It’s March, So It Must Be Time For A Duke Controversy

And of course the reaction was atavistic and impulsive.

So last night we saw a tripping controversy, UNC taunting the Crazies after the game, the Crazies responding with ice, cups and food thrown at the brave Tar Heels who made sure to taunt but only from a safe distance, and a social media storm over the Filipowski-Ingram run-in.

So much for the rivalry being down. Whatever else you can say about that game, it cranked things back up to 11 on a scale of 1-10.

The most discussed issue is whether Kyle Filipowski intentionally tripped Ingram. Only he can answer that question, but after watching the video, here’s what we think: it looks like Ingram shoved Filipowski to keep him from getting up, which curiously has gotten absolutely no condemnation, and Filipowski foolishly retaliated.

There was no reason for Ingram to put his hands on Filipowski whatsoever and there was no reason for Filipowski to respond. Essentially though they should cancel each other out, except on social media and unfortunately, Duke is well accustomed to that sort of stupidity.

The controversy does offer a chance to broaden the discussion a bit. We’ve never really done more than tipped our toe into the Armando-Bacot-is-a-dirty-player pool, but perhaps it’s time.

People have been complaining about Bacot’s dirty play for a half-decade now. Go on X and type in “Bacot dirty” and you’ll see plenty of comments and several videos. One shows him grabbing a player and throwing him to the ground for no particular reason. Another shows him with an elbow in a guy’s throat. Another shows a UNC player wrapping up a Syracuse player and Bacot taking a shot at him anyway.

Physical is one thing but Bacot crosses the line on a pretty regular basis. Ingram shoved Filipowski to keep him from getting up and there’s not a word about that. Yet Filipowski is the one getting ripped.

Why?

Because complaining about Duke is a national past time. After Filipowski was injured during the Wake Forest court storming, he made it back quickly, but the reaction on social media, unbelievably, was that he must have faked his injury. Not even a sense of relief that it turned out to be not serious. Just a sense that he cheated. Because, of course, he plays for Duke.

It never works the other way.

The truth is that Bacot has a long history of doing ugly things on the court that just never get talked about. It’s kind of an amazing accomplishment, especially when just a few miles down the road, Duke players get called out for basically anything. Kentucky fans are still moaning that Christian Laettner put his foot on Aminu Timberlake’s stomach in 1992 and still call it a stomp. But if a 6-11, 240 lb. guy stomps on you, you’re not going to laugh and clap your hands like Timberlake did. Laettner certainly did put his foot on the guy’s stomach, but it was basically an obnoxious tap. If he had stomped him, there would have been a brawl, and rightly so.

But he didn’t and there wasn’t.

There’s a reasonable chance the ACC comments on the game Monday but again, to the best of our recollection, the league office has never said a word about Bacot’s dirty play. They probably won’t say anything about the UNC players taunting the crowd either, which is potentially a much more dangerous situation and needs to be dealt with aggressively.

Duke certainly needs to address it. We don’t ever need to see the fans throw stuff on the court again. For those who remember the Malice in the Palace, there needs to be a clear line about how fans interact with players because...well just watch the video. It’s completely radioactive. That should never happen again in any sport and it happened because. as we saw in Cameron, a fan threw his drink on a player. And not just any player but exactly the wrong player in Ron Artest.

We’d like to think that the Crazies are clever enough to respond verbally in a way that overcomes the taunting.

This is another good reason to chunk out the stupid cheer sheets and return to the spontaneity of earlier times: one person figures out a good cheer and it spreads and amplifies. It’s immediate, it’s creative and anyone can start it. The cheer sheets are like the difference between a confident student who aces a test because he knows the material and one who goes in with a cheat sheet up his sleeve.

There was nothing on the cheer sheet for a situation like that, was there?

An angry, creative crowd could have humiliated those guys pretty quickly and it could've been funny and great even after a loss. Instead we saw petulant children throw ice, cups and food on the court. Aside from the sheer stupidity of it, somebody has to go out there and clean that mess up, and it wasn’t anyone from Chapel Hill who did it. That crew is not going to be very happy about the extra work and who can blame them?

UNC went back to Chapel Hill to celebrate the “championship” after the win in Cameron. That is factually incorrect. The ACC does recognize the regular season championship, but the official ACC champion will be determined next weekend in Washington, D.C. The Tar Heels will be the favorites going in, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to a championship. You still have to play the games.

On the bright side, there’s still time for all the bitter geeks on X to notice that Bacot is essentially the Bill Laimbeer of college basketball. The reason he’s still in college is because he’s too slow and limited to be a major factor in the NBA. We kind of wish he could be so that he could meet his own personal Robert Parish.

This will all die down soon enough but the next meeting between these teams, whether next weekend or next year in Cameron, is going to be rather intense.