On Friday 11/13, another season of college basketball began, which is something that I look forward to every year. I really enjoy watching college basketball the most out of any sport because I have been playing basketball since elementary school, and it is cool to see all the different schools and the various traditions that each school has for game-day. I personally believe that the Duke Blue Devils have some of the best fans in all of sports, with their fans calling themselves the Cameron Crazies, since they are crazy about their Blue Devils and even do crazy things such as camping out for the annual game against cross town rival North Carolina. The Duke fans set up tents outside of Cameron Indoor Stadium months in advance through an event called Countdown to Craziness in order to ensure they get good seats to watch the Duke North Carolina rivalry game, even though the weather may not be ideal during the waiting period. The Duke students will camp out through the cold days and nights, and remain outside instead of going back to their dorms, which shows their passion for supporting the Blue Devils. Another crazy thing the students and the fans do is paint themselves blue, wear crazy wigs dyed blue, and even make a lot of noise during the game and even reach out when the visiting teams are in-bounding the ball.

On Friday 11/13 Duke opened up its season against my hometown college team the Siena Saints, who got the chance to do something that has not been done, at least not since 1985, by playing the defending national champions and the runner up the Wisconsin Badgers in the first two games of the season. Even though the final score was not close at 92-74, it was still cool to see how a team from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) would do against a team like Duke, one with a history of success that won five national championships. Siena actually kept up with Duke for a good portion of the game and actually led Duke 15-13 early on in the game, but foul trouble got to Siena and their best players had to sit on the bench to avoid further foul trouble and the risk of fouling out of the game. Even though I was not home at the time of this game, I have no doubt that people back home were looking forward to the match-up to see how Siena would handle the defending national champions, and even take advantage of the chance to go a see a game at the historic Cameron Indoor Stadium. It seemed that behind the visitors bench there were a good amount of Siena fans that made the trip down to Durham, NC from the Albany area in order to watch their Saints play the National Champion Blue Devils.

Last February I made the trip down to Duke to visit my sister who was at the time a senior at Duke, and was fortunate that there was a home game that weekend against Syracuse which I attended. I can speak from my own personal experience that going to any Duke game is awesome, and the Cameron Crazies  environment is really awesome to be a part of, as the game was sold out, with a rowdy and pumped up crowd. It was awesome to be a part of a big time game, especially at a big time school like Duke, which is something that I have never experienced before going to small school where athletics are not much of a priority. Duke ended up winning the game, and went on to win the National Championship last season which made the experience even more rewarding for me, as I can now say I got to see the 2014-2015 National Champion Blue Devils play one of their regular season games against their newest conference rival Syracuse.

Even though Siena did not win the game I'm sure the fans appreciated the opportunity to visit one of the most historic sporting venues to watch one of the premier programs in college basketball play their team, the Siena Saints. As it was a nice step up for me, I'm sure it was for them to be able to experience the atmosphere at a school that values athletics as much as Duke does.