Tip of the Black Hat: A Fond Farewell to College Basketball's Best Heel

Ric Flair. Darth Vader. Coach K.

The entertainment we consume, from works of fiction to sports, benefit tremendously from strong, villainous leads; characters the audience has a strong, emotional investment in seeing vanquished. Their presence makes the product better.

That's the thing about great heels/villains: We may cheer against them, but we respect them. And few teams have worn the proverbial black hat in any sport as long or as effectively as Duke under Mike Krzyzewski.

Cheering against the Blue Devils is a basketball tradition almost as ingrained and as fun as supporting our own schools. Thus, some of the most memorable games of the last 30 years involve a Duke loss. I set the benchmark at 30 years because, prior to Christian Laettner's stomp preceding his legendary buzzer-beater against Kentucky in 1992, the Blue Devils were viewed as lovable underdogs.

It's hard to believe in retrospect, but reaching numerous Final Fours in every year from 1986 through 1990 save one and losing in all of them made Duke something of a hardwood forerunner to the early ‘90s Buffalo Bills. Faced with a UNLV team that destroyed Duke the previous year, and ran all comers out of the gym in 1990-91, the first national championship-winning Blue Devils may as well have been 2006 George Mason.

Winning changes perceptions, however, and Duke finally claiming the title provided the plot device to create a heel with unmatched longevity. The intensity of Duke-directed hate has varied in the past three decades — the universally beloved Grant Hill was impossible to cheer against, and the Justise Winslow/Jahlil Okafor/Quinn Cook title team of 2015 was, I suspect, a preferable champion to unbeaten Kentucky or the Frank Kaminsky-led Wisconsin squad — but otherwise, the Blue Devils’ run as the A-1 villain is remarkable.

Reasons to dislike Duke for fans of other programs, even those without historical rivalry against Duke like the other Tobacco Road programs, vary widely.

Folks in Big Blue Nation not even born in 1992 know all about the Laettner Stomp; Arizona fans still have a sour taste lingering from the officiating in the 2001 National Championship Game; and Dick Vitale’s reverence for all things Duke during national telecasts has provided a college-basketball equivalent to Thom Brennaman’s 2009 BCS ode to Tim Tebow, or Bobby Heenan losing his mind for Ric Flair at the 1992 Royal Rumble, every winter for three decades.

The above image of Jay Williams, uh…forcing a steal from Jason Gardner was not long after Arizona coach Lute Olson coined the nickname “Dukie V.” for Vitale.

And then there’s a consistent complaint not specific to any one fan base I’ve often heard repeated with regard to Duke basketball: that it’s arrogant. The perception stems from Coach K himself, who has always carried himself with businesslike seriousness that starkly contrasts the affable nature of former rival Dean Smith or the folksy demeanor of Roy Williams.

Certainly arrogant is an adjective Intro To Fiction students would add to their notes on crafting a villain, but what does it mean in the context of Duke or Coach K?

I don’t think it’s out-of-bounds to say that arrogant can be translated as he wins a lot and I’m jealous of that.

If Duke wasn’t excellent, and if Coach K hadn’t continuously reinvented his approach as college basketball changed, no one would care about his perceived demeanor. Fans wouldn’t expend the energy necessary to complain about Dick Vitale’s fawning, free-throw disparities and missed calls, or actively rooting against Duke is Krzyzewski wasn’t a damn fine coach with the ability to recruit elite talent.

And, fewer eyes would be focused on the game without that common villain, that heel so many have tuned in over the years to beat. Put simply, Mike Krzyzewski made basketball more entertaining for everyone in his time at Duke.

Coach K prepares to exit the game having left an indelible mark with no clear heir apparent. The unprecedented longevity of Duke might also mean it will be unmatched for the foreseeable future.

That should command the respect of even the most aggrieved Blue Devil hater — although that doesn’t mean the college basketball world has to make 2021-22 a complete lovefest. Check out my Patreon to revel in some schadenfreude, albeit presented with the utmost respect.