Teams We Hate
Slate.com - Teams We Hate:
Highlites:
Duke:
Led by sore-losing, ref-haranguing coach Mike Krzyzewski, Duke has long been a hotbed of whininess, but junior J.J. Redick is the first Blue Devil to publicly elevate it to an art form. In recent profiles in Sports Illustrated, on ESPN, and probably in Cat Fancy, the whey-faced shooting guard revealed that when abuse from opposing fans becomes too heavy, he escapes by composing verse. "No bandage can cover my scars/ It's hard living a life behind invisible bars," he writes in one tear-stained stanza.
When the non-existent bars start closing in and the bandage-defying scars get itchy, J.J. need only look down the bench to find kindred souls. Blue Devil assistant coaches Steve Wojciechowski and Chris Collins understand. They too had crew cuts and held their wrists perpendicular to the ground after every made basket.
While players like Luol Deng, Elton Brand, and Corey Maggette go on to demi-stardom in the NBA, it's the scrappy, high-strung little guards who come back to Coach K's side to form a living endowment of faux defensive intensity. Around 2008—when pro defenders have finished demonstrating that Redick can't deploy his robotically perfect shooting stroke when he's guarded—look for the once-great collegian to take his curdled hoop dreams back to Durham and join them. Don't worry, young fella. There will always be a clipboard for you at the end of the bench at Cameron Indoor Stadium. And it will say "J.J." in big, blue, puffy letters.—Josh Levin
Kentucky:
But all that's only mildly nauseating compared to the most repulsive part of UK basketball: Ashley Judd, superfan.
Stanford:
Why, yes, I did know that Tiger Woods went to Stanford. Yes, and John Elway, too.
Forty-seven Olympic medals from 1990 to 2002? And 71 team championships since 1980? And 14 Nobel Prize winners? You really are good at counting.
What's that? Did you mention your SAT scores? Yes, you did. Several times. Why am I smiling? It's just so cute how much you like to talk about them.
No, I haven't seen you play this year. Sorry.
No, no, don't tell me. Let me guess. You have a white guy with very important hair? Is he named "Casey" again? And how many "Academic All-Americans" do you have?
It's going to be so hard for you on Sunday, won't it? When Duke beats you? That must really hurt—like when your frat brother stole your girlfriend? Fifty weeks a year, you tell yourselves you're the only great school with great sports—and then the Blue Devils show up. Yes, I know you won an NCAA title—just like Duke. But wasn't yours in 1942?—David Plotz
