Duke Blue Planet BLOG

The Blue Devils arrived in New York on Monday night and headed up to a conference room at the hotel for a snack and team meeting.  In addition, the team received some great words of inspiration from Bob Knight.  Coach Knight shared stories about what it was like coaching Coach K and encouraged the team to win today.

In honor of Coach K’s pursuit of the all-time wins record, we will share some of our favorite quotes for/by/about Coach K and Duke Basketball.  First up are quotes from coaches, players and the media made about Duke Basketball…

“Duke is the Yankees.  Duke is the Soviet hockey team, pre-Miracle on Ice.  Duke is the Roman army.  The British navy.  The Ming Dynasty.  Duke is a meteor that always comes back, and the cloud that never stops raining.  Duke is the flu in winter and weeds in summer.  Duke is Jell-O and Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.  Duke is a given.  Duke will be in the Final Four.  Which is almost like saying a basketball will be in the Final Four.  The Age of Duke dawned in 1986, with some Polish guy from Chicago in charge. Since then, the sun has never really set on the Duke Empire…”
USA Today’s Mike Lopresti

“You can mix unlimited academic expectations with unlimited winning.  That’s what Coach K has proven at Duke.  But… maybe what says it best is this: Isn’t Duke where you would want your son to play?”
USA Today

“The last two Final Fours have been contested without the Blue Devils.  Since 1986, though, they’ve endured only one other multiyear absence.  They’ve made it so often, the NCAA ought to consider changing the name of the event to Duke and the Other Three.”
Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy

“Opponents take a mere look at those simple, blue-and-white, classic-looking uniforms and get cross-eyed. That’s half the battle right there.”
NBC Sports

“They’re the New York Yankees of college basketball.  They don’t rebuild, they reload.”
Los Angeles Times

“There are ways to dominate an era that transcend winning the last game.  And what the Blue Devils have done under Mike Krzyzewski has been every bit as dominant as what the Bruins did under John Wooden.”
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi

“Duke is on TV more than “Leave It to Beaver” re-runs.”
Former Virginia Head Coach Pete Gillen

“Duke represents everything that I aspire to push and drive my program to become.  And that’s why I find it such an educational experience for my team to come here.”
Davidson Head Coach Bob McKillop

“Duke is the Yankees.  When they play a competitive game, ratings soar.”
CBS Senior Vice President for Programming Mike Aresco

“What is beyond dispute is that no program today matches the aura of Duke.”   Raleigh News and Observer’s Ned Barnett

“ESPN has announced its college basketball schedule for the upcoming season, with some of the highlights being ‘Rivalry Week Presented by Cisco Systems,’ ‘Championship Week Presented by 7-Up’ and ‘We’re on Every Week Presented by Duke.’”
Sporting News

“No program, perhaps no other sporting entity, receives the kind of attention Duke receives on an annual basis.”
ESPN

“Duke is Duke.  Everything good you can think about college basketball, Duke epitomizes.  To me, they’re the Yankees, and I’m a Yankee fan.”
Virginia Tech Head Coach Seth Greenberg

“They’ve got the bull’s-eye on their chest from the beginning of the season to the end.  Every team circles them on their calendar.”
St. John’s Head Coach Steve Lavin, about Duke

“We lost and the only thing my players wanted to do after the game was get Coach K’s autograph.”
NC State Head Coach Mark Gottfried, about a loss to Duke in the NCAA Tournament when he was head coach at Murray State

“Kentucky once ruled the landscape, then UCLA and now, no matter how you look at it, Duke.”
USA Today’s Skip Wood

“Year after year, Duke does seem to be led by ‘the Duke kid,’ some rare mix of brains and brawn and courage and courtesy, a Superman who holds the door for old ladies, a lab tech with a jump shot.  Don’t get me wrong.  Other schools have their own versions of this player.  But Duke seems to find them year after year.  It is more than coincidence that connects Danny Ferry to Christian Laettner to Bobby Hurley to Grant Hill to Shane Battier to Jason Williams.  It’s character.”
ESPN’s Mitch Albom

“For the Cameron Crazies, everything is beautiful.  I can already hear people talking about the Dukies as a national-championship contender for years to come.  It seems the in place to be, if you’re a high school star, is Durham, N.C., wearing those four letters across your chest: D-U-K-E.  The Blue Devils have become college basketball’s equivalent to the New York Yankees.”
ESPN’s Dick Vitale

“What’s it like to play at Duke?  Imagine trying to take a bath in a food processor that’s been pushed to puree.”
The Charlotte Observer’s Ron Green Jr.

