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Aside from a blip here and there, Duke and Kentucky land the best players

Malik Monk, Frank Jackson and Jayson Tatum all landed at Kentucky or Duke. They aren't the only top-flight recruits making those decisions. Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire

Last week my colleague Eamonn Brennan wrote that Duke and Kentucky "have lifted themselves to an altogether different plane than their peers." Color me shocked, but this characterization of the hoops powers that be led to some pushback.

While it's self-evident that our big, sprawling and unwieldy sport of college basketball is much larger than any two teams, I'm here to offer one hearty, analytic "Hear! Hear!" to Brennan's thesis. If anything, he could have pushed it even further.