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Speaker 6Right Time, a WAVE original. My name is Beaumontie Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesday. Got my man, Howard Bryant. On with us. And we are going to look back on what, quite honestly, and I don't even really feel bad about saying these terms, you know, putting it in these terms, but was a really sad day for black America. And it was when Christian Laettner, Coach K, Bobby Hurley, and now, yeah, Grant Hill, you get you. You are in the nim part of it. You hadn't really, you know, made your mark quite so much yet. They defeated UNLV. the national semi-final round of the ncaa tournament uh 35 years ago it is as crazy as it sounds considering it was duke for those of you who can't imagine this it is maybe the biggest basketball upset of my lifetime in the ncaa tournament you can have like villanova georgetown on this list but this was a huge shock when it happened it was a cultural touchstone moment when it happened and i'm still not over it um but first how i feel like you know we like to set the scene on these things to get people to understand a little bit about you know for those who weren't there some of the context of it and i i think this is truly fair to say that there were no two programs in college basketball less like one another in 1991 than Duke and UNLV right like they're both kind of relatively nouveau riche because UNLV had a claim to be a legitimate power at that point right like 1991 is their third final four or maybe the fourth but Tarkanian takes the job in the 70s and UNLV is a team you got to think about all the time at a school that literally just popped up out of nowhere in the desert and they decided they wanted to have a basketball program to make to get attention to the school and that worked then you had Duke which had been a strong program they you know went to final fours in the 1970s championship game in 1978 kind of fell off but Mike Krzyzewski turned it into something different by 19 in 1991 they by then have been to five final that's their fifth final four in the previous six years UNLV though they had different boys than Duke has that a fair way to put it
Speaker 7That's a very fair way to put it. It's fascinating when we think about what that time period was, because there were so many premises that no longer apply. And that's why this game was so important. This idea, even in 1991, 30, you know, 35 years ago, that there was something elevated about college basketball, there was something legitimate about college basketball, there was something aspirational about college basketball. it wasn't just a sport it was still they was it was still under that pipeline of the molding of young men the pathway to something better even if you weren't going to be a professional athlete that there was some form of nobility to the sport and of course whenever you have that now you start bringing up all the socioeconomic stuff you start bringing in who gets to play you start bringing in you know the elite versus the the street teams and all that um and UNLV really was to me at least that first team where you were like are any of these guys eligible to be admitted into a university without basketball without basketball this is this is a real touchstone moment this is the you know and especially against a team like duke where you know where these guys are supposed to you know they're they're the elite citizens in addition to being basketball players they you know they're the they're the leaders and and this was the first i mean obviously georgetown was the first one georgetown was the first team of my lifetime when you start thinking about when did you start watching college basketball georgetown was the first one where like that was black america's team yeah you know when it came to okay who's wearing the starter jackets unlv was second yeah and
Speaker 6it's funny because john thompson had a clear mission at georgetown of i'm going to get people into georgetown that wouldn't get into georgetown otherwise right and that's not to say that they can't perform at georgetown but he was and i think the university i've not read the particulars on this but i think that they would admit this to a degree that i think that temple would admit this which was um they let john thompson and john cheney do a little bit of their cultural outreach right that that was that was their give back was this basketball team and they created a brand that as we've talked about many times i grew up thinking that georgetown was an hbcu so did i i don't know why i didn't think temple was an hbcu because they have volleyball lines but with on the court but with those coaches and those teams i really thought that those were black schools like that but there was there was a different
Speaker 7was way more black than than georgetown when you walk on temple's campus there you saw black students as well the thing about georgetown was when you walked on georgetown's campus the only black people you saw was a basketball team
Speaker 6yeah and that's wild because all i knew about georgetown was a basketball team right 100 but their mission was a little different right tarcane jerry Tarkanian at UNLV I believe is it fair to say that I don't know to call them the first renegade program is maybe going too far because there's always been programs that played a little loose with it but it was a program in the image of Las Vegas in the sense that the story that goes basically that Tarkanian was the coach at Long Beach State and that's where he realized that playing fair was for suckers yeah
Speaker 7he was Calipari before Calipari
Speaker 6yeah like he but but he looked over at ucla and could see how the sausage was being made over there yeah and he was like brother what are we talking about right so he takes this job at unlv and i contend just about every college basketball program is as discerning as it has to be to get the players that they want to have you can look at the players that john calipari had in kentucky they are not the same as the players that he was playing at memphis and not the same as the players that he was playing when he was at umass right um the the the top-notch programs I'll use this phrasing don't have to take nearly as many chances Jerry Tarkanian that was all the chances baby they were they were taking them all and what I always thought interesting about him is he was also doing it within the idea and paradigm of I am using college sports to improve their lives which I think is incontrovertibly true was what was something that he did. These guys did wind up going to college and going to places they would not have gone to otherwise, if not for him. But nobody was running a Father Flanagan operation quite like Tark was.