“It’s almost like a shadow in the back of your mind.  You’re like ‘Dang, shadow, go away!’  But it’s always there.  Duke’s always there.”
Former Maryland player Byron Mouton

“This is an entire team that plays like they live on Park Avenue but they refuse to give up the court on West Fourth Street.  West Fourth Street’s a pretty darn competitive park, and it’s asphalt, and these guys aren’t afraid of getting their knees bloody and their fingers stuck in the chain rims.  And that’s what makes them so special.”
Davidson Head Coach Bob McKillop

“This is the most prolific college basketball program there is, and when you think about college basketball, you think about Duke.  All the championships.  All the great players.  The great coach.  That’s what you think about it when you think of Duke, and it’s easy to let that excitement turn into fear.”
Former Memphis player Rodney Carney

“Duke became the team perceptive people loved to hate, much as they hate the New York Yankees, coach potato guys with six-pack abs and women with Halle Berry bodies despite yearlong hot-fudge sundae binges.  For this we can blame coach Mike Krzyzewski.”
Fort Wayne News-Sentinel’s Pete DiPrimio

“It is Wednesday night, and Duke has come to another town, which is as close to a royal visit as college basketball is going to get. The sounds are almost always the same.  Boos at the beginning when the Blue Devils show their faces.  Mighty roars in the middle, if the home team makes a run.  And at the end, the patrons usually quietly leave for the parking lot.  Another victim of the Krzyzewski virus.”
USA Today’s Mike Lopresti

“You’ve got to be the aggressor against Duke.  They’re like sharks.  If they see any letdown and see the least bit of blood, they will take you out.”
Virginia Tech Head Coach Seth Greenberg

“The Blue Devils still attract a rock-star following on the road, a phenomenon that dates to the days when Bobby Hurley was leading them to national titles.  People love Duke. Which, of course, means people hate Duke.”
Star-Ledger’s Steve Politi

“I just met with some ESPN executives.  Part of the discussion was what a plus it is in the ratings when Duke is on the air.  People want to watch Duke.  People want to see them — whether they root for them or not.  They’re like Notre Dame in football, the Yankees in baseball: people either love them or hate them because of what they’ve achieved.  They are very popular on ESPN.”
ESPN’s Dick Vitale

“I think everyone has a rivalry with Duke.  When you’re at their stature, everyone wants a piece of you.  That’s just the way it is.  Duke is the standard.  Duke is probably what Carolina was 10 years ago.  They have a swagger, they have an arrogance in a positive way.  They set the standard for how hard you have to play in this league.”
Virginia Tech Head Coach Seth Greenberg

“Nothing can match Duke.  It’s going to be pretty crazy.  If you’ve got earplugs, bring them.  If not, you’re in for a long night.”
Former Boston College player Craig Smith, before Duke’s 83-81 road win over the Eagles on February 1, 2006

“The faces in the crowd included Super Bowl champions, World Series champions, even a champion on the PGA Tour.  Such is the power of the Duke Blue Devils, who can turn the most accomplished men into ordinary spectators.”
The Boston Herald’s Tony Massarotti

“When the season is over, this game will be a footnote for Duke.  They will have played in more packed houses, bringing Capital C, College, Capital B, Basketball to more locales and breaking more hearts, because that’s who they are and that’s what they do.  But we’ll be thinking about last night because we aren’t going to have anymore like it.”
The Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan, after Duke’s 83-81 win at Boston College on February 1, 2006

“Oh, man…  If we’d have won this, it would have been the best win in school history.”
Former Florida State player Isaiah Swann

“All of the students — even when the season started — they just go, ‘You gotta beat Duke.’  It seems like you can lose every game and beat Duke, and you had a great season.”
Former Maryland player D.J. Strawberry

“They said the earth was flat, the Titanic unsinkable and Mount Everest unclimbable. Those knuckleheads were wrong.  So now that we’ve established that Georgia Tech can beat Duke Wednesday.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Matt Winkeljohn

