This Misleading Duke Slander Stat Must Be Corrected (I Got You Duke Fans)
Sarah Stier. Getty Images.The Final Four did it. It really did it. It made up for a fairly lackluster NCAA Tournament with an incredible pair of games. The latter acting as the proper headliner.
Duke went down. Hard. The team everyone thought was going to steamroll their way through for a largely one-and-done national title. I actually feel for Duke fans. This isn't your coach K era band of punch me face bros. This is a very likeable band of punch me face bros. And despite absolutely imploding, they lost with grace and took it on the chin. And yes - they imploded. There was really no indication that Duke wasn't going to finish the game exactly how it started and middled. They were dominant in pretty much everything. Which is where the slander stat comes in…
Don't you worry Duke fans. Let's get the facts straight here before you put on the Yankees game. Just kidding. It's Dodgers now, right? I double checked the stats with my data and found that steals were in fact tracked before 1986. Perhaps it wasn't unilaterally tracked until 1986, but I dug into the entirety of March Madness data going all the way back to the 30s and found there are other team that lost while hitting all the criteria from above.
insert peppy elevator jazz music in your head for your scroll…
See. Told you. Other team. Who could forget Ball State/ Boston College in the opening round of 1981? Not me. I wasn't even born. But they blew it despite Ray McCallum scoring a game high 26-points going 13/19 from the field. But when your logo is a bird doing an incorrect version of the Heisman, it does make one wonder if Ball State Basketball knows ball.
22 teams listed above were also Duke wins, so there's that! Most of any team with UNC right behind at 19. So while the loss was really, really, really really bad. It wasn't as bad as the stat made it seem.
Always here for you, Duke fans. Who's pitching tonight?