Speaker 7And especially the hypocrisies of it. I think one of the things that I actually really did sort of appreciate about Tark was. When you're at Long Beach State and you're watching UCLA operate, you're recognizing that UCLA is operating and still receiving dispensation for doing some of the same underhanded stuff that other folks are being castigated for. And so that recognition that playing by the rules is for suckers is absolutely accurate from the standpoint of who's making the rules. Because the leaders, the UCLA's and the Duke's and the North Carolina's and all of those, you know, it's not as though they're doing it the right way. Right? Not always doing it the right way. When I look at TARC, I see Barry Switzer. I see the guy who's. Who knows, who's just street smart enough to know how the game works. He's no dummy. He's recognizing it and he's like, come and get me. And I think he's also, along with Switzer, one of those coaches, one of those renegade coaches, not where he was the first guy who was doing the stuff. He was the guy that the industry was like, we got to stop this guy. What he's doing is bad for everybody. So he becomes the. He becomes the flashpoint for something that has been going on for a very, very long time, but he's moving into legitimate spaces at the top of the game and making everybody else really, really nervous.
Speaker 6Yeah. And this is also before Las Vegas became seen as being a little bit more family friendly. And this is, this was still casino. Yeah. Yeah. Like the, the, the, the area around campus, the college town in this case is Las Vegas. Right? Like if you. If you've ever landed in Vegas and you take your cab from, you know, to the strip, you see UNLV right there. Like that's, that's the scene that's around there. That is New Haven. That is Cambridge.
Speaker 7Where are we going after class?
Speaker 6Right. What are we doing on your recruiting visit? Right? That's right. It is Las Vegas. So all of that is surrounding that. And then you have Duke, which was the Boston Celtics, the Utah Jazz and the Phoenix Suns, a college basketball all rolled into one, right? Yeah. And then you have, you know, the other superstar of the K-era is Johnny Dawkins. That's how you wind up with these confused African-Americans who were Duke fans, right? A lot of them got on board with him, right? I was one of them.
Speaker 7Dawkins Amaker. Yeah, man.
Speaker 6They was with that. Like that was the thing. But then as it went, it just got to be tough because it wasn't so much they had all them white dudes is that the announcers were very obviously cheering for them. Yeah. You could not ignore that fact, but they got to the championship game in 1986, where I think they went into the tournament, the number team in the country. They lost to Louisville, which was quietly a black people team that we don't talk about on the list of black people teams. But they didn't have
Speaker 7any Denny Crumb thing.
