The Knoxville Tours bus struggled and bumped through the curves of the too-tight rotary where N.C. 751 meets Old Erwin Road at the edge of Duke Forest, its lumbering passage a lovely metaphor for what was to come. Some other January night, the light rain would have fallen as snow, thinning the crowd at Cameron […]
Barry Jacobs
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Dave Dickerson’s post-Terrapin trial by storm
Sometimes dreams are realized in ways we never imagined. Certainly that’s been the case for Dave Dickerson, who finally got a head coaching job at Tulane at age 38, only to find his–and many other people’s–world turned upside down. Only now, months after Hurricane Katrina devastated downtown New Orleans, have Green Wave basketball teams returned […]
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Hoops!
Traffic worsens, and we alter our movements and our schedule. We unlace our shoes at the airport security checkpoint before being asked. Having paid $3 for a gallon of gasoline, we are charged $2.50 and consider ourselves fortunate. A stand of woods that enriches and soothes abruptly vanishes, and we incorporate buildings and asphalt into […]
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Friendly media become vampires when they taste blood–just ask Roy
Mail once arrived at the University of Kansas men’s basketball office addressed simply to “Roy, Lawrence, Kansas.” The postmaster knew exactly where to send the letter. Here, too, the name “Roy” has become part of the popular lexicon, serving as headline shorthand for the third-year North Carolina head coach. “It’s flattering, but it also shows […]
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When there’s a drug for everything, there’s going to be one for winning
Drugs are all the rage in sports this summer. Not rage as in fashion, but rage as in anger. Outrage. Overblown outrage, perhaps. Marion Jones, the UNC alumna, is among the best female track athletes of modern times. She won five medals at the 2000 Olympics. But repeated accusations regarding her use of performance-enhancing drugs […]
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Blood sport
Think of them as large corpuscles. Very large corpuscles. The biggest stand seven feet tall. Even some who are smaller boast wingspans–a term of art having nothing to do with aerodynamics–that stretch even wider. They are the lifeblood of men’s basketball, these boys who populate the Nike All-Star Camp and similar events held across the […]
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Volunteer draft
The college basketball season ended more than two months ago. Remarkably, the men’s pro basketball playoffs are still going strong, and the women’s pro season began just recently. The NBA is apt to play deep into June, long enough to provide a seamless if prolonged transition to the men’s draft on June 28. Basketball fans […]
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As usual
The estimated 15,000 fans at the Smith Center were so besotted with the happy moment, they defied custom and did not need exhortations from electronic message boards or cheerleaders to raise coordinated shouts of celebration. Tradition’s tendrils soothed and stimulated, suddenly more than a reminder. A gaze upward from the floor of the basketball arena […]
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Duke, in (almost) a walk
The Atlantic Coast Conference, a creature of the post-World War II Southeast, has been wedded for most of its history to the automobile. That has certainly been true for its signature event, the ACC men’s basketball tournament, held in North Carolina for all but eight of its first 52 years. This past weekend the tournament […]
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Williams watching
Some things have not changed since ACC expansion. The halfway point in the ACC men’s basketball race still arrives as crocuses open and winter turns toward spring. The season’s fulcrum event remains the first meeting between Duke and North Carolina. As usual, each is nationally ranked and near the top of the conference standings. And, […]
