On the eve of the UNC-Duke game, here is an interesting question:
In what ways might 2010 Carolina be similar to 1995 Duke?
The story of Duke's "lost" 1995 season is well-worn by this point: Mike Krzyzewski had back surgery nearly mid-way through the season. Chief assistant Pete Gaudet took over the team which promptly nose-dived to a 4-15 finish and an appearnce in the ACC tournament play-in game. Depending on your shade of blue, either K bailed on his team when he realized they would stink (people conveniently forget Duke was 9-3 when he left the team) or Gaudet drove a decent team off the cliff. (Regardless of your loyalty, having the 4-15 record expunged from Krzyzewski's record and given to Gaudet was classless and is a legendary part of why people hate Duke, but I digress...)
In 1995, Duke was coming off an appearance in the NCAA title game in Charlotte, which was its 4th finals appearance in 5 years. Duke was roundly declared to have passed UNC by as the top program in the ACC and had a solid, if young team coming back. Duke lost a program-defining player in Grant Hill but had two senior post players in Cherokee Parks and Erik Meek as well as a sophomore point guard in Jeff Capel who was a starter on the previous year's team. Duke also had freshmen who were predicted to make some noise in Durham, Trajan Langdon and Steve Wojciechowski.
Duke started off well enough, losing only to UConn early and Iowa in Hawaii before dropping the ACC opener against Clemson. Once Krzyzewski left, Duke started finding ways to lose in spades as the Devils finished 13-18 and 2-14 in the ACC. Duke was still able to bring it, as one of the classic games with UNC was the 102-100 Jeff Capel half-court three-pointer, but the losing seemed to be infectious.
Obviously there is no direct comparison other than amazing collapses in post-title (or title-game) seasons, but some of the ancillary situations exist. Talent-wise, no one would expect Duke to lose 18 games, even with an interim coach. But for those who thought something like that could never happen in Chapel Hill, it is an interesting comparison...