Thoughts on Duke with Grayson Allen's Return from Suspension

The moment Twitter found out Grayson Allen was warming up ‘more than he did at Virginia Tech’ was one of the more glorious moments of the season. After that, when it was announced that he was starting against Georgia Tech (as was Harry Giles, which is more important), the takes were beautiful and Duke/Grayson Allen were the talking points of the night again.

So what’s to make of this? Everyone has a thought – ranging from how Allen needs to be potentially executed on the court for a fair and just punishment to how it’s not a big deal. Here’s the correct answer: it means absolutely jack shit. As most people have said by now the reason why it was only a one-game suspension has a lot to do with Krzyzewski getting ready for surgery and having to miss a month. It makes sense that he’s the one who is the coach when Allen comes back and not Jeff Capel.

Is it an easy ‘excuse’? Sure. But it’s a logical one. Jeff Capel has seen his fair share of shit when he was at Oklahoma and dealing with Tiny Gallon and Willie Warren, so allowing Allen to come back and play isn’t the craziest thing he would have saw.

Let’s take away the speculation though. Grayson Allen returning to the floor for Duke is great for college basketball. When he announced he was coming back in the summer my headline read ‘College Basketball Gets its Villain Back.’ Big Cat and Dave have called him the ‘bad guy’, hell we even sell a shirt (SERIOUSLY, BUY IT HERE) and it’s all correct and in a positive type of way. College basketball is better when there’s a program with the history and success of Duke to just straight up hate. Unfortunately for college basketball fans the sport takes a backseat until March with college football and the NFL. This year feels different though.

Whether it’s the insane amount of talent on the floor, close games we’ve seen or the fact the big name programs are all relevant, college basketball feels to be talked about more. People tend to associate programs with coaches and whether you like them or not. Duke is absolutely K’s team. But, with Allen being talked about more it gives us a specific player to cheer against/for depending where you stand. He’s not the best player on the team, but he’s 100% the most polarizing. People will tune in to see if he does anything stupid (or dunk all over someone).

It’s an interesting thing with Duke though. Back when John Calipari took the Kentucky job, the Wildcats were viewed as the program that was ruining college basketball. He had a group of guys – John Wall, Eric Bledsoe and DeMarcus Cousins – who dominated the headlines. Duke had a group of upperclassmen – Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek – who were consistently a top-10 team and eventually won the national championship. They were viewed as all that was good in college basketball. Krzyzewski could do no wrong.

Now, don’t get me wrong here – Mike Krzyzewski is the most successful and best college basketball coach of all time. What he’s done is more impressive than John Wooden, Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, whoever. But, he started to get a pass from the media. When he recruited one-and-dones it was ‘him adapting to the game.’ He skipped halftime interviews. Then the Dillon Brooks situation happened last year and everyone started to flip how they viewed K from a media standpoint.

They are now the heel. He is now a heel. And it’s awesome for college basketball. So in the end, don’t get riled up because Grayson Allen was only suspended for one game. In the grand scheme of things it was nothing, it’s a hilarious situation where a dude can’t stop tripping people. It was an ‘indefinite’ suspension, so there’s no reason to freak out that it was only one game. They never said that it was going to be a month and then got reduced or anything like that.