“When somebody outside the sport thinks about college basketball, the first thing he thinks about is Duke and Coach K.  They are absolutely the brand.  The brand is here tomorrow at the Wachovia Center to play Temple.  The 2005-06 version is 26-1 and ranked No. 1. It is 14-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.”
The Philadelphia Daily News’ Dick Jerardi, before Duke’s 74-66 win at Temple on February 25, 2006

“That’s a great team.  They know what they’re doing.  They’re smart and tough.  Some teams are smart, but not tough.  Some teams are tough, but not smart.  They’re both, and they’ve always been that way.”
Former Temple Head Coach John Chaney

“Duke has been so good — so dominant — for so long, it’s easy to take excellence for granted.  This was, after all, the Blue Devils’ ninth straight appearance in the tournament championship game and their seventh trophy in the past eight years.  Think about that for a moment.  Like whiskers, the Blue Devils are always coming back.”
The Charlotte Observer’s Ron Green Jr., after Duke won the 2006 ACC Tournament

“I can’t even count the times I’ve seen Duke on TV.  They’re on all the time in the D.C. area, pretty much every weekend.  I think I’ve even seen J.J. Redick on a cooking show on Food Network.  He was making some Eggs Benedict or something.  I tried to make it but it didn’t come out right.”
George Washington’s Danilo Pinnock

“The NCAA Tournament without Duke is almost like Hawaii without sunshine.  Colorado without snow.  Arkansas without unpredictable weather. ”
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Wally Hall

“Love them or hate them, there’s no escaping the Duke Blue Devils.  Like the New York Yankees, Manchester United or Tiger Woods, the Blue Devils define an entire sport, no matter who holds the championship trophy in a given year.”
ESPN

“Duke’s home games are events, and Cameron is arguably the toughest home court in the country.  The Blue Devils have their pick of high school All-Americans every year.  They produce national player of the year candidates.  When Duke plays on the road, the Blue Devils are the biggest draw on every other schedule.  No other school can sell out Madison Square Garden or the Meadowlands or places out West other than Duke, regardless of the opponent.  The Blue Devils are a happening every season, and it all started with Krzyzewski.”
ESPN’s Andy Katz

“In the ESPN era, Duke has become a name brand unlike any other in college sports.  People with absolutely no connection to the school suddenly declare themselves Duke fans.  That sort of following comes complete with a natural backlash, with folks hating the Dukies just because others like them.”
The Salt Lake City Tribune’s Kurt Kragthorpe

“Just as the New York Yankees, USC Football and Duke Basketball can attest, everyone wants to see the top dog fall on his face.”
Dime Magazine

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  You make the best of it.  This is one of the games you tell your kids, I played in Cameron Indoor Stadium against Coach K.”
Georgia Southern’s Louis Graham, before Duke’s 72-48 win over the Eagles on November 13, 2006

“When I came to George Mason 10 years ago, I asked my players ‘Who are the top programs, and what we can learn from them?’  Almost every player said ‘Duke.’  We wrote on the board what Duke does, and we made a commitment to do those things.”
Former George Mason Head Coach Jim Larranaga (now Miami’s coach)

“I have a tremendous amount of respect that they do it the right way.  We’ve borrowed things from them with how they do their business — from how they recruit to how they run their programs and even in some situations things that they do on offense and defense.  There’s no doubt I’ve tried to pattern our program after them.”
Gonzaga Head Coach Mark Few

“Duke isn’t second in anyone’s heart.  The sixth-ranked Blue Devils are loved or hated. Call them the Yankees of college basketball.”
New York Post’s Lenn Robbins

“No matter what era it is, beating Duke is an event.  Fans rush the court, players celebrate on a hard-earned win.  A victory over the name ‘Duke’ is an occasion to celebrate and the celebrations mean one thing: It has been so hard in the last 10 years to beat Duke anywhere.”
ESPN’s Mike Patrick

“Growing up, you always want to play Duke.  We got our chance.  You can’t get scared.  You have to play as hard as you can.”
Former Wake Forest player James Johnson

“It’s a great opportunity for our team.  It’s something we talked about at the start of the season.  We have to play all our non-conference games like it’s Duke coming into Mackey Arena.”
Purdue Head Coach Matt Painter

