In life, you must pay the consequences for what you have done. For Grayson Allen, his three tripping incidents earned him a measly 1 game suspension. Although he was stripped of his captaincy, his inadequate suspension sent a message to the public, that Mike Krzyzewski, the Head Coach of Duke, did not pay enough attention to the situation that was required. Two trips is enough in itself, but three? That certainly calls for an extended suspension and I feel the men’s basketball program at Duke was lazy about handling Allen. Their attitude must have been “He’s our best player, so why do we need to suspend him for too long?” From Allen’s first trip, to whenever his last trip is, Duke hasn’t punished him correctly.

In any sport, dirty play and cheap shots are never tolerated. Most of these acts are sparked by emotion. While emotion can fuel your game, having it control you can prove harmful to yourself and to your team. There’s a good chance that Allen’s trips were due to his emotions taking over, as you can see as he has a fit on the bench after he got a technical foul for tripping an Elon player. While most would take shots at Allen, calling him a dirty player, most would fail to see he went 1-for-8 shooting, finishing the game with only three points and playing 21 minutes. His frustration could have definitely incited him to trip the Elon player. However, in the games he had his two other tripping incidents in, against Florida State and Louisville last spring, he played well in both games. He scored 18 points against Florida State and 19 against Louisville, while playing 40 minutes in each. He certainly did not have “bad” games, but maybe he fell short of his own expectations. Either way, these incidents have put a target on Allen’s back as public enemy Number 1.

Now, Grayson is back from his suspension and plays a key role on the court for the Blue Devils. We probably will never know what happened inside the Duke locker room or the thought process of the coaching staff while handling the situation. In the short term, this made Duke’s coaching staff look lazy and leads to the sense that they did not know how bad the case really was. It put an image on Coach Krzyzewski that he was weak and blind to his player’s mistakes. In the end, this was maybe all part of the plan. While having Allen only suspended for one game, Coach Krzyzewski can challenge the team and Allen to control their emotions as well as their other teammates. This may be a situation that the Duke Basketball program can learn and grow from. More importantly, it can teach Allen to grasp his emotions and have them fuel him to play better, and not be a dirty player. One thing is for sure, he is definitely on his last leg here. Duke and the public have given him many chances and one more trip may prove costly.