And yet somehow, it's still about Duke...

Huh?

They lost.

They got their asses handed to them in the first half. Yes, they made a gorgeous rally in the third quarter, but bottom line: THEY. LOST.

Okay, so yes, I am a Hopkins fan. Class of 1993, thank you very much. And it's Johns to you!

But how does it work that even when Duke loses the championship, it's still about them??? Sure, they were wrongfully accused of rape. But it's not like they were a bunch of boy scouts doing yard work for nuns. Doesn't anyone remember that they were a bunch of drunk and disorderly complaints against Duke players that came to light with the rape allegation? Or what about the assault charges in Georgetown that some of those same players earned while out barhopping? PLEASE. And let's not forget that email message sent by Ryan McFadyen saying he planned to invite strippers to his dorm room, kill them and cut off their skin. He's still on the team, by the way...

And McFadyen isn't the only one still on the team. Much of the 2006 squad managed to get the 2006 season removed from their NCAA eligibility, giving them a postgraduate or fifth year senior (or in one case, if ESPN was accurate, a sixth year junior) year on the team. So when ex-coach Pressler predicted that Duke would win because they had the better senior class, was he referring to both of them?

These guys thought an appropriate activity for a Monday night was underage drinking and hiring exotic dancers (you know, strippers) at the home of their team captains. Now they will be the legacy, the standard-bearers that everyone will look up to for everything, in the classroom and on the field, at least according to their new coach. Kind of makes you fear for the future, doesn't it?

Yesterday was at least partially a grudge match for Duke. Two years ago they faced Hopkins in the National Championship and lost. Then last year when their season was cancelled and the future of their entire program looked bleak, Johns Hopkins was one of the first schools to come out and say that they wouldn't touch anyone associated with the Duke program. (read: Don't even think about trying to transfer here. We're better than you.)

The reality is that even with a 3.45 or 3.3 at Duke (gentleman's B, anyone?), a student would hard pressed to prove himself up to the academic standards of Hopkins.

Meanwhile, back at the Homewood campus, home of the NCAA Lacrosse champions, the team members may not be slated for sainthood, but at least they can define terms like integrity, character and ethics. One of the team captains is even a member of the University Ethics board. I'm pretty sure you don't get that kind of position if throw parties with strippers and underage drinking. And trust me when I tell you that the staff know what's going on. I seem to remember getting busted as an IFC officer for not busting a fraternity that was making their pledges wear New Kids on the Block buttons ~ harmless, yes, but still hazing. We knew it was wrong, but found it rather amusing and had a certain amount of respect for the creativity involved. But I digress....

We were really hoping that Cornell would beat Duke in the semi-finals. The game would then have been about undefeated Cornell, but that would have been more bearable. You would have thought that was Duke was shut down the story would be over, but you would have been wrong.

“When I woke up this morning and ESPN did a story on the national championship game and didn’t mention Johns Hopkins once, I took that personally,” the Hopkins senior Jake Byrne said.

And he wasn't the only one.