Duke basketball: Wise Cameron Crazies suddenly in short supply

A feeble student section wouldn’t be ideal for the Duke basketball program.

Remember, throughout the 2019-20 Duke basketball campaign, the famed Cameron Crazies often struggled to fill their free seats in the Cameron Indoor Stadium bleachers. Then last season, the only Craziness in town was the hard-on-the-eyes panorama-style Crazie pics encompassing the sidelines.

ALSO READ: 5 excuses Coach K cannot honestly use next season

Granted, the pandemic — not at all the student population itself — was to blame for the 2020-21 absence. Nevertheless, the lack of an energized home crowd surely played a part in the Blue Devils finishing 8-5 in Durham and 13-11 overall, thereby missing the Big Dance for the first time since 1995.

Time for Crazie leaders to step up for Duke basketball’s sake

Now, Cameron Crazies must soon devise a plan to overcome their own collective rust and relative lack of returning experience. If not, as sad as it is to admit, then they may no longer serve as the hoop world’s most creative and inspiring bunch.

See, just about anyone can clap and cheer. Of course, they would first have to actually show up in order for the Blue Devils to feel the full effect of those going-through-the-motions acts alone.

While the following isn’t really the case, say, eight miles down the road in the world’s largest snooze factory known as the Dean E. Smith Center, there’s more to in-person fandom than just slapping your hands together and occasionally being somewhat loud.

How would I know?

Well, I briefly attended Duke University some 20 years ago. And although I was ultimately unable to survive my course load alongside fellow engineering majors who were all far more brilliant than myself, at least I can always say that one major contributor to those shortcomings was my focus on surviving life in Krzyzewskiville while honing my Cameron Craziness.

In fact, I’ll go as far as to say — even if totally superstitiously and laughably arrogantly — that my presence in the lower section of Cameron Indoor Stadium around the turn of the century aided in my fellow class members Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Mike Dunleavy cutting down the April nets in 2001.

On that note, I also choose to believe it didn’t hurt that I named my beagle puppy “Boozer” a few months beforehand.

Getting back to the point, though, what I’m trying to say is that without the fan frenzy regularly dialed up to 100 percent inside Cameron, the Duke basketball product is simply not nearly as strong, intimidating, or enjoyable as it would be otherwise.

It’s no easy chore either. In fact, present-day college kids better not be viewing it as a chore in the first place.

Rather, it’s a pure blessing from the basketball gods. It’s an utter joy that is unmatched in the fandom universe. Better yet, it’s a guaranteed one-way ticket to Duke basketball heaven.

Yet before creating an in-sync atmosphere at the highest possible decibel level and with unrivaled wit to go along with a hint of complete foolishness, the students have to do their history homework well in advance:

1. Seek out any established Cameron Crazies that may still be around in Durham.
2. Learn all the old chants.
3. Practice those chants both before you go to sleep each night and every morning when you wake up.
4. Finally, use those chants as a source of inspiration to conjure up new ones that are applicable to guys like Paolo Banchero, AJ Griffin, Trevor Keels, Jaylen Blakes, Jeremy Roach, Mark Williams, Bates Jones, and Theo John.

Note there at the end that I left out Wendell Moore and Joey Baker. I did so to emphasize this scary point: these are the only two of the 10 scholarship Blue Devils on tap for next season who have ever played a game in front of Cameron Crazies.

Again, I’m refusing to count last year’s silent cardboard variety.

Now, the problem with the above formula for achieving supreme Craziness this next go-round is that, as alluded to just a moment ago here, many of the most recent savvy veterans in the stands have surely long since graduated and begun transforming into grownups.

After all, by the time Duke basketball plays its 2021-22 home opener, it will have been more than 600 days since the last Crazie experience: a Senior Night delight at the expense of UNC that fifth-year treasure Justin Robinson fueled on March 7, 2020.

Fortunately, I’m still carefully avoiding the “grownup” label. Therefore, I’d be more than glad to help, free of charge, should any of the freshman Crazies — keep in mind, the sophomore Duke students are now also rookies in this regard — have trouble figuring it all out.

Just please don’t ask me to tutor you in engineering, for I’ve worked hard over the years to erase from memory that personal Duke nightmare.