No one really understands it except for Duke and Kentucky fans. Everyone watched it, and they remember it, and they were amazed by it. But no one else really
experienced it the way we did.
To begin with, Duke was trying to make history -- to become the first team since John Wooden's UCLA teams of the early 1970's to repeat as NCAA Champions. For a program that had long been famous for its ability to choke in the clutch -- the Blue Devils were the last of the great programs to win the national title, not ever capturing one until 1991 -- the prospect of winning
back-to-back titles was enormous. And their guys took it very seriously. You have to remember that Duke was different back then. We didn't have all of this "Dukie V" stuff, this whole notion that the Blue Devils were merely a creation of ESPN, that their team was full of soft guys who could be pushed around in a big game. Duke in the late 1980's and early 1990's was like a much better version of Michigan State today -- they were just more disciplined and more determined than almost everyone they played. Look at this record:
1986: National Finals (lost to Louisville, which won the National Championship)
1987: Sweet 16 (lost to Indiana, which won the National Championship)
1988: Final Four (lost to Kansas, which won the National Championship)
1989: Final Four (lost to Seton Hall)
1990: National Finals (lost to UNLV, which won the National Championship)
1991: National Champions
1992: National Champions
That's right: they went to the Final Four
five years in a row. That's how good they were.
I had been worried about playing them since October. This was UK's chance to play in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1988, and I
thought we had a great chance at the Final Four -- if we could avoid Duke. They were the only team I couldn't even imagine how to beat. We started off the year ranked number 4, and I really wanted a number 1 seed so that we could stay away from the Blue Devils.
But we couldn't quite get there. The Unforgettables were a wonderful team, and on their day they could play some of the prettiest basketball you've ever seen, but they could be shoved around. They were stunned at home in the second game of the season by an unranked Pittsburgh team, and they lost in Knoxville (in a game where the Vols shot
59 free throws), and they were humiliated by Shaq when they went to Baton Rouge (Shaq had 20 points and 20 rebounds, and LSU rolled 74-53. UK went 8-44(!) from three-point range, as Jamal Mashburn was the only player who could do anything within 15 feet of the basket). Those losses made the difference, as the Cats finished number 6 in the country -- just outside the range for a number 1 seed. And when they announced the draw, and we were put in the East Region with Duke, my heart sank.
On the other hand, it was fun to see the Cats back in the tournament -- and they looked really sharp. They blew out Old Dominion 88-69, then beat Iowa State 106-98, then beat UMass 87-77 in a game where one of the key plays was a technical foul on the UMass coach (whose name was Calipari). And just like that, it was time to play Duke.
I spent the whole day dreading the game. I didn't want to say good-bye to John Pelphrey, and Deron Feldhaus, and Sean Woods, and Richie Farmer -- the four seniors who had helped save the program. I didn't want to watch Duke celebrate -- I had barely watched them play all year for the same reason. I didn't want to hear the TV guys patronizing us. Besides, I had another reason for being depressed: this was Cawood Ledford's last season broadcasting UK basketball, and this was probably going to be Cawood's last game.
But the nature of fandom is that you have to give your team a chance, so late in the evening I settled down with my young wife -- this was before even Number1Son had joined us -- to see what would happen.
I had watched almost every UK game that year, so I knew these guys very, very well -- and from the beginning you could tell that they were playing over their heads. Every single player was doing what he was supposed to do; they were playing the way we had always imagined. But Duke -- which hadn't been challenged throughout the tournament (and wouldn't be challenged again) -- was playing even better. They did everything they were supposed to do and more, and they led 50-45 at the half.
Duke opened up a bigger lead in the second -- I'm wanting to say they were up by 10 at one point -- and I remember thinking this was it; the game and the season are over. But then UK was just
transformed, and for the rest of the game they were just about the best team I've ever seen. They went 12-21 from three-point range for the game -- 57.1 percent. They went 37-65 from the field for the game -- 56.9 percent. They had 24 assists and only 12 turnovers. They would have destroyed almost any other team on any other night.
