30 years ago to the day....
- Thread starter Quavarius
- Start date
I just watched this game and the championship against Kansas again the other night. That team was so damn scrappy on defense. Most people scoff at me today when I say Duke's upset of UNLV ranks as one of the top 10 tournament upsets of all time. Maybe even top 5. Of course, Duke wasn't Duke then and UNLV looked unbeatable. Both of those teams would've wiped the floor with that '15 Kentucky team that went 38-1. But for some reason everyone brings that Wisconsin upset over ours.
Personally, I can’t think of a bigger upset in the tournament, except possibly State over Houston in 83. UNLV was undefeated, and had won it all in 90, beating Duke like a rented drum for the title. The Wisconsin upset of Kentucky isn’t even close.
I don’t understand how anyone can call it a huge upset. Duke had been to the FF in 86, 88-91 to that point. Played for the title the previous year (granted they were blown out by UNLV). Duke ended up with this title and repeated. Duke was already great. It shouldn’t be a surprise they won
It was an upset but not that big an upset imo. Yes we got run out of the gym the year before but the team was a year older. Hurley was a much better player that year. And Grant Hill gave us the NBA level athlete we did not have the year before. We just looked like we belonged that year.
My freshman year. I was in Cameron, taking it all in.
Good time to be there. We played in the national championship game 3 out of the 4 years I was there.
Good time to be there. We played in the national championship game 3 out of the 4 years I was there.
Wisconsin over UK wasn't an upset. Wisky was the better team. UK was good when their defense generated a ton of turnovers but their half court offense was pitiful. They couldn't even drop 60 on Columbia. That UK team is the single most overrated team, at least in CBB, maybe in sports ever.
Hell they wouldn't have even got to play Wisconsin without the refs bailing their asses out against ND.
Yes we all know that. It’s easy to look back now though and say that the 91 team was one of the best, but in the heat of the moment, UNLV undefeated, what they had done to us the year before, and also coming off a 20 point acc finals loss to the holes? Winning that game was a major upset. Out of K’s title teams, that one lost the most games, 7.
UNLV probably wins 7 or 8 out of 10, but they had not been tested under game pressure and Duke was throughout the year. I would submit that Duke following up with a second title the following year helps the argument that the UNLV win was not a total fluke. As for the UNC loss, I wouldn't give too much weight to a rivalry game like that.
Maybe growing up watching this actually happen makes it seem more like a huge upset to me? I still believe that UNLV was seen as unbeatable by the entire college basketball world. No one gave Duke a chance going into that game. All the talking heads had UNLV going undefeated and winning the whole thing. Beating Duke was just another stepping stone to the inevitable. I was laughed out the living room that day when I told my brother and cousins Duke would win. Granted, I was a kid and had zero clue as to what I was talking about. Later though I did get to gloat to the room of baby blue fans. I think time has made some fans forget how big that game truly was/still is to not only basketball history, but to Duke history.
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