Of all the strange anomalies to ever occur in sports, I think at this point, it should be worth mentioning Duke’s struggles against Virginia Tech: in basketball. For the third-straight time while Duke was a top-5 ranked team in the nation, they’ve gone into Blacksburg and left losers.
In 2011, they were #1 in the nation and lost to the unranked Hokies. In 2018, they were ranked #5 in the nation, only to get upset again by an unranked Hokies squad. And then came last night, where the #3 Duke Blue Devils, clearly starving for talent because they only had R.J. Barrett and Cam Reddish but no Zion Williamson, were clearly depleted beyond survival, and did the job to #20 Virginia Tech.
Full disclosure: I didn’t even watch the game. I knew it was on, I like college hoops well enough, but Duke is Duke, and Tech is still Tech, even if college basketball is very much their secondary sport. I figured it would be just another L, which would likely bounce Tech out of the top-25. Lo and behold, I glance at my news feed in the evening, only to see headlines about how #20 Virginia Tech upsets #3 Duke in Blacksburg, again, and suddenly I’m laughing aloud in my recliner.
Not only will Virginia Tech not be bounced from the top-25, a win against Duke will likely shoot them up a few positions, while Duke will undoubtedly drop, again, hopefully out of the top-5. This reiterates the sad notion of just how much Duke has put all their eggs into the Zion basket, and despite the fact that they still have two of the top recruits in the nation playing their asses off, it’s like the rest of the entire program has thrown in the towel because Zion’s not there.
Duke is playing like the late-90s Orlando Magic squads that got shut down by the Bulls, because Barrett and Reddish are like the Shaq and Penny scoring at will, but the whole rest of the team and coaches have already thrown in the towel and have shut themselves down, because it’s apparent that Zion’s been shut down.
Whatever though, I’ll take a Virginia Tech win against Duke any day of the week, even if it the circumstances were an entire roster versus Coach K himself playing by alone, because it’s that much fun to hate Duke. Naturally, me pointing this out, as well as all the pundits and talking heads, all but guarantees Duke’s redemption in Blacksburg next year, or the likely possibility that they cross paths again in the ACC Tournament, not to mention early bracketology has them in the same region of the NCAA Tournament. But for the time being, I can sit back and enjoy the morning after a Duke loss to Virginia Tech.
