The Fact That Your Team Name is Synonymous with Bowel Movement is Fitting

I never cared too much for Bill Simmons' ESPN column. I appreciate his attempts to meld two of his favorite topics, pop culture and sports, together, but sometimes sports are just sports. Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki's relationship was never really comparable to Locke and the Smoke Monster's. As far as I know, he never compared those two, but you get the idea...

The B.S. Report is pretty entertaining, though. The podcasts where he talks to his buddies (Jacoby, House, Cousin Sal) are usually funny and interesting. Anyway, I admit that I look for a new podcast every day and relish the days when there's a two-parter. Just gravy.

So Bill was talking to Chuck Klosterman a couple days ago, and Klosterman was arguing that racism drives the hatred many sports fans have toward Duke basketball. As in, people hate Duke because it's traditionally a bunch of over-achieving white dudes.

Which made me wonder if CKlost has ever seen a Duke game.

I've been an ardent Duke detractor (read "hater") since I was old enough to hate anything but bedtime and brushing my teeth. The reason I hate Duke doesn't have anything to do with racism and everything to do with their endless cast of loathable hacks: Laettner, Hurley, Wojochowkielbasa, JJ, and those were just the players my wife would recognize.

The reason Dook attracts such enmity is because they remind people of the rich kids either at their own high school or a cross-town rival. They play like they really don't think you're worthy of being on the court with them (Chris Duhon's comment on Duke's ACC supremacy), they slap the court on defense,

flop like soccer players, and have a collection of fans who look like the closest to an actual sport they've ever been was playing Yahoo! chess.

If they don't blow it in the conference championship, it looks like Duke will be a number one seed heading into the tourney. That's good news for the 8 or 9 seed that gets to play them in round two, so long as they can stop a barrage of 12-foot jumpers and don't get too distracted by the Dukies' uniforms, complete with ascots.