Check out the recent pic from Duke Blue Planet below.   From NBA 1st round picks, to players, to managers, to NBA owners...Duke has its mark on the NBA!  Link below will take you to Duke Blue Planet site.

Good luck to Mason Plumlee, Ryan Kelly, and Seth Curry in the NBA Draft tonight.  Below are some interesting stats from Duke Blue Planet...   "Coach K has the most lottery picks at 17 in the NBA Draft.  Coach K has also had 45 players drafted.  Duke has had 17 NBA 1st round picks in the last 15 years"...
Here is hoping that Duke adds to all those numbers tonight.
Pic to the left I took of senior Night at Duke vs. Virginia Tech on 3/5/13.  
      

Happy Birthday to an all time Duke basketball legend JJ Redick.  Redick had his jersey retired by Duke on February 4th, 2007.  It is currently the last men's basketball jersey to be retired.  Redick won many awards and set many records while at Duke.   Redick finished his career with an NCAA-record 457 three-point field goals shooting 40.4% from three-point range.  Redick also collected many national player of the year awards in 2006.

JJ is one of my favorite Duke players of all time.  It's always cool to see a local from the Roanoke area go on to have success.  In high school he played against our biggest rival at the time Cave Spring.  He would come in our gym (Franklin County) and light up the score board.  He was able to do it without ball hogging but getting in a rhythm by finding an open spot to shoot.  Next thing you know he is scoring in the 20's and 30's a game.  Once he committed to Duke, I looked at the dude not as a rival anymore, but as somebody's career I was gonna follow.  Having a local go to Duke to play basketball is very cool.  However, having a local go to Duke and set records and have his jersey retired is awesome!  Happy Birthday JJ and way to represent the Roanoke area at the college and NBA level.                 

Congrats to Shane Battier on becoming a back to back NBA Champion with the Miami Heat!  Shane set an NBA Finals Game 7 record with six 3 pointers and ended up 6-8 from 3 point land.  When asked about his recent play at the end of the game, Shane replied.... "It is better to be timely than good". Shane's 3's came at a crucial time when Miami needed another player to step up and help out Lebron James and Dwayne Wade in scoring. Battier is a great example of hard work paying off. Battier is a NCAA Champion and now a 2 time NBA Champion.

I recently did an article for Duke Report on top 5 games for Duke in the upcoming 13/14 season. (you can find it in the link below).   However now a game against UCLA has been added to the schedule on 12/19/13 at Madison Square Garden.  Now Duke is looking at 2 conference games (home and away) against Syracuse, 2 conference games (home and away) against UNC, and an away conference game at Notre Dame.  Duke will play out of conference games against Kansas (neutral court), Michigan (home), UCLA (neutral court) and a "possible" match up against Arizona (neutral court).  That top 5 games list could easily grow to a top 10 games list.  As always, the schedule continues to have Duke battle tested at home, away, and on neutral courts before tourney time.  
Pic I took of a quiet Cameron the day after the Duke Unc game this last season.                 

I'm gonna try to take out some time from all the water related activities such as catching waves at the beach, kayaking rivers, and riding the Seadoo on the lake, and oh yeah work...to get down to Durham to catch a few games at the NC PRO-AM.  This will be my 1st time going to the NC PRO-AM.  I will report back on that experience here.  Also in the works will be an article that focuses on the top places to eat at in Durham while catching a Duke game.  As many already know Durham is one of the top towns in the South to eat it.  Check out the link below from Southern Living as Durham ranked in as one of the top 10 places in the South .  My article will focus on between 5 and 7 restaurants that Duke fans are known to grab food at.  Also in the works is an article on the Duke Gardens.  We plan on visiting the Duke Gardens while at Duke this summer.   My family has made a few trips to the Gardens, however I never have.  I have often walked passed the Gardens while on campus for games but never took the time to check them out.  The Duke Gardens is recognized as one of the premier public gardens in the United States.  Even though it is the off season... check back here often as I will have some really cool updates on our experiences around Duke this summer.  Until then...get out there and enjoy summer!
Photo I took of a sunset in Key West last summer.   

Greg Paulus was just recently named an  assistant coach for the Ohio State Buckeyes.  Paulus had been hired on as a video coordinator before this promotion.  Paulus always played with heart and intensity.  I always thought back when he was a player that he would make an excellent coach one day.  Congrats to Paulus on becoming a coach and continuing the Duke family tree of coaches in basketball!  

Always cool to see a Duke player make the cover of a video game!   Congrats Kyrie Irving!  

Which college's alumni put up the most points this year in the NBA? .... Duke!   Check out the recent tweet from Wojo below that shows the stats for points this year in the NBA.   

Steve Wojciechowski ‏@steve_wojo1h
"Most NBA Points 2012-13: Duke- 10,193... UNC- 10,102... Kentucky- 9,379 #dukefacts"

Pic I took was during the Blue White scrimmage at CTC 2010.  If you notice... 4 out of the 5 players from the white team (Kyrie Irving, Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, Miles Plumlee) are current players in the NBA with (Mason Plumlee) on his way to the NBA next season.

I always seem to have that random fan that hates Duke come up to me and say... well Duke doesn't put any players in the NBA.   I look at them smile, laugh and then present them the facts!  Duke has more players in the NBA, and they are making more $$ combined than any other college's players in the NBA.  Facts are facts.  :)  Check out the recent tweet from Wojo below...    


From Steve Wojo's Twitter...  @steve_wojo  "Coach K's players have earned approximately $1 billion in NBA salary (all-time record) #dukefacts"