Speaker 6Yeah, man. Did he grow up? Maybe they they they they had that right. Duke is on this run going through all these final fours. And if you watch Game Theory with Beaumont Jones, you see me talk about this. All the teams that black people love Duke was they they was they was they was legend killers like they they they ran through they they they got Georgetown in. 88. Louisville is the only one that really held down the fort for for for La Gente. You know what I mean? They they they got Arkansas out of there in 1990. Georgia Tech kind of fit the bill. You know what I'm saying? Like that was that was another program where it's like, ah, engineers, you say they but they but Duke Duke got them out. I mean, look, Duke was just beating black people. This was what it was. And the announcers were cheering them all, but they could never get over the top. They never could. And so they played this game in a championship in 1990. Well, actually, let me let me stop there, because I think there's another part of it, too, that is forgotten is that North Carolina was also like in the green book for black people as programs being Dean Smith basically integrated the Atlantic Coast Conference unilaterally. And Duke was the antithesis of that also like they they were on the wrong side of all of it.
Speaker 7That's what's really interesting, too, about when you think about it, if you're of a certain age, depending on your your fandom, I was. I was Georgetown, Georgetown, Georgetown, Georgetown, Georgetown. And then because when I was in high school, I was a guard. Of course, you saw Dawkins and Amaker. And I told Tommy Amaker this. I was like, you know, that was that was my team. And then as you get older, now you start to see all the other elements. Like when you're in high school, it's just basketball. I didn't know anything about Duke. I didn't even know where Duke was. And then when you get into your 20s and stuff, you start learning about class and now you're taking all those classes. And you're like, oh. I was rooting maybe kind of for the wrong team. I'm learning all kinds of things that these things run a little bit counter to my personal values. I didn't even know. I didn't care. I didn't know the difference between a public and a private university. Like these things weren't I just basketball fan. I watched Tommy Amaker threw an alley to Johnny Dawkins, who was six to over David Robinson in the tournament. I was like, I like that. I'll take that. And then now you start to get. By the time you get to 90, especially the 90 championship game. Now you're looking at other things. Now you start looking at, you know, it's almost like I want to
Speaker 6say one thing right fast for the people who don't know. John Howard Bryant, an alumnus of Temple University. And in the middle of this awakening, Duke beat Temple in the Elite Eight in 1988.
Speaker 7When we were finally the number one and only time we were the number one team in the country at the Meadowlands, trying to get Coach Chaney to his first ever Final Four. And Mark Macon shot six for 29 and still only lost that game by seven points. Yeah. Lost 88-81 and Billy King shut down Macon and let's not talk about this.
Speaker 6Okay. Just needed to give context. Needed to give some context.
Speaker 7But what I was saying was, but by the time you get to 90, now all of a sudden you've got that Catholics versus convicts thing going on where now everybody's talking about it's race, it's class. It's not just basketball. And one of the interesting things about that time period too, is you're talking about John Thompson, Georgetown, you're talking about Nolan Richardson, you're talking, this is also, let's, let us also not forget an extremely important figure during this time period. And that's Al Campanus. So three years earlier, you've got Al Campanus on Nightline talking about the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson. And that's where he famously says, you know, that blacks aren't meant to be coaches and executives because they lack the necessity. So this is a really, really important time. This is a really important time in discussing the competency of black coaches, the NFL that year, 1990, that was the first year they had just hired, they just hired Art Shell. It was the first black coach in the NFL since 1922. Wayne Fonce was right there. Wayne Fonce, Cape Verdean, but still. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, that's how, that's how they get you. Just, just, you know, just, just providing a few things. But you're also, but you're, but this is a time period. This is, this is the precursor to the Oscars so white and the BLMs and all of the things that would come later. This was the first one where everyone's talking about how come we don't have any black coaches and you've got John Thompson who had finally won in 84. How come we don't, you know, why don't we have these things? And this is also happening at the exact same time too of Prop 48 and Prop 42. So one of the fascinating things about this. This time period is, especially when we're talking about it in 2026, is education was actually an issue back then. You're actually really having a conversation about we are still here to educate. It's not just the money. It's not all of those things. It's happening, all of these things. It's a sort of a perfect storm. You've got Prop 48, which came in with the NCAA regulations that you had to have a 2.0 and a 700 SAT, which John Thompson and Nolan Richardson and the rest of them had to have. And those guys and Cheney were going off on because they thought it was anti-black. Then you had, then they doubled down. That was 86. Then they doubled down in 1989 with Prop 42, which was to say, you can't even have a scholarship. You're not even eligible for a scholarship if you don't have these numbers, which of course Cheney and Richardson and Thompson, especially Thompson, went wild on as well. It's like, okay, so you want the talent, but you're also trying to prevent, you know, you're also trying to get rid of certain people you don't want them to play. And so all of these things are happening at the same time. And here it comes, you know, Southern Ivy League, Duke taking, you know, beginning to make its ascendancy into the top of the game. A lot of different social factors taking place. And we're not even talking about the basketball yet.
