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.