Originally Posted by
Devils Rock
I too loved the 92 Team and I am going to say that the 91-92 team exhibited the greatest character of any of the great Duke teams. Yes They were dominant, but they also played hard as hell and smart as hell.
However, I must totally disagree with your remarks about the 99 team versus either 92 or the 91 Vegas team. Fortunately, I was able to dig up a small amount of historical data to bloster my case. The 99 Duke team won by an average of 24.66 points while playiing the 11th most difficult schedule in the country and in the #2 rated conference according to Jeff Sagarin. Unfortunatley, Sagarin ratings archives only go back to 1991, so I can't directly use them for the comparisson to UNLV. However, UNLV did win its games in 91 by an average of 27.3 points. Now even though I can't find ratings going back to 91, looking at ratings for the Big West conference in the first year they are available (99) is helpful. In that year, the big west was rated the #18 most difficult (it's almost like an oxymoron at that point) conference and most of the teams played a schedule strength that varied between #150-#200. The toughest schedule came it at #111 (North Texas). Now even though the Big West membership has changed somewhat over the years, it's easy to see why UNLV dominated their conference even in 91 when I believe the best non-UNLV teams in the conference in that era were NM State, UCSB and UT State. It's hard to imagine that a Duke team that won by 24.6 points/game in the ACC would not have absolutely decimated that conference by at least 30 a game. Yes, UNLV played (and crushed) a few good out of conference teams, but sort of like Memphis this year, it's just not enough to make an assessment. Also, from a purely visual standpoint, I have never, ever, ever seen a team that just absolutely punished teams the way the 99 team. It was like watching Bambi vs. Godzilla almost every time out. Sadly, they could have used the character of the 92 team in order to realize the all-time destiny that awaited them.