Duke's Roster

[BookofMormon]

I was in NYC a couple months back and someone saw my UK shirt and came up to talk UK football lol.

I do not find it a shocker that area of the country would be more duke, unc, whoever... just like the southeast will be more UK, tenn, bama, etc. It's just a wild take to see someone say UK fans are only in KY (not you, but op). We can only go off of our own experiences, but just about anywhere I've been in the country, I've found UK fans.

If we want to talk about seeing large fanbases outside of their campus/state area, I think IU might take the cake.

Indiana and Michigan have massive metro fanbases given their academics and massive alumni bases.

Was at the Indiana/Oregon FB game in Atlanta last year and it was 98% Indiana, Indiana home game.

I'm primarily speaking to the Northeast corridor, DC, Philly, NYC, Boston. You will see randoms wearing Duke gear, and I guarantee they are not Duke alum. Their gear has some Georgetown 80/90's going for it.

This entire convo got sidetracked by fan base size and someone saying Duke couldn't pack a Rupp sized arena. When the real question is how the F does Duke put that kind of talent on it's bench? Is is $$ or something else?

To answer this question.

 

[ScWildcat3]

Indiana and Michigan have massive metro fanbases given their academics and massive alumni bases.

Was at the Indiana/Oregon FB game in Atlanta last year and it was 98% Indiana, Indiana home game.

I'm primarily speaking to the Northeast corridor, DC, Philly, NYC, Boston. You will see randoms wearing Duke gear, and I guarantee they are not Duke alum. Their gear has some Georgetown 80/90's going for it.

This entire convo got sidetracked by fan base size and someone saying Duke couldn't pack a Rupp sized arena. When the real question is how the F does Duke put that kind of talent on it's bench? Is is $$ or something else?

To answer this question.

If the bench starts then who is on the bench? Because the bench is at best 25ish.

 

[WeWant9]

Indiana and Michigan have massive metro fanbases given their academics and massive alumni bases.

Was at the Indiana/Oregon FB game in Atlanta last year and it was 98% Indiana, Indiana home game.

I'm primarily speaking to the Northeast corridor, DC, Philly, NYC, Boston. You will see randoms wearing Duke gear, and I guarantee they are not Duke alum. Their gear has some Georgetown 80/90's going for it.

This entire convo got sidetracked by fan base size and someone saying Duke couldn't pack a Rupp sized arena. When the real question is how the F does Duke put that kind of talent on it's bench? Is is $$ or something else?

I always knew IU was a large fanbase, but they damn near took over the CFP with their fans.

Fair enough, and I agree that duke is a very popular team in that area of the country. I have met two duke fans in CO. One was my former boss, really cool guy and I never got how he got on the duke bandwagon. Another was a smug prick from North Dakota, guess they just went together.

I look at this current era of duke like I do UK from the early Cal days. Duke is the IT program, not saying best, but they are the most visible. They are grabbing the top talent, winning games, and putting those guys in the NBA. That leads to a lot of media coverage. UK guys got a boost in the draft and duke is in a similar position. I am sure the $ is pretty damn good, too, but we can't discredit the overall exposure they are getting right now. I do think Scheyer is going have to win a title here soon to keep that momentum, or else he will get similar negative recruiting like Cal did after 15.

 

[BookofMormon]

I always knew IU was a large fanbase, but they damn near took over the CFP with their fans.

Fair enough, and I agree that duke is a very popular team in that area of the country. I have met two duke fans in CO. One was my former boss, really cool guy and I never got how he got on the duke bandwagon. Another was a smug prick from North Dakota, guess they just went together.

I look at this current era of duke like I do UK from the early Cal days. Duke is the IT program, not saying best, but they are the most visible. They are grabbing the top talent, winning games, and putting those guys in the NBA. That leads to a lot of media coverage. UK guys got a boost in the draft and duke is in a similar position. I am sure the $ is pretty damn good, too, but we can't discredit the overall exposure they are getting right now. I do think Scheyer is going have to win a title here soon to keep that momentum, or else he will get similar negative recruiting like Cal did after 15.

Yup - agree with this. Between their Brotherhood, putting very visible kids like Flagg and Banchero in the draft, they are the one program right now that has the "it" appeal. JBB said it in a recent interview, when he chose Duke over UNC - that he would have FOMO by not going to Duke. NIL & PT is handicapping most programs from putting bigtime talent on their bench, but Duke can still pull it off because kids want to be part of that experience, for whatever reason.

Hurley can't pull that off - he's gotten creative with his bench

I am hoping Scheyer s#$ts the bed. The fact he's still pulling these classes after doing exactly that is what is startling. I was surprised not one kid transferred out when kids like Sarr and Ngongba decided to come back and Blackwell came in.

