Columnist Dean Juipe: Brains, brawn an intriguing mix at Duke

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2003 | 9:20 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Envious? Well, yeah, I guess so.

But, duh, who wouldn't be envious?

What college basketball fan who's on the outside looking in wouldn't be envious of a school that has both the No. 1 men's team and the No. 1 women's team in the current USA Today poll?

Who among us doesn't envy Duke, with its men's team 9-0 and its women's squad 13-0?

But it isn't only the Blue Devils who are double dipping in the polls.

This is stunning to me yet it's a matter of fact: No fewer than seven schools that are ranked between Nos. 1 and 9 in the current men's poll have women's teams ranked in the top 20.

As in, if your men's team excels, there's a good chance your women's team will as well.

Here's the proof: Not only Duke, but Arizona, Connecticut, Notre Dame, Texas, Mississippi State and Oklahoma have teams ranked not only among the top nine in the men's poll but within the top 20 on the women's side.

Before you ask yourself how or why this is happening, be reassured that it can't be a fluke. It isn't by chance that these schools have refined the ability to recruit, teach and develop college-age players of both sexes.

In Duke's case -- as is also the case with perennial Sears Trophy all-around sports champion Stanford -- the athletic achievements are especially noteworthy given the university's high academic standards. Not just anyone can get into the school, and not just anyone can play on its teams.

Obviously, there is a correlation between intelligence and athletic ability, yet today it seems more pronounced than ever. Smarter kids are adaptable, open to suggestion and willing to take instruction, which is translating into stronger, smoother athletes who pride themselves on playing a thinking man's game.

Duke and Stanford, in particular, are harvesting this phenomena to the extent that each is not only the pride of its alumni but worthy of widespread accolades. They have taken brains and brawn, which were once portrayed in an almost cartoon-like manner as feisty rivals, and made them extraordinarily compatible.

Yet that doesn't fully explain this overlapping of the men's and women's basketball polls, which has to hearten any number of schools -- UNLV among them -- whose academic requirements don't measure up to those of a Duke or a Stanford. If a Mississippi State, or an Oklahoma, or an Arizona for that matter, can produce ranked teams in both polls, then all but the most downtrodden and academically challenged of schools is allowed to have hope.

It's just that it's easier if the kids you are welcoming to campus are as bright as they are competitive. Be selective to be elite, how's that for a registrar's or an athletic director's motto?

There's a thesis or at least a term paper to be culled from these beliefs and innuendo, and in all likelihood some young man or woman with athletic instincts from Duke will capitalize and do it. Relying on their own firsthand experience, they can compartmentalize the material, resolve the issues and present a game plan for lasting athletic success.

It could lead to a double dip of their own: an 'A' on the paper and a budding best seller on the open market.