Columnist Steve Addy: Let’s be like Duke

Steve Addy

Tuesday, April 3, 2001 | 9:20 a.m.

Sun basketball writer Steve Addy is filing daily postcards from NCAA Tournament sites.

So long from Minneapolis,

This postcard won't be popular with a lot of folks in Las Vegas, but there can be no doubt now: Duke is the model college basketball program.

There, I said it. Yes, I know a lot of UNLV fans don't want to hear nice things about Duke. The wounds from 1991 still run deep. I realize that Rebels fans dislike the Blue Devil mystique as much as I hated that Dodger Blue crap in the '70s and '80s.

But even the most devoted Duke hater must admit that a lot of it is jealousy.

Do the Blue Devils get favorable treatment from the referees? Sure, sometimes. Do they bend the recruiting rules? Maybe, but there are 100 worse offenders. Does the holier-than-thou routine get a little old? No question.

But this must also be said: Duke is what everybody in college basketball should strive to be. It's just that most schools have no idea where to start.

Let the Spoonhour Era begin,

-- Addy