If you didn’t hate Duke before, you do now. Beating Butler was virtually an act of terrorism, shattering the heart of every basketball-watching soul outside of Durham and creating even more hatred for the most loathed school in the nation. I grew up a Duke fan, only because the Blue Devils saturated CBS on Saturdays in Florida, but am now among the masses that curse the hardwood they walk on.

However, we should give props where props are due. Duke was considered vastly overrated over the course of the season despite having a phenomenal year and the No. 1 seed in the tournament. Coach K once again turned a team with obvious flaws—lack of a dominant post player, limited athleticism, Brian Zoubek, etc.—into a championship-caliber squad. They won, fair and square, and beat several really solid teams along the way.

Because of this, the media circus that will continue to prevail weeks after the title game has been as active as ever in the past few days. There have been several ridiculous stories surrounding the university. But the most ludicrous have come from the strange comparisons and relationships made between Duke and the NBA’s New Jersey Nets.

The first was an actual debate on a certain 24-hour sports network known for incoherent analysis in which the two parties involved argued over whether this year’s Duke squad could beat the Nets, who currently sit at a ripe 11-66 with just five games remaining. I see the raw foundation of this argument—the Blue Devils fended off over 300 schools with the nation’s premier collegiate talent and thus could handle one of the worst teams in NBA history.

My thoughts: are you serious?

I am the first to admit that the Nets are horrendous. However, it is still an NBA team with NBA talent. Regardless of how well they can defend elite professional players, they can most definitely match up against the likes of Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer. It’s even more ridiculous if it’s broken down at a position-by-position basis. Brook Lopez (we miss you) would do unspeakable things to Zoubek in the paint. Brian has had a better year—at seven feet tall, he’s learned how to rebound!—but his offensive production is still just short of abysmal and his best defensive decisions involve fouling. At every other position from the one through the four, the Nets are just more athletic, more experienced and just better. Coach K would bend over backwards to get his hands on a player like Jarvis Hayes, let alone Chris Douglas-Roberts or Courtney Lee. The Nets would win 99 percent of the time, leaving one percent for point guard Devin Harris to get hurt.

The second connection that left me flabbergasted was about the honorable Coach K. Mike Krzyzewski is unquestionably one of the greatest basketball minds of all time. He currently sits at 868 wins for his career, and continues to turn just about everything he touches to gold. Because of this, he has been offered several NBA jobs, including head coaching positions with the Celtics, Blazers and Lakers. However, none have been even close to the magnitude of his latest proposition from the Nets.

Led by a new owner, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, the Nets are rumored to offer Coach K a deal that would pay $12-15 million per season. Not a big deal, right? It’s basically his current salary at Duke—if you tripled it. If that’s not enough perspective, how about this little nugget of information: if Coach K were to receive this salary on the current version of the Nets, he would earn more annually than Bobby Simmons, the highest paid player on the Nets—scheduled to make just over $11 million this year. Lopez, arguably the best player on the team, will make slightly over two million. How many coaches do you know that make six times more than their best player?

The Nets are desperate and their new owner is filthy rich. But come on, how many times does it take to learn that college coaches rarely pan out at the next level? From Mike Montgomery to Jerry Tarkanian to Rick Pitino, college coaches fail. Why offer Krzyzewski an absolutely ridiculous amount of money when he’s never stepped foot in the NBA?

This doesn’t make sense, nor do the connections between the Dukies and the Nets. Let’s just calm down with the comparisons, give Duke its props and focus on New Jersey’s offseason of rebuilding. This isn’t English football, and neither team will be promoted nor relegated. NBA teams will always and forever be far better than college teams, and NBA coaches will always and forever be better than college coaches at leading NBA teams. It’s plain and simple, yet it is annually ignored. I love both levels of basketball as independent forums for competition—the line should never be blurred.

And if you still think Duke can take the Nets, that’s fine—you’ve just probably never seen Brian Zoubek play.

Zach Zimmerman wishes every American sports league functioned like English football. Find out how the Detroit Lions could find a way to lose to Boise State at zachz “at” stanford.edu.