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Cathy posted a comment on LTE and it reminded me of something I'd been thinking of, perhaps a paradox of sorts.
Duke is known to be a "Basketball School".... other schools are known as either a football school ('Bama, FSU, Oregon, ND, etc) or a basketball school (UConn, Duke, KY, etc) but the question in my mind is can there be a college with both a football and a basketball powerhouse team? I cannot think of one at the moment. Usually, it seems, one team has a great year whereas the other has a not so great season.
Duke Football.... banner year.... basketball (so far) not the bestests....

Whaddya think? Got examples where a college has both a great football team and basketball team, at the same time (well, within the same year anyway)?
Curious and warped minds wanna know

Obviously not this year, but Florida won championships in both sports a few years ago.

knights68 wrote:Cathy posted a comment on LTE and it reminded me of something I'd been thinking of, perhaps a paradox of sorts.
Duke is known to be a "Basketball School".... other schools are known as either a football school ('Bama, FSU, Oregon, ND, etc) or a basketball school (UConn, Duke, KY, etc) but the question in my mind is can there be a college with both a football and a basketball powerhouse team? I cannot think of one at the moment. Usually, it seems, one team has a great year whereas the other has a not so great season.
Duke Football.... banner year.... basketball (so far) not the bestests....

Whaddya think? Got examples where a college has both a great football team and basketball team, at the same time (well, within the same year anyway)?
Curious and warped minds wanna know

Back in the day, we referred to it as the "Inverse Constant of Duke Athletics." When football was winning, basketball was losing miserably. In 1982, our football team went 6-5, beating Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and UNC. (I won't recount what happened immediately following our thrashing of UNC, but it was UGLY.) Anywho, that same year, our basketball team lost to Wagner, a 2-7 team who was coming off a 50 point loss to UNLV. Prior to that loss, our basketball team lost to Colorado, Berkeley, UVA and Vanderbilt. We stunk. The "inverse constant theory" is that if football is winning, basketball is losing, and that a school cannot do both well at the same time. I think we're seeing some of that bear out this year.

CathyCA wrote:the "Inverse Constant of Duke Athletics." I think we're seeing some of that bear out this year.

So it is true.... I like this "Inverse Constant" theorum. Perfectly titled I think and hard (not impossible, just hard) to disprove.

I believe that Texas has also had years of strength in both basketball and football. Not necessarily true at the moment, but UCLA might also make such claims. Arkansas has, in the past, been reasonably strong in both. Not at the moment, though.

T. Boone Pickens U., uh, Oklahoma State is 5 in basketball and 7 in the BCS standings.

Louisville is another that comes to mind.

Duke had nationally high ranked programs in football and basketball while I was an undergraduate. It can be done. With Coach K perhaps eying retirement at some point not yet defined and Coach Cutcliffe raising the football program back into the level of highly ranked performance, it is possible. Add to that the high level of success of the women's basketball program and it's impressive. Go beyond these sports and add in the other nationally ranked teams at Duke, and we're looking at what can happen when focusing on excellence.

Devil in the Blue Dress wrote:Duke had nationally high ranked programs in football and basketball while I was an undergraduate. It can be done. With Coach K perhaps eying retirement at some point not yet defined and Coach Cutcliffe raising the football program back into the level of highly ranked performance, it is possible. Add to that the high level of success of the women's basketball program and it's impressive. Go beyond these sports and add in the other nationally ranked teams at Duke, and we're looking at what can happen when focusing on excellence.

Well Said!!!! The Girls Basketball team is doing great, thus far and has an impressive recruiting class for next season. Go to their games and see the talent from these young ladies!!!!
Field Hockey team has had a great season!!!
And a year of History with Duke Football!!!


What about LSU? They won a Football championship, and I think both the Mens and Women's Basketball teams were ranked (During the Alleva era, I believe).
And what about Notre Dame? The mens and womens Basketball teams were ranked........... I am sure the Football team was in the top 25! And ND has a powerhouse in Lacrosse, also.

One name: Stanford. Their basketball team isn't up to par since Mike Montgomery left 8 or 9 years ago, but their performance across so many sports is impressive. I'm thinking JD needs to win this year. Hard to believe he's been there for five seasons and entering his sixth.

YmoBeThere wrote:One name: Stanford. Their basketball team isn't up to par since Mike Montgomery left 8 or 9 years ago, but their performance across so many sports is impressive. I'm thinking JD needs to win this year. Hard to believe he's been there for five seasons and entering his sixth.

Agreed. Having every athletic scholarship endowed is extremely helpful but you still gotta have the coaches and desire to excel to win the Director's/Sears Cup 15 years in a row or however many it is.

YmoBeThere wrote:One name: Stanford. Their basketball team isn't up to par since Mike Montgomery left 8 or 9 years ago, but their performance across so many sports is impressive. I'm thinking JD needs to win this year. Hard to believe he's been there for five seasons and entering his sixth.

It shouldn't be too difficult to recruit kids to Stanford. It's gorgeous out there. If I had a kid, I would encourage him to apply to Stanford. Oh wait. . . ;)

I may have missed seeing lacrosse. We have 2 nationals. .

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--dav ... 53667.html

lawgrad91 wrote:http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--dav ... 53667.html

Great read. Thanks for posting.

There are actually a number of recent examples of two-program success like you describe. Along with Flarduh's 2006-07 performance, there were the following:

Louisville won the Sugar Bowl and the basketball championship this year.
UConn played in the 2011 Fiesta Bowl (albeit with an 8-5 overall record) and then won a basketball title a few months later.
Kansas won the 2008 Orange Bowl and basketball championship.
Ohio State lost both the football and basketball championship games in 2007 (both times to Flarduh).
In 2006, UCLA football finished 11-2 and ranked #13, and the Bruins basketball team made the Final Four. That same year, LSU finished top 5 in football, won 11 games, and went to the Final Four.
In 2005, Louisville finished 11-1 and ranked #5 in football before reaching the Final Four.

These are just the primary examples, just from the past decade. A number of other schools have made Final Fours and mid-range bowls (along the lines of Cotton, Gator, Capital One, etc.) in that time frame. So success in both major sports at once is not as rare as one might think.

BOTH!!!!

All of our team are nationally ranked!!!! Wonderful to see that in November!!!!!