Facing Duke, who stands a chance?

They're big, scary, officious-looking, and have deprived hundreds, even thousands, of college kids from their due share of fun. No, they're not the Connecticut state liquor agents that raided Naples last week—they're the Duke Blue Devils basketball team, the evil empire of college basketball, the great Moriarty of those who enjoy the parity and upsets that make the NCAA tournament one of, if not the most, exciting sporting events in the world. Cinderellas like Hampton could revel after toppling the likes of steely Iowa State, and even eventual losers like Alabama State could celebrate the glimpses of glory it caught while keeping pace with Final Four-bound Michigan State. But if your team stands in the way of mighty Duke, you would do yourself a favor by not even bothering to watch the game. You will lose. Badly. Humiliatingly. If starting center Carlos Boozer '01 gets injured, why then Chris Duhon '04 will move into the starting lineup and drop 30. If a team manages to shut down Jason Williams '03, the best player in college basketball, then Mike Dunleavy '03, that great suburban hope, will reverse-dunk his way to the finals.

Thanks to Duke, the fun part of the NCAA tournament has come to an end. The last-second shot never comes into play when the Blue Devils take the court, and an upset is never in the realm of possibility. Simply put, for the last 10 years Duke has dominated college basketball with unflinching precision—even if it hasn't won the championship since 1992 (and in fact only won it twice in school history, 1991 and 1992), it has established the dynasty of dynasties. While illustrious power houses like Kentucky, Kansas, and UCLA constantly drop in and out of the Top 25 and year in year out bounce from a number one seed in the tourny to a number 5 or even number 6, Duke has only once since 1988 smelled the other side of a number two seed.

I call it the Duke or ___ syndrome. Every year, conventional wisdom has it that two teams have a legitimate chance to win the NCAA tournament, Duke or ___, the school that happened to be this year's flash in the pan. No one in their right mind seriously picks anyone else except Duke or ___ to win the whole dance. (This year, like last, it's Michigan State.) Golf has Tiger Woods, baseball has the Yankees, but even they stumble once in a while. Tiger just went six months without a win, the Yankees only had the ninth-best record in the major leagues last year. Ask any college coach who has been the best team in the country over the last 10 years, and he'll laugh—the answer is so obvious. Can the same be said of the Yankees or Tiger? I'm not so sure.

What is to be done then? Drown Duke out.

With a 64-team field in the NCAA tournament, too much emphasis is placed on the Final Four and the eventual winner. Pools live or die depending on whether you've chosen correctly between Duke or ___; and all anyone ever remembers the next year is Duke or ____. Yes, there are upsets in the first two rounds, but after the first weekend of play, the field quickly resembles a Who's Who of big-time college basketball. Georgia State and Utah State are heroes on that first Thursday, but gone and forgotten by Saturday afternoon. One team out of the Elite Eight is usually a high seed (this year Temple), but seven of the eight were more or less supposed to be there. In the Final Four, it is exceedingly rare to find a team seeded higher than three. In other words, we get two or three days of Cinderella excitement and two weeks of Duke or ____.

To change that, why not add one round to the beginning of the tournament—that is, make it a field of 128. It would require only one more week of games and increase the number of wins necessary for the championship to seven. The logistics would not be too difficult given the über-bureaucracy that is the NCAA (the tournament could simply combine with the NIT), and think of the benefits.

First, the focus of the tournament changes. Instead of being top-heavy (Elite Eight, Final Four) the tournament would become evenly balanced. As fans, we get to watch two weeks of upset-potential, hard fought games between teams that seem human, and then two weeks of clashing titans culminating in the Duke or ___ finale. Second, no more wrangling over who gets in and who doesn't. With 128 spots, there would be room for all—majors, mid-majors, non-majors and even perhaps more than one Ivy League school. The way it is now, with only around 30 at-large bids, there are legitimate contenders who are excluded (witness Seton Hall and Alabama). With a 128-team field, yes, there would still be some kvetching over "bubble" teams, but if you can't crack the top 128, you have no right to open your mouth. Any team that could ever have a claim to being on any given night the best team in the country would be in the field.

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