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Bobby Hurley has had his first and last Brotherhood game, guaranteed.
I went to Duke Sunday night to see what the (almost) brand new Blue Devils look like, and they look damn good to me. I realized they were playing Arizona State, whose coach is famous Duke “brother” Bobby Hurley coming to the “hood.”
Bobby had a pretty good team that shot 15 percent from outside in the first half and lost 103-47. If you don’t want to bother with the math, that’s a 56-point differential. Think Bobby, who the Tar Heels loved to hate, will come back and lose by 57 for the Brotherhood!
Coach K was there, making one of his few appearances at Cameron since Carolina beat him in his last home game and sent him into retirement in the 2022 Final Four. No matter how much you want to pick on Hubert Davis, he will always have those two wins. Forever.
I especially wanted to see Cooper Flagg, the 6-9 talent who grew up in Maine, was the No. 1 recruit in his class and is already the top pick projected in the 2025 NBA Draft. He was very good but not the best player on his team that night. I spent a lot of summers in Maine, and I will be surprised if any white, skinny kid will ever be the best player in college basketball.
Flagg played 20 minutes in the Blue Devils slaughter of the Sun Devils, and no Dukie played more than 23. Fellow frosh 6-7 Kon Knueppel from Milwaukee outscored, outshot and out-rebounded Flagg, and had one more assist and one more steal. The player to watch, especially Carolina, is 7-2 freshman Khaman Maluach, who had 12 rebounds and two blocks to go with his 8 points. Pure size and wingspan make him the difference for Duke.
It was an exhibition game, like UNC had at Memphis, and Cameron was not packed to the rafters because it wasn’t in the season-ticket package and sold as a one-off since, well, it was for the Brotherhood, whose total net worth could not be calculated.
Grant Hill was there, and his is $250 million, according to the Internet.
It didn’t seem like a normal game because you truly needed a program to tell who was who, and moving forward they should include a pronunciation guide for the two new Special Ks. It is Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach. Repeat after me, Knueppel and Maluach.
Duke promotes, but doesn’t flaunt, its NIL machine but everyone following that stuff knows they are set up as well as any school in the country for this new era that is driving a lot of coaches crazy and a few (Tony Bennett is the latest) out of the sport.
How Jon Scheyer follows Coach K in this one-and-done game will be interesting to watch from year to year. For this year, though, the hardly depleted Dukies look damn good.
Featured image via Associated Press/Ben McKeown
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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