Now that the Duke Blue Devils have gone down to a 73-67 defeat at the hands of West Virginia University, people are going to go on and on about how surprising this loss was. 

But...should it be a big surprise?  Since 1996 (the year after the Pete Gaudet debacle), here are all of the instances where Duke underperformed their seeding:

• 1996 - #8 seed, lost in the 1st round to Eastern Michigan
• 1997 - #2 seed, lost in the 2nd round to Providence
• 1998 - #1 seed, lost in the Regional Finals to Kentucky
• 2000 - #1 seed, lost in the Sweet 16 to Florida
• 2002 - #1 seed, lost in the Sweet 16 to Indiana
• 2005 - #1 seed, lost in the Sweet 16 to Michigan State
• 2006 - #1 seed, lost in the Sweet 16 to Louisiana State
• 2007 - #6 seed, lost in the 1st round to Virginia Commonwealth
• 2008 - #2 seed, lost in the 2nd round to West Virginia

That's nine times in 13 years that they've finished their tournament run earlier than their seed indicated that they should.  To be fair, three of the four years they performed up to their seed, they won a national championship, lost in the national championship game, and made the Final Four. 

In no way does this diminish what they've accomplished in the regular season either; being a #1 seed eight times in 13 years is an incredibly impressive feat.  But we all know that if any other school had this kind of issues in getting to where they were supposed to, columnists everywhere would be going bonkers about how Coach K can't get it done in the tournament.  Since it's Duke, however, it's just brushed off and forgotten about.

Something to think about.

If you are a Kentucky fan, heck if you have watched any basketball for the past month you have heard Jay Bilas run his mouth about how he doesn't like UK and they shouldn't have been in the dance.

After selection Sunday he went on and on about how UK shouldn't be dancing with a loss to a team like San Diego.

Well now that San Diego has beaten UCONN in the first round of the NCAA Tournament I only have two questions for Mr. Biased, I mean Bilas.

1.  Does this mean UCONN shouldn't have been invited since they couldn't get past San Diego in the first round?

2.  How come you can find the man whose mouth runs like a duck's butt after this game with his comments?

On another note, I was watching the pig throwing contest in Slovakia, which was hosted by Dukie V and he even found a way to talk about Duke basketball for 10 minutes during the event.

I'm all for the free market setting prices, but this is just stupid! 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3305979

Tickets that were $25 a dozen years ago now go for $250, and in the New Yankee Stadium they'll be 2-10 times that much.  And there already have been thousands of commitments to purchase these tickets for the next three-to-ten years.  Insane!

What is about the No. 12 seeds, they always seem to prove pesky?

Western Kentucky knocked out Drake in a thriller on Friday afternoon and Villanova followed up the act with a win over Clemson Friday night. With the wins it marked two No. 12 seeds advancing past Round 1 again this year.

In the 28 games between the #5 & #12 teams over the last seven years, the lower seed won outright almost 40% of the time. Despite the early round success though, #12 seeds don't have much staying power.

Number 12 seed NCAA bracket trends (since 1985):
Lost 63 times in the first round
Lost 14 times in the second round
Lost 14 times in the Sweet 16
Lost 1 time in the Elite 8
Lost 0 times in the Final Four
Lost 0 times in the championship game
Won the national championship 0 times