Thin White Duke

Some interesting tidbits surrounding Friday's UConn-Duke showdown:

***Mike Krzyzewski (837) and Jim Calhoun (809) have combined for 1,646 career victories. Friday's contest will mark the first meeting between a pair of 800-plus win coaches in college basketball history.

***The teams are 4-4 in their all-time series. Here's the game-by-game history:

March 16, 1964 Duke, 101-54 NCAA tournament, Elite Eight
Dec. 14, 1976 Duke, 64-59 (OT)
March 24, 1990 Duke, 79-78 (OT) NCAA tournament, Elite Eight
March 22, 1991 Duke, 81-67 NCAA tournament, Sweet Sixteen
Nov. 29, 1994 UConn, 90-86 Great Eight tournament
March 29, 1999 UConn, 77-74 NCAA tournament, Championship Game
Nov. 12, 1999 UConn, 71-66 Coaches vs. Cancer tournament
March 3, 2004 UConn, 79-78 NCAA tournament Final Four

***UConn is 7-5 at Madison Square Garden during in-season tournament play -- including that Nov. 12, 1999 win over Duke in the coaches vs. Cancer IKON Classic.

***Including Friday's bout with No. 7 Duke, UConn is slated to play against six of the current top 10 teams in the rankings: Texas, Villanova, Kentucky, West Virginia and Syracuse are the others.

***Duke is 26-2 in in-season tournaments over the past nine seasons. The Blue Devils have won 10 straight in-season tournament games.

***Duke is 24-14 all-time, including a 19-6 mark under Coach K, at Madison Square Garden. The Blue Devils have won four straight and 11 of their last 12 games at MSG.

***The Blue Devils are 101-10 in the month of November under Coach K. Duke has won 21 straight games in the month, dating back to a Nov. 21, 2006 loss to Marquette.

***The Blue Devils have won six of their last nine games and are 104-44 all-time against current Big East teams.

***The Huskies' four wins over Duke have all come by single digits, by an average margin of 3.3 points.

***Despite losing Hasheem Thabeet to the NBA, UConn is averaging 10.3 blocked shots per game, including 26 in the past two contests. Gavin Edwards leads the way with 14 rejections.

***Duke point guard Jon Scheyer has turned the ball over just twice in 171 minutes of action thus far.

***Stanley Robinson is ready to rumble: "I always wanted to play against Duke as a kid. If you didn't want to go there, you'd at least want to play them. It's awesome just to be in this atmosphere."