Читать книгу Duke - Carolina - Volume 5 The Blue Blood Rivalry - Art Inc. Chansky - Страница 3
VOLUME 5: Decades of Domination
ОглавлениеThe last two full decades of the Duke-Carolina rivalry went back and forth like high-stakes ping-pong with the Blue Bloods trading haymakers and counter punches. Consider this:
Between 1990 and 2010, the Blue Devils reached eight more Final Fours and brought four national championships back to Durham under Mike Krzyzewski, who has delivered all four of the school’s NCAA titles in men’s basketball.
During that span, the Tar Heels of coaches Dean Smith, Bill Guthridge and Roy Williams went to nine Final Fours and captured three more NCAA titles, giving the school a record 17 Final Four appearances and six total national championships (including one by vote of the Helms Foundation in 1924).
The Blue Blood rivalry was at its most vitriolic point in history during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the programs warred in recruiting as well as on the court. Players like Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, Grant Hill and Eric Montross were wooed by both schools and, whichever they chose, took that competition to the court for their college years.
In historic 1991, both Duke and Carolina made the Final Four for the first time and could have been headed for a national championship game that both programs really did not want because it would be the ultimate ones-up for the winner. There was zero love loss during the 1991 regular season, when Duke won two close games and an angry Carolina blew the surly Blue Devils out of the Charlotte Coliseum to win the ACC Tournament championship.
After blasting Duke in 1991 ACC Tournament Championship game, Carolina (and Hubert Davis) celebrate in closing seconds before seniors Pete Chilcutt, King Rice and Rick Fox hoist trophy.
Similar to the intense 1989 title game in Atlanta, this one was not as close but certainly as chirpy. The Devils were on their way to their first national championship and thought they had passed the Tar Heels in the process. Their arrogance was no match for UNC’s focus, as Carolina ran out to an early lead and was never threatened. Duke’s Laettner bitched openly at the officials during the one-sided defeat, so much so that even his head coach acknowledged to the media afterward that “Laettner can be a real asshole.”
The infamous blood game which left Eric Montross bruised and bleeding.
But, also a great player, perhaps the biggest collegiate star since Bill Walton. In the Final Four at Indianapolis, after Carolina had been upset by Kansas in the first semifinal, Laettner led his team to a monumental upset over top-ranked, undefeated and defending national champion UNLV with 28 points and the game-clinching free throws in the 79-77 victory considered the biggest NCAA Tournament upset since Villanova knocked off Georgetown in 1985.
Stunned UNLV loses to Duke in 1991 Final Four semis.
Duke’s win was remarkable for another reason. UNLV had plastered the Blue Devils by 30 points in the 1990 championship game at Denver. But that gave Coach K determination to keep the rematch close and put the Running Rebels into the tight game they had not encountered all season. Hurley’s three-pointer, considered by some the biggest shot in Duke basketball history, closed a five-point deficit in the last two minutes, and sure enough UNLV came unglued.
“I’m not sure we could beat them again,” Krzyzewski said afterward. “But, like last year, we only play once.”
After the 1991 national championship, Duke reached the height of national prominence, becoming 'rock star' Blue Devils in '92.
Duke wing man Brian Davis takes a free throw at the White House.
Two nights later, Duke defeated Roy Williams’ Kansas Jayhawks to win its first national championship in basketball. By the following season, the Blue Devils had developed rock-star popularity on their way to another NCAA title over Michigan’s Fab Five, the first back-to-back winners since the UCLA dynasty. Duke lost only two games that season, one to Carolina in Chapel Hill in the famous bloody battle between Montross and Laettner in the paint. The Duke back-to-back title teams, particularly Laettner’s dramatic buzzer beater over Kentucky in the 1992 East Regional final, lived on in Blue Devil lore. Twenty years later, Laettner and Grant Hill financed a documentary about the two-time NCAA champions.
To view the Michigan vs. Duke game click:
