NCAA Tournament questions — OK to still hate Duke?

The NCAA Tournament is here, and that can mean only one thing.

TV timeouts.

So let’s take a quick one while we check the video monitor and answer three pressing questions about this year’s month of Madness.

1. Is it OK to still hate Duke?

It’s never not OK to hate Duke, though it’s hard to dislike freshman star Cooper Flagg, the top player in the nation and consensus No. 1 pick in this year’s NBA draft.

Duke earned its reputation as an unlikable program during the Christian Laettner era, when coach Mike Krzyzewski was in his heyday. T-shirts reading, “I Still Hate Christian Laettner,” were spotted in the stands at the ACC Tournament last weekend. Laettner welcomed the hate.

”No one thinks more highly of me than probably myself,” Laettner told the Tribune’s Skip Myslenski during the 1992 Final Four. “I think that’s fine.”

His Duke teammate Bobby Hurley was asked during that ’92 tournament whether he ever wanted to reach up and grab Laettner by the throat.

“At times,” Hurley replied. “But I couldn’t reach that high.”

Both have moved on, but the reputation remains.

A made-for-March Madness title game would pit Duke against No. 2 seed St. John’s, coached by Rick Pitino, who as Kentucky’s coach in ’92 famously neglected to have a player guard the inbound pass to Laettner that led to the iconic buzzer-beater in the East Region final. Either way, you’ll be treated to that shining moment a few dozen times if Duke makes a run.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but this is Duke’s best shot at winning a national title since Jon Scheyer took over from Coach K in 2022-23. The Blue Devils enter as a No. 1 seed after winning the ACC Tournament without Flagg, who sprained his right ankle in a quarterfinal. There are no real villains on this Duke team like Laettner or the always-annoying Grayson Allen, who perfected the role and even carried it over to the NBA.

With Flagg back, the Blue Devils should cruise to the Sweet 16, where a possible matchup against No. 4 seed Arizona awaits. Scheyer, a former Mr. Basketball of Illinois at Glenbrook North who once scored 21 points in 75 seconds against Proviso West, has had the weight of the world on his shoulders since replacing Krzyzewski.

Scheyer never has backed down from a fight, and this month figures to be a series of street brawls — with Duke back as the villain you never knew you needed.

2. Why are there so many SEC teams?

The SEC set an NCAA Tournament record with 14 selections from the 16-team conference better known for football and Finebaum. Either it’s the best conference in history or conference realignment has watered down the sport.

Any of five SEC teams has a realistic chance to win it all: top-seeded Auburn and Florida, No. 2 seeds Alabama and Tennessee and third-seeded Kentucky, which had 11 Quad 1 wins, fifth in the country. Even No. 6 seed Missouri is … uh, never mind.

SEC teams won 89% of their nonconference games, so there’s a reason for the hype. But even teams that struggled in conference play were rewarded, including Porter Moser’s Oklahoma Sooners, who went 6-12 in SEC games.

Texas made it in with a First Four berth despite also going 6-12 in the conference and 19-15 overall. Matthew McConaughey was not on the selection committee, yet the Longhorns made it anyway, so look for him loitering near the bench when Texas takes on Xavier on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, for a shot at upsetting sixth-seeded Illinois.

The Big Ten, by the way, sent eight teams, and they all finished above .500 in conference play. Not that anyone in the conference is complaining.

3. How do I win my office pool?

Having never won the Tribune office pool in 43 years, despite running it for 15 years in the 1980s and ’90s, I can’t dispense any real advice.

My heart says Michigan State. My head says Florida. But my alma mater is Missouri, which has mastered the art of heartbreaking losses for so long, I always pick the Tigers to lose in the first round (to No. 11 seed Drake this year). That’s why my old college roommates banned me from participating in any group texts during Mizzou games in March.

The trendy practice to fill out brackets this year is to ask AI, which saves time and theoretically equalizes the field if everyone in your pool uses the same AI chatbot. The Sporting News used Perplexity AI, which picked Michigan State, Florida, Alabama and Houston in the Final Four, with Alabama beating Tom Izzo’s Spartans for the title. CNET.com used ChatGPT, which has all four No. 1 seeds in the Final Four and Duke beating Auburn. Boring?