Speaker 6Yeah. Like, like it's, it's in, people have to understand at that time, this is the eighties or when college, the blackening of college basketball really happens. Like I was joking on Monday, talking about how I saw Nebraska have five white dudes. On the floor in that game. And I'd never seen that in a real game before. That was not, yeah.
Speaker 8Like I saw BYU with five black dudes on the floor. They didn't have five black dudes on the court in the five decades previous. Yes. Like it's, it's, it's wild times. Right. But the idea
Speaker 6that obviously there have been a lot of great black college basketball players. Number one pick always was dot, dot, dot. But there were different programs had different racial profiles in just about every team had some white dudes on it.
Speaker 7Right. And at the end of the bench.
Speaker 6Yeah, yeah, yeah. But everybody, just about everybody had some white dudes in the rotation. And also I always used to say, as the years went on, the true strength of your college basketball program, you were as good as the white dudes that you could attract. Like if you could still get super cold white dudes. that's when you had a problem I'm not I'm not just talking about you know the dude that can stand over there in the corner you know you're gonna get you some white dudes man Jerry Tarkanian had no time for that he was not even wasting his time thinking he was gonna get the white dudes to go over there like Larry Johnson and Christian Laettner are not of the same place right Bobby Hurley's a bit more of a working class guy but the other thing that was the other thing about Duke with the program though is that they had a bunch of dudes that looked like they would go to Duke yes they did like like like that was that was what the game was they had and so 1990 they
Speaker 7wanted the Dodgers yeah they were that they were the Dodgers of the 70s that we don't just play the game we play the game the right way we're the clean cut they're doing there was an optics thing going on about how they were presenting yeah
Speaker 6and they're very self-aware about it because when it changed at the end of the first decade of the 21st century it's because they were conscious that it didn't play anymore like that's right they they knew they had a thing that was working for them and they knew they had a thing that was working for them and they knew they had a thing and so they played against UNLV in 1990 and look that 1990 UNLV team was very good and thought of they had already beat America's sweetheart Loyola Marymount by 30 points in the elite eight it somebody had to do it you know what I mean it was a if you weren't there it was a very sad thing but they went ahead and they decided to do that um but they actually were losing at the half to Georgia Tech in that game and in the semi-final in 1990 because they were losing at the half to Georgia Kenny Anderson and Dennis Scott and Brian Oliver they came back and win that they play in Duke and it was a close game in the first half in 1990 and then I think it was after the first TV timeout it was over it was an ass whooping that was indelible in your mind because it always felt like if the game Matt Duke was gonna win right no matter what the refs was gonna cheat or something like that dude Duke could have had seven players on the floor man they wouldn't go and they would have
Speaker 7got they still would have got beat by 30. That that game was seminal to me for a couple of reasons the first the first was a final score one if you're a college basketball fan of the 80s and even today still you top 100 points in 40 minutes you're doing something yeah keep in
Speaker 6mind it was a 45 second shot clock in that time
Speaker 7and also the other thing to remember and that's what I mean about like some of this stuff is so foundational and we don't think about it anymore because it's all over is that that was also there were two things taking place during that time period too one you were in the game you were in the game you were in the game you were in the game I think the shot clock was only five years old yeah um because I still remember that 39 36 Georgetown SMU game um where you just held the ball if you had a five point lead with 10 minutes left you just held the ball for 10 minutes yeah and then they start bringing in I think the Big East had a 30 second shot clock and the National was 45 seconds and so all the different conferences had different shot clocks the other thing to remember is that that was I think the second year or the third year if 87 might have been the first year of the 90s and the 90s and the 90s and the 90s and the 90s and the 90s and the 90s and the 90s and the 90s and the 90s and the 90s and the 90s 19 foot nine three point line 19 nine for three points and so the whole thing everything is happening during that time period where it really is a very underrated transitional period in the
