92 East Regional Final; Duke vs. Kentucky

That helps explain how you're familiar with Digger Phelps and his self-promoting, whorish tendencies.

 

Indeed, and as related to me 20 years later by Kelly Tripucka, another great Jersey HS star.

 

I still have the 92 Duke-Kentucky game on a VHS tape.

 

I can remember that Maryland-N.C. State game in 74. At the time, I was a 10-year-old living in Middletown, Pa. and because of TV, became hooked on the Big 5 (loved Penn) and, for some reason, Maryland.

That game might have been between the two best teams in the country. In this day of the watered-down tournament, to think that loss kept Maryland from even being part of the tournament is even more magnified.

Through my years covering the Cavaliers, I had the chance to talk to many of the guys involved in that game and to a man, every one of them said the same thing -- "the greatest game I was ever part of."

I believe SI did a big piece on the game several years ago.

 

I still remember watching that Duke-Kentucky game in my parents' basement when I was young. My mom had dragged my dad off to a winery with a bunch of neighbors. They came home about a half-hour after the game ended. I immediately came running upstairs and said to my dad, "You just missed the greatest game ever."

He slumped his shoulders and walked away in disbelief.

 

Johnny Dawkins or Darryl Dawkins? I assume you mean Johnny. If so, no wonder it was so sweet when he blocked by David Rivers himself to seal a win over Notre Dame his senior year. Bet that felt especially good for him.

 

Does Aminu Timberlake still have the footprint on his chest?

 

Feinstein wrote a book in the late 80s called 'Forever's Team' about that '78 season for Duke. Half the book was about that season, and the other half was individual chapters on each player 10 years later. Pretty good book.

 

Mason/UConn has to be on this list. I'm sure a UCLA game or two should be as well.

 

Great Alex Woolf story on that game from SI's 1992 year-end edition. Worth a read just for the insight it gives on the final-play strategy utilized by both Krzyzewski and Pitino:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1004691/index.htm

 

Most players want to throw the basketball like a football or a baseball. When you do that, the ball will never fly in a straight line.

This might have been the game that made every coach in America teach this, but when you throw the basketball like a baseball, you have to have your entire hand on the half of the basketball closest to your ear. This might seem awkward, but it naturally stops the player from rolling the wrist and gives you a straight ball most of the time. You also bring the ball next to your ear like a football. No wined-up.