Duke’s Non-Conference Season Is Over As Of Right Now
Th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks!
It looks like Duke will cancel all the remaining regular season non-conference games and head straight into ACC play, according to various reports.
This would potentially affect Gardner-Webb, Elon and Charleston, the non-conference games that Duke has scheduled, or rather rescheduled, due to the Covid virus.
The good news, such at it is, is that at almost the same time the cancellations were announced, the FDA approved an emergency vaccination for the virus. So at least there is light at the end of the tunnel with millions of vaccinations on the way.
The season restarts now at Notre Dame on December 16th, followed by hosting Jeff Capel’s Pitt at home and then a trip to Florida State.
Practice in the meantime is bound to be interesting, at least from our perspective, and very intense.
And by the way, this makes Alabama’s Nate Oates look kind of ridiculous. Earlier in the day - busy day, really - he said that he wondered if Coach K had broached putting the season on pause so that we might get a better grip on the virus. If simply getting wins were his goal, why in the world would he cancel the easiest ones? This reminds us a bit of the people in 1995 who thought he took a leave-of-absence in 1994-95, even though Duke was 9-3 when he was forced to step aside and could have won a number of games the Blue Devils led in up until fairly late in those respective games.
Now, like then, it makes no sense and overlooks the fiery competitive nature of the man.