(The best game of an NCAA schedule is not always in the final.. It often comes in the final four, regional finals, or even a regular-season game. Three classics follow. All are indelibles parts of basketball lore)
Never Play Their Game
The 1991 Duke-UNLV, NCAA-Final-Four game ranks in the college hoop upset rankings along with N.C. State-University of Houston and Villanova-Georgetown (both described in this chapter).
UNLV, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, crushed Duke by 30 points in the NCAA Finals a year earlier. And they came into the 1991 semifinal riding a 45-game win streak. Led by future NBA all-stars Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon, and Greg Anthony, UNLV looked unbeatable. Few hoop cognoscenti, and even fewer bettors, favored Duke.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski crafted a superb defensive game plan that forced UNLV into an unfamiliar and stifling half-court game. Meanwhile, star forward Christian Laettner, poured in 20 first-half points. Bobby Hurley, Coach K’s spunky and talented point guard, controlled the tempo, got his team good shots, and drove the baseline. Despite their strong play, Duke still trailed by two points at the half.
Coach Jerry Tarkanian’s Runnin’ Rebels came out flying in the second half, but were damaged when floor leader Greg Anthony fouled out early. Although Duke’s overall defense remained tenacious, and they continued to hold Larry Johnson in check, the Blue Devils still trailed by five late in the game. Suddenly, two three-pointers put Duke ahead, and Tarkanian chewed hard on his trademark towel. The icy-veined Mr. Laettner then sunk a pair of free throws that appeared to clinch the improbable upset. But in the dwindling, dry-mouth seconds, Larry Johnson had an open three-point chance for an 80-79 win. To the chagrin of UNLV fans, he inexplicably passed off to a teammate, and the rushed shot missed as time expired.
DUKE won its first national championship when they went on to beat a dogged Kansas team. The highlight of this game was one of the most memorable dunks in history, all-American Grant Hill's flying save and dunk of a wild Bobby Hurley pass.²⁰
Grant Hill, who was usually out front on Duke’s fast break is the son of Yale legend and NFL all-pro running back Calvin Hill (see Chapter 1 “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29”). Grant Hill’s brilliant early years in the NBA were interrupted by an ankle injury that led to a number of operations. He missed some or all of several seasons, but seems now to be regaining his form. Contrary to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s observation that “There are no second acts in American lives,” Grant Hill is a good bet to have one.
Too Much Laettner
Mike Krzyzewski’s team powered through the next season before colliding with coach Rick Pitino’s talented University of Kentucky Wildcats in the 1992 NCAA Eastern Regional finals at the Philadelphia Spectrum. Duke led by five at the half, but neither squad had played their best basketball. The second half tightened as both teams took full advantage of each possession. Kentucky and Duke shot over 60% from the floor as the lead swung. Things looked grim for Kentucky when Jamal Mashburn, whose dead-on shooting had kept the Wildcats in the game, fouled out late in the final period.
Despite the loss of their star, Kentucky rallied late in regulation to take Duke into a stomach-churning, lead-swapping overtime. Then, trailing by one point with seconds remaining, Kentucky hit a semi-hook heave off the glass to go up 103-102. Duke immediately called time, but was forced to inbound from their own baseline. Coach Rick Pitino opted to double-team Laettner and not guard Grant Hill the inbounding player, a decision that gave Hill room to maneuver. With over 17,000 unhinged fans rattling the Spectrum’s rafters and time nearly gone, Hill pitched a 77-foot strike. The normally imperturbable 6’ 11” Laettner maneuvered between the defenders, caught the ball high near the free-throw line, dribbled once to gather himself, and drained a 14-foot turnaround jumper at the buzzer that put Duke in the final four. (In 1990, Laettner hit a 15-foot leaner as time ran out to snatch an NCAA regional final victory from the University of Connecticut.)
Laettner didn’t always keep his cool or upgrade Duke’s reputation for arrogance. Earlier, he and a Kentucky player collided. After getting up Laettner stepped on his opponent’s chest. He got a well-deserved technical foul, but should have been tossed from the game.
