March Madness is here, and basketball fans are often torn on the fate of one team: Duke. As we fill out our brackets, the Blue Devils are one team we can consistently count on to be in the tournament. Half of the nation picks Duke to win it all, while the other half is hoping the Dukies are upset in the first two rounds. Despite the 6 NCAA championships, countless future NBA players and NCAA-best .755 winning percentage in the tournament, the question still remains: why do so many basketball fans hate Duke? The primary reason may be that they’re simply the best at what they do. And we hate the fact that they’re always the team slated to knock off our favorite team.

They consistently have one of the best recruiting classes in the nation. They have recruited 70 McDonald’s High School Americans, the best high school basketball players in the nation, to play for their basketball program over the past four decades. The Blue Devils continually recruit some of the top talent in the nation. This helps them consistently contend for a national championship. Even when they lose talent, their team is soon stacked again as they nearly every year have great, young talent coming through the door. And they often lose talent, considering that some of the best NBA players come from Duke.

The Plumlee brothers, Nolan Smith, Jabari Parker, Justise Winslow are all young names coming up in the NBA. And one thing they have in common is that they are all former Blue Devils. Some of the NBA’s best, young talents came from Duke University, 87 players have been drafted to the NBA after playing college basketball in Durham. They have not only gone on to the league, but players like Kyrie Irving and Grant Hill were very successful. Each of them leading their teams to NBA championships and at one point of time being a face of the league. This might be attributed to once again, the winning culture at Duke.

Duke University. They constantly a top 10 team, are always a favorite to win the national championship, always recruit the best players, and the players go on to run the NBA as well. What’s not to love about them? The fact that they might just be the best at everything is exactly the reason why.