Duke is cheating somehow

Erik Buchinger -

Cold cases being investigated

Duke remains one of the few remaining top programs college basketball programs not involved in the FBI scandal for paying players. The reason? You don’t have to pay players when you’re using your funds to cheat in other ways. Somehow.

While every coach in the country is offering thousands of dollars for high school kids to play for their team a few months, Coach K is ahead of the curve on this.

Despite putting in seconds of research, I have not quite pinpointed how exactly Duke is cheating, but something is definitely going on and I remain skeptical after what we witnessed Friday night in the Sweet 16 against Virginia Tech.

One theory I am considering is Duke basketball is part of the new Space Jam movie with LeBron James. The Monstars are following Duke around wherever they go, stealing the talent of opposing teams in the NCAA Tournament.

Virginia Tech’s Ahmed Hill was about to tie the game with a wide-open layup from point-blank range in what might have been the easiest shot of his entire college basketball career. Then what happened?

His talent was stolen, and the ball barely grazed the rim.

Why wouldn’t the Monstars just take the talent of Zion? I’m not exactly sure, but I’m still workshopping the idea. I have also yet to read the plot of the new Space Jam, so who am I to judge?

Duke has a history of shady things happening in championship years, which is why they’re going to win the title next week. I remain convinced Coach K went straight to the referees at halftime of the 2015 championship game against Wisconsin, paid them all the money he would have allocated to paying for players, begging them to call the game completely different in the second half.

Wisconsin first half fouls: 2

Wisconsin second half fouls: 13

Then late in the second half, the refs spent roughly 20 minutes watching Justise Winslow knock a ball out of bounds only call it Duke ball. That game was way too obvious something went down, and Coach K is a sneaky little blue devil when it comes to his cheating, so that strategy had to go.

After a few years of zero national title wins, Duke very well may have gone back to what worked in the past and inserted fans to blow shots away from the opposing team’s basket. Remember that Gordon Hayward halfcourt shot that would have given Butler a national championship over Duke? I sure do.

Well, three layups were missed in the final seconds of Duke’s last two games against Virginia Tech and UCF. Not only that, but on Virginia Tech’s final possession, the Hokies fired up two 3-pointers, neither of which even touched the rim. Virginia Tech is the eighth best three-point shooting team in the entire country.

Interesting. Very interesting.

Keeping Duke in the tournament is obviously good for ratings. With the one-and-done rule to be gone soon, we will never have anything like the Zion Williamson experience again. College basketball has to make the most of this season, so the NCAA could be in on this as well.

The answers to what Coach K is up to remain blurry and I’m not smart enough to figure it out, but one thing is clear. Something shady is going on with Duke and it don’t sit right with me. Not one bit.

Here are videos of some things I referenced in this article. I sneaked in a game from Wake Forest earlier this year, which doesn’t matter because that was a regular season game, but it just adds to my point. That was Duke’s test run to make sure this cheating strategy would work come March Madness time.

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