ESPN.com's Pat Forde Thinks Duke Is A Joke

With all the fuss over Gerald Henderson's hard foul on Tyler Hansbrough during the recent UNC-Duke battle, various sports writers are weighing in. One is Pat Forde over at ESPN.com.

Forde doesn't as much place blame, but squashes the notions that Henderson's actions were innocent and Coach K's claims that "the game was over" and Hansbrough shouldn't have been in there. From his recent article, Duke Suffers Black Eye To Image:

After viewing the replay several times, I agree that the blow to the face did not appear to be intentional. Henderson was going to block Hansbrough's shot, and then Hansbrough's arm was pulled down and the ball flew out, and Henderson's forearm smashed Psycho T's face. This was not a premeditated knockout. However, Henderson appeared to be going in with the intent to deliver an enthusiastically hard foul. There is a place in the game for hard fouls, for forcefully preventing easy baskets, for occasionally planting an opponent on his rear end. But when the hard foul goes wrong, for whatever reason, you run the risk of it accidentally turning into assault and battery. Like this. And when that happens, you pay the price with an ejection and a suspension. The officials did the right thing in tossing Henderson.

Forde also takes a shot at Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski:

For the record, Krzyzewski later said, "We should have probably both had our walk-ons in." Also for the record, Krzyzewski was calling timeout with 50 seconds left and his team down by 13. So he clearly didn't think it was walk-on time at that point.

He also tossed out some nice smack about what the Duke program has become....a 7th seed in a 12 team ACC that has now lost three straight to the Tar Heels.

Of course, talking about that junk at least changed the subject from the junk that Duke has become, at least in comparison to its normal self. This is clearly the worst Blue Devils team since Krzyzewski's dark period in the mid-90s when back trouble chased him off the sideline for part of the 1994-95 season. Long one of the prettiest offensive teams in college basketball, Duke now is slow, sloppy and lacking create-your-own-shot scorers. It has 57 more turnovers than assists, has not proven capable of strafing teams from the perimeter as usual and doesn't get enough back-to-the-basket scoring from its big men.

So Duke wakes up Monday with a fresh black eye and a fourth loss to Carolina in the last five meetings. For the image-obsessed Blue Devils, it gets no worse than being bad and being dirty.

Much of this, I subscribe to. I'm a UNC fan and I don't think that Henderson tried to hurt Hansbrough. But I do think he was intending to put on a hard foul. You don't come flying into a big man like that without knowing some hard contact is coming. And just like when a defensive lineman hits a quarterback in the head in football....what you took a risk on not happening sometimes does.

Duke was playing aggressive to the very end....which is to their credit. However, losing to UNC in this manner couldn't have been too fun for the Blue Devils and I'm sure frustration had something to do with it. After all, Henderson's best friend, UNC guard Wayne Ellington, now is 2-0 in head to head meetings. Duke has lost 4 of 5 to the Tar Heels and the Duke program is at it's worst point in a decade.

And this time, Pete Gaudet isn't around to take the fall.