SIR DUKE

Like other icons, Duke’s basketball team may be the most hated and the most loved. There’s no middle ground, no ‘Duke? Eh, I have no feeling one way or the other.’ You love them or you hate them.

That’s only intensified after Duke beat Wisconsin 68-63 on Monday night in Indianapolis to win its fifth men’s NCAA basketball title. So Duke and its fans celebrate and others mope and complain.

In this case, with a certain amount of right on their side. One enduring vision from this tournament is the late-game spectacle of three officials huddled around a TV monitor trying to figure out if they are doing their job right.

Even with visual aid, the Monday night crew missed a crucial call late that anyone paying attention clearly saw on replay. The announcers saw the missed call, the TV audience saw it, but the officials, after looking at it for two minutes, did not. And so what should have been a Wisconsin possession instead became Duke’s. Even a team as good as Wisconsin hasn’t figured out how to score without the ball.

Did this change the outcome? Probably not. Wisconsin got Duke’s big guy, Jahlil Okafor, in foul trouble early, but a little guy – freshman Tyus Jones – responded with 23 points and a couple of deep 3-pointers that crushed the Badgers. Jones was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. Duke won the game. But now there’s all the talk – and it’s ridiculous – of a fix, of Duke getting “all the calls” and other nonsense.

That said, can we find officials who need not waste so much time looking at video evidence to get things wrong?

Years ago, The Dukes of Hazzard was a popular television program. Now, when I see officials huddled around a screen in a game involving the Blue Devils, all I’ll be able to think about is The Hazard of Duke.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .