What's special about Duke?

[Cuse0507]

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Just basketball? Duke teams ranked in the top 10 in the nation this decade: men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s lacrosse, women’s field hockey, and men’s and women’s golf. Basketball hasn’t been good recently? 2000s Duke men’s b-ball teams had the most wins in a decade of any team in HISTORY. In the Director’s Cup Standings (which Stanford has won every year but one), Duke finished 17th in 2009, 19th in 2008, 11th in 2007, eighth in 2006, and fifth in 2005. 42 ACC championships since 99-00. I think it’s fairly commonly accepted that Stanford is the clear #1 academic/athletic school, while Duke is #2, assuming academics are more heavily weighted than athletics.

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<p>First of all, lets look at the big two sports-football and basketball.</p>

<p>Duke football is consistently terrible and that puts a big dent in its athletic reputation. Top-caliber athletic/academic hybrids will at least have decent football programs, and Duke’s hasn’t even been up to that level recently. </p>

<p>Duke’s basketball program has been decent over the past decade, but has struggled recently. Consistently losing to UNC and making early exits every NCAA tournament have disappointed even the best Duke fans, and I’m sure that most Dookies would admit that their basketball team hasn’t been getting it done recently. </p>

<p>I don’t really take the director’s cup seriously because most people don’t care about fencing or water polo or a large number of the sports that are taken into consideration. Football and basketball are king, followed by lacrosse, baseball, and soccer, and Duke hasn’t been too remarkable in those sports lately when compared to other top schools.</p>

<p>I’ll hold judgment against Stanford because I don’t know much about their athletic programs (blame it on the east coast bias).</p>