who was at Duke for 42 years.

Scheyer is off to a great start but for some fans, it’s not enough. And this is really stupid for several reasons.

First, we want him to do well, obviously. And the best way for anyone to succeed is to have a positive environment.

And the second part is probably more important and that’s the players.

Scheyer at one point did say something about just being in his second year, which we took to mean he was still shaping his program to his liking. For one thing, as Scott pointed out the other day, one of his goals is to have an older program and you can’t really build that in two years.

However, if you think it’s tough for him, imagine how unpleasant it would be for his players, most of whom are under 20.

Ripping people on social media, saying terrible things...they consume it as much as the rest of us do. What good could it possibly do to rip, say, Kyle Filipowski? Does it make you feel better, keeping in mind that he’s vastly better at basketball than most of us could ever dream of? What’s the point of making teenagers miserable?

That’s not to say that anyone is above criticism. That’s silly. In fact, we pointed out that Filipowski only got one rebound against Notre Dame, but that seems like a reasonable criticism, particularly when 6-3 Jared McCain got 10.

This is the basic point: we want Scheyer to stay here and we want the players he brings to Duke to be happy. Right?

For an example of how to fail, let’s look at UCLA.

When John Wooden won his last title in 1975, a student ran up to him and said it made up for not winning in 1974.

He’d won seven straight and nine total. That’s not good enough? He needs to “make up” for anything?

His replacement Gene Bartow lasted two years. His first year, he got to the Final Four, finishing 28-4. The next year, he was 24-5 and got to the Sweet Sixteen.

Gary Cunningham was 50-8. He was gone in two years.

Larry Brown? 42-17 and played for the title in his first year.

Gone in two.

Larry Farmer was 61-23.

Gone in three.

Walt Hazzard? 77-47, two NIT bids, gone in four.

Jim Harrick appeared to have a stable program for eight seasons, finishing with a 192-62 record and the 1994-95 national championship, but he was fired for lying.

He was followed by the charismatic yet erratic Steve Lavin, who was followed by Ben Howland, who got UCLA to three Final Fours.

Howland was followed by Steve Alford who was followed by the current coach Mick Cronin.

It would be hard to understate how much that level of instability screwed the program up and if anyone has forgotten the hostility that surrounded Steve Alford, well, think Jeff Bzdelik at Wake Forest only with UCLA’s harsh klieg lights instead.

If you want another example, look at how Kentucky won the national title in 1978 (over Duke) and the team didn’t seem overjoyed, like most teams are. They didn’t even seem to enjoy it.

They just seemed relieved - and that was without social media.

If you want to encourage that kind of atmosphere in Cameron, by all means post negative stuff. Rip players. Rip the coach who is working on an 80 percent win rate. Say nasty things about people you don’t know and make teenagers feel terrible about themselves.

Welcome to Pauley Pavilion, Duke fans. Welcome to Rupp.

Alternatively, we can act like Duke fans, and that means...well, what does it mean? What does it mean to be a Duke fan?

Well first, it means not acting like UCLA, Kentucky or UNC fans. We have no right to anything so stop acting like you do.

It also means that we should be supportive of our team in the ways that Duke fans have always been.

If you’re just here for the reflected glory, well, there are lots of places to get that kind of thing. You don’t have to be a Duke fan.

But if you are, please act like Duke fans act. Be positive. Be supportive. Be proud, because there is a lot to be proud of. As Coach K said once or twice after a loss, put on your Duke shirt. Be proud.

Be part of it. Help make it an environment where Scheyer can’t imagine himself anywhere else and where the tradition continues to evolve, where young players see Cameron on TV and think “that’s for me. I want to be part of that.”

In short, whether you’re in Cameron or in a bar or online, help make things better.

You know who understood this?

Brad Stevens.

When he was at Butler, Stevens wanted everyone around the program to have championship expectations. He said once that he wanted the janitors to think like champions. Why? The job is humble. You just clean the facilities, right?

Wrong.

Everyone was on a mission at Butler and the janitors cleaned the floors and made the facility sparkle. He was right - they’re incredibly important.

And so are you. Instead of ripping Duke when it fails to live up to your expectations, help make it what you want it to be.

Pick up a broom. Put on your shirt.

Be Duke.