“It was the game everybody was talking about for a long, long time here in West Lafayette.  They camped out for up to 48 hours in frigid temps to get the best student seats available.  It was a primetime matchup between Duke and Purdue with some tickets selling for more than 500 but right now the Paint Crew has had their party spoiled by the Blue Devils.”
ESPN’s Dan Shulman

“Duke is the stimulus package economically for teams in the ACC.  Every time they go on the road, they have the white outs, the white tee-shirts, the white pom-poms, the white towels.  It doesn’t faze the Dukies.  They have been there before.”
ESPN’s Jimmy Dykes

“Once we get over the fact that we’re playing Duke, once we get over the name on the jersey, I think it will be a very competitive game.”
Former Arizona State player Derek Glasser

“I went to a few games at Arizona State growing up.  But I want to play Duke.  Who doesn’t want to play Duke? You want to play the best.”
Former UConn player Gavin Edwards

“Having an opportunity to play against them is an opportunity of a lifetime.”
Former California player Patrick Christopher

Coach K’s Duke is that massive rock every great mountain climber dares to scale.  It’s the exam every genius longs to take, the song every singer wants a chance to sing.  Coach K’s Duke also happens to represent the mountain climber who reaches the summit, the genius that aces the exam and the singer that nails the performance. Hate ‘em. Love ‘em. Gotta watch ‘em.”
Oakland Tribune’s Monte Poole

“Duke moves forward in the NCAA Tournament this weekend, the players also are moving forward in their love-hate relationship with the country. Everything about the Duke logo, mascot, colors and just the name — Duke — means college basketball.  The Blue Devils are to college hoops what the Dallas Cowboys are to the NFL and the New York Yankees are to Major League Baseball.  They have fans everywhere, and they have haters everywhere.  This weekend at the South Regional at Reliant Stadium has been no different.”
Houston Chronicle’s Jenny Dial

“I certainly think Duke is Goliath.  When you look at college basketball, they’ve set the standard for everyone else over the years.  Ever since I’ve been watching basketball, coach Krzyzewski and Duke have been one of the preeminent programs in the country.  They’ve set a standard.”
Butler Head Coach Brad Stevens

“Do you know how badly we wanted to play Duke?  I think that’s why we played so badly against West Virginia. We wanted Duke so badly we couldn’t see straight.”
Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari

“Duke is on a completely different level that any of us (in the ACC) or anyone in the country.  They are a little scary.”
North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams, during the 2010-11 season

“If I had to pick one, it would have to be the Duke game.  And solely because of the opponent. They are, to me, the program you have to emulate. They’re the gold standard in college basketball. I don’t think anyone can deny it with what they’ve done over the years. We get caught up into what happened last week.  It’s what they’ve done over the years and how they’ve done it.  It was a regular-season game, but it was a great statement for our program.”
Pittsburgh Head Coach Jamie Dixon, when asked about the best moment of his coaching career

“What an absolute thrill for our players, coaches, staff and university.  We’ll have an opportunity to savor the successes last season by playing against a program that represents the very best that our sport has to offer.  It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience and we look forward to the challenge of playing against a talented team that should be the preseason top-ranked team in the country and coached by one of basketball’s true icons and ambassadors.”
Cal Poly Pomona coach Greg Kamansky

“Let me ask you something,” Coles said. “Are you scared of a bear?”
The reporter said yes.
“Why?”
“It’s bigger and stronger,” the reporter said.
“Now you understand why they were fumbling the ball.”
Miami (OH) Head Coach Charlie Coles, after a 79-45 loss in Cameron during the 2010-11 season

“You have to pick your poison.  You can’t help. No matter where you help on them, they’re going to pick you apart.  They’re No. 1 for a reason.”
Former Kansas State guard Jacob Pullen

“I don’t know if you can pick your poison with them, because everyone is poisonous.”
Marquette Head Coach Buzz Williams

“It’s an unbelievable opportunity for K-State basketball.  Will we win?  Will we lose?  I don’t know.  But we’re going to go out there and fight our tails off.  That’s the challenge.  When you don’t do that, you get embarrassed when you play Duke.”
Kansas State Head Coach Frank Martin

