Record: 34-2, 14-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: Christian Laettner (ACC POY), Bobby Hurley (2nd), Grant Hill (2nd), Thomas Hill (3rd)
All-Americans: Christian Laettner (National POY)
There are five teams in college basketball history that won a national championship and then returned essentially the same team the next year: 1967-8 UCLA, 1984-5 Georgetown, 1994-5 Arkansas, 2006-7 Florida, and 1991-2 Duke. All five teams reached the national final the next year. UCLA, Florida, and Duke won, while Georgetown and Arkansas lost. These teams are rightly recognized as among the best in the history of college basketball.
While 1992 Duke was essentially the same team as 1991, there was a little bit of roster change. Greg Koubek, a rotation big man who gave the ’91 team about 15 minutes a game, graduated. Billy McCaffrey, the second-leading scorer and an integral part of the 1991 team, decided to transfer. The only newcomer of note was Cherokee Parks, and he didn’t play a lot as a freshman. Mostly Coach K just tightened the rotation. McCaffrey’s playing time went to Thomas Hill, Grant Hill, and Brian Davis, all of whom went from 25 minutes per game to 30. Antonio Lang, who fell out of the rotation late in 1991, was a key player in 1992. The cornerstones, of course, were Hurley and Laettner.
Everybody got better in ’92. Laettner suddenly started raining threes, shooting 56% from the arc – still a conference record (provided we overlook Terry Gannon’s 59% in 1983 from 17’9″, and we should). Hurley’s scoring went up, FG% and FT% went up, assists went up, turnovers went down, fouls went down. Grant Hill took big steps forward in every category. Thomas Hill and Brian Davis contributed more.
This is probably the best offensive team in ACC history. They averaged 88 points per game on 54% shooting as a team. That is far and away the best FG% in league history, a full two percentage points better than 1998 UNC. They weren’t a great rebounding team; I don’t think they were an exceptional defensive team, although they could be very good at times. But they could put the ball in the basket as well as any team who ever played in the ACC.
Because of the inconsistent defense, there were a few regular season games where they couldn’t stop anybody and had to outscore them – which they did. They allowed 91 points to William and Mary. The beat Maryland 91-89 and Clemson 98-97. It seems the defense got better in the late stages of the season. After a 25-2 regular season, they cut through the ACC Tournament like a buzzsaw, dominating North Carolina 94-74 in the final.
The NCAA Tournament is remembered, and rightfully so, for the all-time classic regional final between Duke and Kentucky. What I didn’t remember as well was Duke’s next game, the national semifinal against Indiana. This was a really good Indiana team with Alan Henderson and Calbert Cheaney. Indiana started out on fire and opened up a 12-point lead late in the first half. At that point, the Blue Devils flipped a switch. Over the next 15 minutes or so of game action spanning the first and second halves, they went on a 31-6 run to turn the 12-point deficit into a 13-point lead, and that was effectively the ballgame. Indiana, to their credit, improbably clawed back into it late. A seldom-used player named Todd Leary hit three threes in a span of 25 seconds (!), and the Hoosiers had a possession down three with a chance to tie. But they couldn’t convert, and that was the Hoosiers’ last chance. Indiana committed 33 fouls in the game. The officiating prompted Bob Knight to call Ted Valentine “the greatest travesty I’ve ever seen in basketball in 33 years as a college head coach” after Valentine tagged him with a dubious technical in the second half.
The final was not one of the great ones. After a competitive first half, Duke dominated the second half with their defense, limiting Michigan to 51 points for the game. The Fab Five, as great as they were, were no match for the experience of this Duke group on the biggest stage. Hurley, not Laettner, was the Most Outstanding Player, and he deserved it, playing extremely well in the Final Four.
An oddity about this team is that they went wire-to-wire as the #1 team in the country despite losing two games. It’s unusual for a #1 team to lose and retain the top ranking, but it can happen, and here’s an example. Duke’s first loss was on February 5 at #9 Carolina. But #2 Oklahoma State and #3 Kansas also lost that week. What’s more, before next week’s poll came out, the Blue Devils went down to Baton Rouge and beat Shaq and LSU. So they retained the top spot.
Duke’s second loss was on February 23 at Wake Forest. But wouldn’t you know it, #2 UCLA, #3 Kansas, #4 Carolina, #5 Arizona, and #6 Ohio State all lost that same week. So Duke remained #1. They didn’t lose again.
This team has a very strong case to be #1. Their top 3 players (Laettner, Hurley, Hill) match up against anybody. It was almost a coin flip for me. I’ll explain my rationale in my final post in this series.