But I had been right about Duke. There was a cold ruthlessness about that team -- an absolute and profound ability to go straight for the jugular that I've never really seen matched at the college level. They tuned out the manic crowd, they disregarded UK's miraculous play, they remained absolutely unflappable -- except for one brief moment when the mask slipped, and Christian Laettner stepped on Aminu Timberlake. (For the record, I never even considered the possibility that Christian Laettner would be ejected from the game. That was the sort of thing that Just Doesn't Happen.) Duke out-rebounded the Cats 31-20. They went 8-15 from three-point range (53.3 percent), 34-52 from the field (65.3 percent), and went 28-34 from the line (82.3 percent). They were pressured into 19 turnovers, but otherwise they played an almost perfect game. Laettner, in fact, was literally perfect: 10-10 from the field, 10-10 from the line, 31 points and 7 rebounds.
Now I want to be clear: I never really thought UK was going to win. But for the last seven minutes or so of regulation, and all five minutes of overtime, I kept thinking that we
could win -- if Duke would just fade a bit. Let them have two or three empty trips. Let them get tired. Let them decide, "the heck with it, we already have our rings." But it never happened. No matter what happened, they kept matching us. The game ended in a 93-93 tie, and then picked up in overtime just where it had left off.
With time almost gone, Duke was up 102-101 and UK had the chance for the last shot. I didn't think we would score, of course, but I thought this was our only hope -- to take the lead just as time expired, so that they couldn't go last. I can still see Sean Woods swooping into the lane and throwing up a bank shot to put UK on top with 2.1 seconds to go. I can remember the shots of the manic Kentucky fans going bonkers throughout Philadelphia's old Spectrum. I can remember the joy of the Kentucky players, who just had to survive one more desperation heave. (Next year, check how many times a team takes the lead with less than 3 seconds to go, and see how often the other team even gets off a decent shot. I've been watching for this for the last 20 years, and I can tell you it almost never happens.)
But in my apartment, on this night, I didn't cheer. I didn't celebrate. I jumped up like someone about to go into a defensive stance. And I told my wife that Kentucky would lose if Laettner got the ball one more time. I had seen him knock UConn out of the 1990 Tournament on a buzzer-beater. I had seen him make every shot he had taken in this game. And I was absolutely certain that if he got the ball, he would beat us.
Pitino didn't see it that way. He put his two seniors --Feldhaus and Pelphrey -- on Laettner, and hoped for the best.
He didn't get it.
I don't know what happened to Laettner after the 1992 season, why he wasn't more successful in the NBA, what were the short-comings in his game that the pros exposed. But he was just about the best college player I ever saw. The next time they show that shot at the end, notice how much time he takes after he catches the ball. There is no hurry, no panic, no desperation. He catches the ball, dribbles, turns, and ends up in perfect position for a clear shot. (Mashburn had just been called for his fifth foul while trying to guard Laettner a few seconds before, and Feldhaus and Pelphrey were afraid to get too close.) It's just an amazing display of mental toughness and sound basketball.
For me, it was like watching a nightmare come to life. For five months, I had been afraid Laettner would break our hearts, and now I got to see him do it.
My memories get blurry after that. I remember hearing Cawood say "And that's why they're the national champions," which I thought was a very classy and professional response -- exactly what you would expect from Cawood. I remember Cawood saying good-bye to the UK fans for the last time. I remember talking to my Dad. And I remember being so desperately unhappy that I couldn't even stay in the apartment -- so I walked out into our suburban parking lot, and spent 15 minutes or so wandering around under the stars. Except for the endless replays of Laettner's shot -- which are impossible to avoid -- I've never watched that game since.
I survived, of course. We all did, really. Opposing fans like to say that if Kentucky loses this or that game -- such as the one coming up on Saturday -- that we will be crushed, or devastated, or something else that will cause us to act in an absurd manner. But Kentucky isn't called the "Dark and Bloody Ground" for nothing. There's been a lot of tragedy in the Old Commonwealth, and Kentucky fans are pretty good at dealing with the worst. The Cats went home and put up a banner to the four "Unforgettables." In 1993, we went to the Final Four. Three years later we won the National Championship. Five years later we eliminated Duke in the Elite Eight and won another National Championship. The Laettner Shot didn't hurt UK basketball at all -- our later problems resulted from complacency, not despair.
But even now -- after twenty years, and two national titles, and three coaching changes, and countless articles about what a great game it was -- I still wish we had guarded that last in-bounds pass.
. I recommend it.