Afraid of a challenge?

At first glance, there would seem little reason to question Duke's scheduling practices. The Blue Devils' annual strength-of-schedule rating never dipped lower than 15th nationally from '02-'07 and was No. 1 twice. This year's schedule is currently fourth and includes seven nonconference opponents (New Mexico State, Illinois, Marquette, Wisconsin, Davidson and Pittsburgh) that reached last year's NCAA tournament. An eighth, Cornell, currently leads the Ivy League.

Give Duke credit for one thing: By no means does it load up on cupcakes like many other elite programs. However, in recent years, it has also shied away from playing nonconference games against elite opponents (note that only one of those seven tourney teams from last season, Pittsburgh, advanced beyond the first weekend) not to mention nonconference road games of any kind.

Krzyzewski has defended this practice in recent years by pointing out that the NCAA tournament does not take place in road venues. The Blue Devils do play at least one major neutral-court game every year, be it Pittsburgh at Madison Square Garden earlier this season or Texas at the Meadowlands in 2005.

However, his philosophy seems to have deviated greatly from that of earlier in his career. Take a look at the nonconference schedules of Duke's nine Final Four teams from 1986-2001. They more frequently included elite opponents as well as far more games on opponents' home floors.

Note that many of those teams finished with more regular-season losses than Duke's recent editions -- as many as seven to nine. However, it appears they also entered March far more battle-tested due to properly challenging themselves.

Krzyzewski is one of the savviest coaches in the history of the sport. It's hard to imagine he suddenly changed such a significant aspect of his philosophy after achieving such rabid success that way for 15 years.

A more likely theory is that he began softening the schedule in recent years simply because he knew his teams weren't as good as those of years past.

Getting fat on McDonald's

A widely held assumption among college basketball followers is that Duke, being Duke, basically gets its choice of the nation's top recruits every year. How do we know this? Because Duke always signs the most McDonald's All-Americans.

Currently, there are eight McDonald's alums on the Blue Devils' roster. That's right -- eight. The next-closest team, North Carolina, has five.

McDonald's honorees come in all shapes and sizes, however -- many become NBA All-Stars (Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, LeBron James) or solid starters (Raymond Felton, Mo Williams, Daniel Gibson). Others (DeAngelo Collins?) fall off the face of the earth. Most, however, fall somewhere in between: Solid college players, some of whom do (Glen Davis, David Harrison) or don't (Chris Thomas, Travis Garrison) make it to the next level.

In the post-Elton Brand/Shane Battier/Carlos Boozer era, most of Duke's McDonald's All-Americans have fallen into the latter two categories. Seventeen such players have stepped foot on Duke's campus since 2001; only one, Luol Deng, has gone on to NBA stardom. Three others (J.J. Redick, Shelden Williams and Shavlik Randolph) are NBA reserves, while four (Daniel Ewing, Sean Dockery, Josh McRoberts and Michael Thompson) failed to make the cut. (A fifth, Eric Boateng, is currently a backup at Arizona State).

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