Originally Posted by
Lauderdevil
In all those years, maybe the most dramatic streak-saving game was the 1982 final home game against Clemson. Duke was sitting at 9 wins, with just second-ranked UNC and a highly-seeded opponent in the ACC tournament afterwards — so the team knew this was their best chance to preserve what was then a 53-year streak. (By the way, 53 years was the most in college basketball at the time, so today’s 91 years blows away any record.)
Duke trailed by 8 with under eight minutes to go, but came storming back to tie it in regulation and win in triple overtime, 73-72, to keep the streak alive. Vince Taylor hit the game-winning shot and then forced a travel in the final seconds of the third overtime to secure the win. His 35 points on his senior day was his career high; afterwards he called it his greatest win ever. (And this is a guy who played in the game with Gene Banks’ miracle shot to take Carolina to overtime the year before, not to mention the 1979 game in which Duke shut out Carolina in the first half.)
And the game had another distinction: Coach K — in his second year as Duke’s coach — notched his 100th career coaching win. Duke ended up 10-17 that year, and had another close call the following year with an 11-17 record. Other than the 13-win 1994-95 season when Coach K was out, and the following year with 18 wins, no season since has seen fewer than 23 wins.