Lew Alcindor v Duke

[dball]

Kennedy, Vandenberg and Lewis

Shot baskets in the Indoor Stadium with Big Mike just before leaving for Thanksgiving. He was staying on campus, not headed for Missoula. Shared a conversation with Joe in the early 80s. Both great guys.

With the notable but unsurprising exception of Christian Laettner, that has been my experience with all Duke players.

[jimsumner]

Vic Bubas was quoted after that 12-10 loss to State, that this particular team he had couldn't guard a team of grandma's that year in a man to man defense.

I asked Bubas about this once and he said Duke was too slow to come out and chase State for 40 minutes. Duke had defeated State 82-76 and 71-61 earlier in the season, so it wasn't like Duke was blowing them out. But Sloan evidently thought he couldn't beat Duke straight up.

Other teams had started to hold the ball against Duke late that season, although not to that extent. But Duke beat Wake Forest 50-41, lost to South Carolina 56-50, beat Clemson 43-40 in the opening round of the ACC Tournament.

Bubas rolled the dice that his team would make the plays it needed to make in the final couple of minutes. He lost the gamble.

State played Carolina in the title game the next night and got absolutely mauled.

[Music man55]

I asked Bubas about this once and he said Duke was too slow to come out and chase State for 40 minutes. Duke had defeated State 82-76 and 71-61 earlier in the season, so it wasn't like Duke was blowing them out. But Sloan evidently thought he couldn't beat Duke straight up.

Other teams had started to hold the ball against Duke late that season, although not to that extent. But Duke beat Wake Forest 50-41, lost to South Carolina 56-50, beat Clemson 43-40 in the opening round of the ACC Tournament.

Bubas rolled the dice that his team would make the plays it needed to make in the final couple of minutes. He lost the gamble.

State played Carolina in the title game the next night and got absolutely mauled.

I remember being so mad watching the tar heels dis-mantle State the next night.I kept telling my dad that Duke would've given UNC all they could handle had they not let State beat them with that slow down. Ahh,but that's just the way it went that year in the acc tourney.

[Steven43]

Shot baskets in the Indoor Stadium with Big Mike just before leaving for Thanksgiving. He was staying on campus, not headed for Missoula. Shared a conversation with Joe in the early 80s. Both great guys.

With the notable but unsurprising exception of Christian Laettner, that has been my experience with all Duke players.

If you don’t mind saying, what was your experience with Christian? I’m assuming it didn’t go particularly well.

[wsb3]

My first Duke basketball game was the Duke UCLA game in Charlotte. The old coliseum on Independence Blvd .. I think it's still there. It was huge to me.

That is a heckuva first game.