“It is good for our team.  Anytime you have a chance to play a team of Duke’s stature, it’s a great measuring stick.  We have a long way to go, but it helps for our guys to see a team like Duke with so many NBA prospects.”
Oregon Head Coach Dana Altman

“What I love about Duke is they never have letdowns.  Who else can you say that about?  That’s the biggest compliment I can give them, more impressive than the four national championships Mike has won.  If they’re supposed to beat a team by 20, they beat them by 30.  To get a team to play the same instead of at the level of the team they’re playing, and to do it from Game 1 to Game 30, that’s my goal.  It’s not another Final Four.  It’s that consistency.”
Michigan State Head Coach Tom Izzo

“If you don’t have great respect for Duke, you’re pretty stupid.”
Michigan player Stu Douglass

“Every college team (watches) TV and says, ‘I want to play Duke, I want to see what it’s like to play Duke.’  We sure found out.  We ran into a different animal.  I mean, it was a lion.”
Hampton Head Coach Ed Joyner

“Duke has been my favorite team for a long time.  I’ve got a Duke jersey at home with my name on the back.  I thought about bringing it.  The Cameron Crazies got on me about my deer hunting and I was loving it.  I loved playing here.”
Bellarmine player Braydon Hobbs

“It was like going into a knife fight with a toothpick.  That was a clinic out there offensively.”
Presbyterian Head Coach Gregg Nibert

After Duke’s 96-55 win over Presbyterian, Blue Hose coach Gregg Nibert expressed his admiration for the Blue Devil front court…

“Their inside game was tremendous.  I didn’t have anything else in.  I wish I had a little bit more zone or something else in there to stop something, but it was like going to a knife fight with a toothpick with some of those guys out there.  It was tough.”

The Blue Devils met with the media yesterday to talk Duke hoops leading up to Friday’s season-opener vs. Belmont (9 PM, ESPNU).  And freshman Austin Rivers offered this great quote about playing for Coach K and Duke:

“It’s amazing.  It is not only just Coach K, it’s the whole Duke nation.   There’s a legacy from what’s been done here.   One thing I’d say about our team is we don’t take this for granted.   We don’t just come here and say ‘Oh Duke was so great, now we get to come in and be Duke players.’  There’s a responsibility for us to keep it going.   Players — I am really close with Nolan and those guys — they came in here and kept it going.   That’s something I want to do this year.   I want another great season for Duke.   It’s so fun to play for that.   We’re not playing for individual stuff.  It is really nice to play for something that is way bigger than you.  That’s one thing about Duke — Everything here is so much bigger than anybody.  It’s amazing.”

In other media day news: the team is excited to help Coach K to reach a monumental milestone, and, in no surprise to Duke fans, the Blue Devils are working on tightening up the defense.

Over the weekend, sports business expert Darren Rovell tweeted: “LSU-Bama game is the top selling regular-season college football game in @StubHub history. Avg price = $511/ticket.”

The top selling regular-season game in all of American sport — pro or college?  That would be UNC at Duke.

Right now, single tickets for this year’s edition of UNC at Duke are selling on StubHub (popular online ticket resale website) for anywhere between $940 (just to get into the gym) and $5,000.

“Duke at North Carolina and North Carolina at Duke are the two highest-grossing games of the season for our site,” StubHub spokesperson Sean Pate told The News & Observer.

Not only does Duke/UNC set the bar for all regular-season games but the battle of the blues is also among the toughest tickets in all of sports.  In 2007, Rovell listed UNC at Duke as the second hottest ticket in American sports, behind the Masters (golf) and ahead of events such as the Super Bowl, NBA All-Star Game, BCS National Championship Game, World Series, Red Sox/Yankees, Kentucky Derby and U.S. Open (tennis).

The Cameron Crazies of course attend all home games for free but also pay a steep price to attend Duke/UNC.  Our Sixth Man lives in tents in Krzyzewskiville for days, weeks or months in order to attend one of the world’s greatest sporting events.

Sample Ticket Sale Prices – StubHub in 2009
UNC at Duke: $1,260
World Series (Philadelphia vs. Tampa): $903 in Philly, $378 in Tampa
NBA Finals (Lakers vs. Celtics): $884 in LA, $703 in Boston
BCS Title Game (Florida vs. Oklahoma): $684
National Championship Game (Kansas vs. Memphis): $389