No sympathy for Devils

Like most Americans, Drew Curtis believes in free speech. He also believes Duke basketball is an abomination before God and Dick Vitale and quite possibly more annoying than Billy Bush.

So when the owners of Boston’s FleetCenter auctioned off single-day naming rights as part of a charitable promotion last month, Curtis knew what to do. He cut a hefty check — $2,550, to be exact — and prepared to exercise his Constitutional rights.

Welcome to … the Duke [Stinks] Center!

“It helped that they were donating the money to charity,” said Curtis, 32, owner of the entertainment Web site Fark.com. “It was also an opportunity to talk about how bad Duke [stinks]. Because they do.”

Alas, arena owners nixed the proposal, along with others deemed too profane. (See: Center, the Derek Jeter.) Still, if it’s the thought that counts, then Curtis’ idea ranks with E=MC2 and beer cozies. As the ACC tournament begins, no college squad is more loathed and envied than the third-seeded Blue Devils.

With the Duke [Stinks] Center out of commission, MCI Center will have to suffice.

“I think Duke will definitely hear it from the crowd,” Washington Wizards center Brendan Haywood said. “They’re the team that nobody wants to win.”

As a former Tar Heel, Haywood is biased, as objective as male escort-turned-White House correspondent Jeff Gannon. That said, the man has a point. Nobody much likes Duke.

Not the Tobacco Road old guard, the bluebloods who despise the Blue Devils out of sheer habit. Not the ACC arrivistes, the football schools still learning the joys of a T-shirt cleverly disguising a curse at the school.

Certainly not tournament host Maryland, where students calmly celebrated a regular-season road victory over Duke by setting things on fire.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Vitale, an ESPN basketball analyst. “The Wake Forest people can’t stand Duke. Maryland, [the same]. Duke is like the [New York] Yankees. And I love the Yankees.”

Of course. Who doesn’t?

• • •

Anybody but Carolina. Two decades ago, such was the ACC’s common cause, the lament of Dean Smith’s downtrodden rivals.

And now?

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