[laughing] Seems like you had quite a bit to say.
"But wait, there's more. If you order before midnight tonight you get a second dose of rambling, grammatically deficient, run on sentences"
K isn't evil incarnate, I'm sure he has done a lot of good things with his fame, helped people, charitable contributions, etc. He has ridden the wave of media adulation, and profited from it like any other person/coach would. In other words he's win at just about any cost like everybody else. The media is to blame for the annointed saint hood. He hasn't shied away from it and certainly used it to his advantage. Would be reasonable to think he has also manipulated the process some. Winning at college basketball is a cut throat venture.
Obviously K's legend will be the GOAT. Sorry John and Dean, but you all are going to have to.scoot over a little. We have years and years and years, and years, of continuing media overhype of his unmatched greatness. But where should he really rank?
I say he's a really, really good coach. Won a lot of games, his team's pretty much always play hard and are generally well organized and prepared. But he's accomplished this with every advantage a coach could ever ask for. 90% of his recruiting pitch has been done for him by the media. I don't wear a tin foil hat, but anybody who can't see, or hasn't seen, the officiating bias in Duke's favor does. A very prestigious university has sold out it's academics (like many others also have) to let him bring in academically challenged kids who then fall under the umbrella of a high performing "typical" Duke student as they pursue that 3 year sociology degree (a program only available to athletes IIRC). Does anybody not think that plays well with patents? How many other really, really good coaches could achieve supreme greatness with those advantages? Compare that with what Cal did at UMass or what Rick did at Providence. Could K go to the FF starting from scratch at programs like that? Maybe, but we don't really know because he's only had success at ONE place, and with every aforementioned advantage.
Other threads talk about Duke's demise when K retires. I'm not so sure. You can be a decent coach and still achieve greatness at Duke. ESPN and the NCAA will have no reason to not continue hyping the Duke program as the greatest thing ever. Too much money at stake. So the 95% of their recruiting pitch will still be done for them, and is there any reason to think all the other favorable treatment will subside. My guess is that the next Duke coach will be Hurley or Wojo. An ex cutie pie Dukie that can be over hyped to no end and the train of BS will likely continue to keep rolling. (sigh)