DUKE/UNLV IN 1991 and DUKE/KENTUCKY IN 1992 go down as two of the greatest heartbreaks or triumphs, depending upon your loyalty, in college basketball annals. Future NBA-forward Christian Laettner was the hero of both games, outscoring the entire UNLV frontcourt in 1991 and a year later going 10-10 from the field and 10-10 from the line in the Kentucky game. (Laettner’s performance against Kentucky was reminiscent of an earlier Bill Walton effort. See “Near Perfection” in this chapter).
Bobby Hurley hit big shots in both games: a three-pointer with two minutes left against Vegas that drew Duke to within two, and a three in overtime after Kentucky had opened with a trey of its own.²¹
DUKE went on to beat the University of Michigan in the 1992 final game and earn consecutive NCAA Championships. The Blue Devils didn’t win any more finals in the 1990’s, but played in three more, a single-decade string of appearances exceeded only by coach John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins in the 1960’s and 1970’s (see “Near Perfection” in this chapter).
Wildcats In the Bayou
Despite Kentucky’s 1992 desolating loss to Duke, they remained a college basketball powerhouse. And their superhuman 1994 comeback in Baton Rouge against Louisiana State University has become a Wildcat and college basketball fable. Kentucky sleepwalked in the first half while LSU was self-propelled from the perimeter, and, in what appeared to be a walkaway, led by 31 points with 15:34 remaining in the game. The Wildcats proceeded to hit 11 three-pointers, took over the floor, and outscored the Bayou Bengals 62-27 during the final 15:34.²² Leading Kentucky scorer Walter McCarty sealed the glittery, back-from-the-dead Kentucky win with a baseline three-pointer for a 99-95 Kentucky grand theft.
WITH A CONVINCING SEVEN NCAA championships, the University of Kentucky has long been synonymous with high-stepping college basketball. Kentucky’s finest era was forged under the 1930-1972 leadership of coach Adolph Rupp, who was nicknamed the "Baron of Bluegrass" because he took more than 80 percent of his players from the hills of Kentucky and turned them into champions.²³
Twenty-four of the Baron’s players earned all-American honors, seven captured Olympic gold medals, and 28 played professionally. Kentucky’s record under Rupp was 879-190, a glistening .822 percentage. His teams appeared in 20 NCAA tournaments and won national championships in 1948, 1949, 1951, and 1958. Rupp’s teams played whirlwind fast-break basketball combined with pitiless defense. He demanded a 100-percent commitment from his players at all times, pushing them to astounding levels of success.²⁵
TRAGEDY. Two of Rupp’s greatest stars, and the all-American mainstays of the 1948, 1949 consecutive NCAA triumphs, were burly, high-scoring center Alex Groza and slashing, playmaking guard Ralph Beard, who was also a Major-League baseball prospect. Both won gold medals playing for the U.S. basketball team at the 1948 Olympic Games in London, and both became professional basketball all-stars. But in a dystopian turn that is a stain on the University of Kentucky basketball story and had absolutely nothing to do with Adolph Rupp, Beard and Groza were convicted in a 1951 trial of taking money in college for shaving points in the 1949 National Invitational Tournament and were banned from the NBA.
ANOTHER BLOTCH on Kentucky basketball was Adolph Rupp’s prolonged insistence on playing an all-white team. This
regressive policy backfired in 1966 when Texas Western, an all-black team, beat Kentucky in the NCAA Final game to win the national championship. It was a breakthrough victory that elevated the general public’s perception of black athletes. Too many people trapped in their ill-founded prejudices mistakenly believed, as Adolph Rupp did, that an all-white team could not lose to an all-black team. (Not too many years later the Boston Celtics, at the high point of their dynasty, used five black starters, an NBA first.)
(These stories were excerpted from Guts in the Clutch: 77 Legendary Triumphs, Heartbreaks and Wild Finishes in 12 Sports, Illustrated, with a Foreword by Drew Olson of ESPN
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