"You do not want to rush this floor, Duke fans."

Obviously, when it comes to rivalries, a team’s record doesn’t really matter. If two teams hate each other enough, they’re both usually possessed with supernatural-type powers that allow even the weakest of opponents to play above and beyond their limitations. So when it came to last night’s matchup between the unranked UNC Tar Heels and the No. 2 Duke Blue Devils, we should have obviously expected that it would be a close one. After all, if UNC fans had the balls to steel one of the Duke mascot’s heads and set it on a pike*, then they obviously expected their team to show up.

And the Heels mostly showed up, losing 73-68 on the back of piss-poor free throw shooting in the second half, but that was all good enough to Duke fans, who wanted desperately to rush the court after their team rallied to win. That’s what a rivalry does – it makes the fans of the second best team in the country think that they should rush the court after barely beating an unranked team.

Fortunately, Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski lifted his powerful hands and used the force of darkness to put all Duke fans back in their seats. So instead of rushing the court, they went outside and burned a bunch of stuff**. At least they were nicer this time. Hooray college basketball!

UPDATE: !!!Hilarious college newspaper headline alert!!!

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Make no mistake about it, Team USA handled the Nigerian Men’s Basketball team with humiliating authority yesterday, as Carmelo Anthony set a new team record with 37 points, and the entire team set world records with 156 points and 29 3-pointers. Nigeria? 73 points. It was an 83-point thrashing for the ages, and a game that will certainly spark a few morons to write: “Yeah, but what would the 1992 Dream Team have scored against this Nigerian team?”

But in this era of good sportsmanship and “Hey, everybody have fun out there”, it wouldn’t have made for a good enough story unless some reporter accused Team USA of running up the scoreboard. I don’t actually know which reporter asked the golden question, so I’ll assume his name is Boris Commiedick and he writes for the Pinko Times-Gazette. Nevertheless, Coach Mike Krzyzewski didn’t take too kindly to being called a showboat.

We didn’t play LeBron [James] and Kobe [Bryant] in the second half, and with Carmelo shooting like that, we benched him,” Krzyzewski said. “We didn’t take any fast breaks in the fourth quarter, and we played all zone. You have to take a shot every 24 seconds, and the shots we took happened to be hit.

“I take offense to this question because there’s no way in the world that our program in the United States sets out to humiliate anyone.”

Krzyzewski nodded toward Nigeria coach Ayodele Bakare and decided to speak for him too. “Coach would think it humiliating if we didn’t play hard.” (Via Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski to round out the names I hate spelling)

*unfolds American flag, clips it to rope, raises it up a pole, puts on glasses, stands on top of Mount Rushmore, lights a Roman candle*

Yo, rest of the world, listen up. I think I speak for the majority of American basketball fans when I say if you don’t like us paying back Shehu Shagari for his 419 scams by mopping the floor with Team Nigeria, then y’all need to get together and create a super team that can stop us. And that probably won’t even work. You’d need Voltron, a couple Thundercats, and probably some really hot stripper cheerleaders to distract our players. And even then you’ll probably lose by 30. So suck it, rest of the world. Suck it hard.

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On Tuesday night, a few hundred people gathered in New York City for the annual Sports Illustrated Sportswoman and Sportsman of the Year ceremony, which is like the Golden Globes to With Leather’s Top Sports Moments of the Year. University of Tennessee Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt was honored as the Sportswoman of the Year, while Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski was presented as the Sportsman of the Year. Smart ass college basketball fans everywhere suggested that the titles should be swapped.

Also honored was Noah Flegel, SI’s Sports Kid of the Year, and he was the biggest winner of the night. Why? Because he got to hug swimsuit model Chrissy Teigen, who was at the event as part of her mandatory deal with SI to always be awesome. Between her Twitter and, well, her, Teigen is our favorite girl on the planet not named Kate Upton. And now I’m sad that Upton wasn’t there, too.

And there were some other people at the event, but I only care about Teigen. She’s that special.

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Welcome to another installment of Wild Card Wednesday, as I try to cram together all of the awesome, random things that we’ve been missing out on in favor of the big stories and half-naked Marisa Miller…

At some point on Sunday, Houston Texans quarterback Matt Schaub hurt his foot and now it looks like his season is over. I’m sure that the Texans won’t completely give up on Schaub until a doctor does something cool and drastic like slam his glasses down and yell, “Damn it, I’m not God!” In the meantime, the second coming of Matt Leinart is upon us, and somewhere there’s a Jacuzzi not being boned in.

Last night, Houston tight end James Casey Tweeted the above image of a local Hooters showing support for the new QB. Unfortunately, after calling the Hooters, I learned that they ran out of space and it should have read: “Hey Leinart, we believe you gave us all gonorrhea.” OK, I may have made that up. But would you bet against it?

I’ve got my fingers crossed for you, Texans fans. God knows this would be my response to losing Schaub…

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As my fascination with the mental capacity of NBA general managers continues, Minnesota’s David Kahn has once again excelled beyond the wildest imaginable possibilities. It was only last week that he traded the No. 6 overall pick from the 2009 draft, point guard Jonny Flynn, for 35-year old arthritic bag of bones center Brad Miller*, and then drafted Derrick Williams with the second pick in this year’s draft after he failed to trade the pick (or Michael Beasley) to a team that actually needed a young power forward. And to top it all off with a pair of solid gold Truck Nutz, Kahn actually tried to hire Mike Krzyzewski.

Talk about a waste of time. Coach K once turned down a chance to go to the Lakers and coach Kobe Bryant in his prime. Did Kahn really think that he could get Krzyzewski to leave his Duke kingdom? He did.

“He tried to get him,” said one Kahn confidante.

Kahn was looking for a miracle or two. The other miracle is turning Ricky Rubio into a first-rate NBA point guard. As he showed over the last two seasons in Spain, the T-Wolves’ No. 1 draft pick of 2009 can’t shoot consistently or beat people off the dribble. That was versus inferior competition in Europe. Now he’s supposed to be able to do those things against the top players in the world? (New York Post)

To be clear, Rubio averaged 4.8 points in the Spanish ACB League this season, and a whopping 6.5 per game in Euroleague. Did anyone really have to think very hard about why Rubio decided he suddenly wanted to come to the NBA? I’ll give you a hint – it rhymes with GIANT PAYCHECK. Wait, I suck at hints. Kahn, of course, also tried to trade for Steve Nash so he could spend his final days in the NBA as a mentor to Rubio instead of trying to win his own elusive NBA title with a team not run by the winner of David Stern’s “So You Think You Can GM” contest.

Regardless, the comedy of Kahn calling Coach K to coach the Wolves is absolutely priceless. I can practically hear it now…

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Universally beloved Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski moved into second place on the all-time NCAA men’s basketball wins list, as his Blue Devils defeated UNC-Greensboro 108-62 last night at the Greensboro Coliseum. The win is No. 880 of Coach K’s 35-year career, and he now sits 22 wins behind Bobby Knight, and also when he pees, according to every North Carolina Tar Heels fan.

The win is Duke’s 22nd in a row, as the No. 1 ranked Blue Devils had a nice eight days of rest before their grueling matchup with UNC-Greensboro last night. But while the win is nice and the ranking is great and team playing at its best despite injuries is exceptional, this moment is all about one man and his place in the history books. One man is bigger than the moment, and I think everyone would agree that we need to be showering praise upon Coach K. Take it away, Mikey…

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