Coach K‘s four national championship teams at Duke University have been defined by threes. Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill ran the show in the ’90s; Shane Battier, Jay Williams and Mike Dunleavy Jr. won it in ’01; and in 2010 it was Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith.

With Scheyer gone to graduation and a few younger players taking aim at that vacant spot in the Big Three, this season’s leadership responsibilities for the Blue Devils (11-0) have fallen on seniors Smith (17.1 ppg, 5.4 apg) and Singler (17.0 ppg, 5.5 rpg) to lead a talented group aiming for a repeat. Going into tonight’s game against UNC-Greensboro (7 p.m., ESPNU), Smith talks about how experience wins championships: Read More »

With the Midnight Madness exciting fans, players and recruits across the nation, it’s time to preview some of the best college teams for the 2010-11 season. The key to having a successful team is having the perfect blend of athleticism, fundamentals and chemistry. We will be breaking down many of the top teams in the coming weeks. The first profile is on Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke Blue Devils. Read More »

With Summer League now officially over, NBA teams are beginning to hand out training camp invites. While first-round picks have guaranteed contracts, and second-round picks are almost always assured invites to training camp, the undrafted rookies who partook in Summer League now must wait for the phone to ring allowing them to creep another step closer to being on an NBA roster. Here are 10 undrafted rookies who will be suiting up for an NBA team this fall: Read More »

John Starks. Brad Miller. Ben Wallace. The underdog. The come-up. That’s what this article is about, pinpointing those guys who are overlooked and passed over. Those three guys I mentioned above were all undrafted and all of them became All-Stars. For many, Draft Night is about celebration and security. But, others have to deal with the unknown. Here are the top five players from this year’s class who didn’t heard their name called: Read More »

Under the list of ingredients that have become standard in the NCAA championship recipe — defense, momentum, chip on the shoulder, good coaching, depth, etc. — perhaps we should add one more: Ability to win ugly. Last night’s national title game between Duke and Butler wasn’t one for smooth flowing offense and highlight buckets, but it was nonetheless an instant classic with crazy intensity, where both sides played like their lives were on the line and put on a defensive clinic before Duke walked out of the octagon with its fourth national championship … Read More »

When it comes to sports, I am a certified and admitted racist.

White people play golf and hockey … Black people run track and play basketball … Europeans play soccer … Africans run marathons … Asians play badminton … Latinos play baseball … The Winter Olympics were probably invented so White people had more sports to dominate… Read More »

The always entertaining and interesting Jonah Lehrer has an essay in this past weekend’s Wall Street Journal which uses recent studies to examine The Superstar Effect: “While challenging competitions are supposed to bring out our best, these studies demonstrate that when people are forced to compete against a peer who seems far superior, they often don’t rise to the challenge. Instead, they give up.” Tiger Woods is the prime example, and though the studies mostly revolve around individually geared performances from SAT’s to performing in the work place, the effect applies more generally to underdogs. Read More »

West Virginia was two wins shy of a national championship. While that won’t be any immediate consolation to the players who worked all season to get to the Final Four, it’s a lot better than 300-something other D-1 teams can say. Kevin Jones was an instrumental part in the Mountaineers’ run, averaging 13.5 points and 7.2 rebounds this season. And in WVU’s four NCAA Tournament wins, the 6-8 sophomore forward was good for 15 points and 8 boards a game.

Kevin agreed to check in with Dime during the most hectic week of his career to give us a behind-the-scenes look at what it was like reaching the pinnacle of college basketball. After West Virginia lost to Duke in the national semifinal Saturday night, he reflected on the season and the Final Four experience: Read More »

Everybody wants to make the Hoosiers comparison, but the best movie for Butler‘s surprise run to the NCAA championship game might be Invictus. Yesterday’s win over Michigan State was like part basketball and part rugby. It was ugly, it was grimy, it was gritty, but the Bulldogs pulled off the upset despite shooting 31% from the field, enduring a 10-minute stretch in the second half where they didn’t make a shot, and trying time and time again to give the Spartans the game … Read More »

For all of those haters and “experts” who have been crying from moment the original NCAA Tournament seedings were announced weeks ago (and there were many) that Duke was handed a cakewalk to the Final Four, know this: when the smoke clears, Duke will have absolutely earned their stripes by battling through what has quickly become the most difficult road to a national championship faced by any team in the field. Read More »