If the bench starts then who is on the bench? Because the bench is at best 25ish.

Starters

Foster
Blackwell
Sarr
JBB
Ngongba

Bench

Boozer
Rippey
Howard
Williams
Scharnowski

Bench is young. Starting roster is massive. JBB is going to be really young, but if he is the real deal and figures it out, that teams upside is high. He finally has some seniority with two seniors in the backcourt, Sarr a sophomore and Ngongba a junior.

Scheyer doesn't make minimum F4 this year, the doubters will start peaking their heads.

 

[ScWildcat3]

Yup - agree with this. Between their Brotherhood, putting very visible kids like Flagg and Banchero in the draft, they are the one program right now that has the "it" appeal. JBB said it in a recent interview, when he chose Duke over UNC - that he would have FOMO by not going to Duke. NIL & PT is handicapping most programs from putting bigtime talent on their bench, but Duke can still pull it off because kids want to be part of that experience, for whatever reason.

Hurley can't pull that off - he's gotten creative with his bench

I am hoping Scheyer s#$ts the bed. The fact he's still pulling these classes after doing exactly that is what is startling. I was surprised not one kid transferred out when kids like Sarr and Ngongba decided to come back and Blackwell came in.

Starters

Foster
Blackwell
Sarr
JBB
Ngongba

Bench

Boozer
Rippey
Howard
Williams
Scharnowski

Bench is young. Starting roster is massive. JBB is going to be really young, but if he is the real deal and figures it out, that teams upside is high. He finally has some seniority with two seniors in the backcourt, Sarr a sophomore and Ngongba a junior.

Scheyer doesn't make minimum F4 this year, the doubters will start peaking their heads.

No people are saying the bench would be ranked. Definitely wouldn’t but Duke is the “it” team so they hyping them.

 

[Cowtown Cat]

Duke has easily the largest fan base in the country - if you need proof, look at their socials. IG following is over 2mm - almost 4x that of UK. I am near MSG and when Duke plays there, there are hoards of fans coming out of the woodworks to go. Duke has fans out of North Carolina, UK does not have fans out of Kentucky. The only fans that would go watch UK are those that flew in from Kentucky.

Whether they are media created or not, the reality is that they are the ND of CBB. They were a program that was right place, right time at the apex of CBB's growth, with ESPN and Dick Vitale plumping them up. They were in 7 of 9 Final Four's in that time frame, so they earned it. Couple that with the B2B with Laettner/Hurley and you have the seed for what is Duke today.

Net net, they have a national fan base, not a local one.

They could easily fill a bigger stadium, and I mean easily. Don't disillusion yourself with bias by holding onto what you think are advantages.

LMFAO WHAT A JOKE!

 

[KyKevin]

Well, Duke is the best, most important college basketball team of the March Madness era. Whine or complain about media favoritism or whatever, but it's true. And it's certainly not Kentucky.

Scheyer has already won 3 ACC tournament titles and 2 ACC regular season titles. How many seasons would it take Pope to do that in the SEC? Or better yet, decades? He's certainly not winning jack **** this year with f'n Zoom Diallo and gang.

Pope is a giant, goofy, weirdo who is a phony. His resume is laughable.

But I hope everyone enjoys our top 25ish team this year. I'm sure there will be some good moments ultimately outweighed by how laughably bad of a defensive team this will be. I anticipate plenty of more games where we're blown the f out like we were last year. Hopefully this time around we won't have as many self-inflicting fans who will try to again excuse it all away and blame the fans instead of Pope for the current state of the program.

Some of us will enjoy this team, because it is Kentucky, and we are Kentucky fans. Jeepers man, let them at least fkn play, before you start running them into the ground. At least you think maybe there top 25 any how.

And this fan says you can shove the Duke bulls.hit, right up your Duke a.ss

 

[Neal Orac]

Yup - agree with this. Between their Brotherhood, putting very visible kids like Flagg and Banchero in the draft, they are the one program right now that has the "it" appeal. JBB said it in a recent interview, when he chose Duke over UNC - that he would have FOMO by not going to Duke. NIL & PT is handicapping most programs from putting bigtime talent on their bench, but Duke can still pull it off because kids want to be part of that experience, for whatever reason.

 

[Cowtown Cat]

Look at all the duke fans in this thread!

 

[GWillikers]

BBN knows better than Duke when it comes to talent. We did it first. We all know only 5 players can be on the court at one time. Save the on paper championships.

 

[GWillikers]

Look at all the duke fans in this thread!

Look at them headlights on your avatar.

 

[paulcalhoun_rivals397471]

^^^PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE WORTHLESS TROLL^^^

 

[ImHungry]

^^^PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE WORTHLESS TROLL^^^

You're the only one feeding me. Posters despise you more than a known troll. Sad.