Speaker 6sport yeah everything is changing and these dudes were just beating them down the floor right and I
Speaker 7was going to say though I don't mean to interrupt there's one I forgot a piece I was going to say too and the reason why that game was so wild to me it wasn't just the final score it was also the fact that this was one of those mandate games it was like oh this is what the future is going to look like because Duke got rolled yeah he got rolled in so many ways where you looked at that and you go these guys are these guys are playing a different style of basketball it wasn't like NBA basketball but what it was was it was close enough and athletic enough and it did something that should have happened three should have happened six years earlier seven years earlier but it didn't because five slam a jamma lost there was this idea that you could still be athletic in college basketball you could still you know you could try that Tarkanian stuff but when the real teams came and played the real fundamental basketball and when they really did all the textbook stuff your athleticism was going to lose not that night
Speaker 6yeah well a key is Jared Tarkanian was a much better basketball coach than Guy V. Lewis was stop right like that's that's that's the part that it comes down to that Tark was interesting because he had a signature style of play that was based on clear strategy the amoeba defense yeah it was a thing right I don't know if he was the greatest offensive tactician necessarily but it was a defense begets offense sort of situation like that's when they play defense right like that was a coach that was there because look that UNLV team what he didn't have was a lot of size right like its best player was six foot five Larry Johnson at power forward and there is no way that we could possibly explain to you what a monster and like it wasn't Charles Barkley right there's only one of those but it felt similar like it was a suddenness to the way that he played at that height an explosion and what he
Speaker 7was able to do oh boy and also had Stacy Ogman who was one of one of those precursors to positionless basketball he's actually you know in a lot of ways he was your second point guard on that team at six seven with all the long arms and the defense and the whole thing he's he's in that pippin mode right you can just once again you can start seeing the game change
Speaker 6right point guard is Greg Anthony I mean he's a 10-year NBA vet right Anderson Hunt at two guard which doesn't mean anything now but at the time sure seemed like a big deal like he wasn't a very good player he was the most outstanding player in the 1990 tournament because he was one of the first of those guys right there on that wing in that 19-9 like hitting those shots and look Duke the 1990 team was young when you look back on it it's a freshman Bobby Hurley youngest team sophomore Christian Laettner it's the youngest team in the final four he has like senior Al Abdel Nabi like the guys that are that are Danny Ferry had left off the team before like the guys that are leaving not that important it's the foundation of obviously what becomes a back-to-back championship team but they were not ready for that game and so was a freshman yeah no great hill 90 great hill isn't even
Speaker 7oh 90 I'm sorry I'm thinking we're 91 yeah 90 yeah he's not even there
Speaker 6yeah 90 he's not even there but this led to something that you talked about in our phone conversations about this which was the question was coming up about Duke like okay yeah you've made four final fours in five years but you're gonna win or what like now now now they were getting squeezed for the fact that forget about how incredible it was that they could win that many games at all the squeeze had become keeping in mind that while they're making those final fours Carolina's made none Carolina hasn't been to a final four at this point since 1982 and they're not going to win that many games at all they're not going to win that many games at all they're not going to win that many games at all they're not going to win that many games at all and Duke is now four out of five years that's
Speaker 7right and also by the time you get known after that game by the when we talk the 91 game we're going to talk about the the vaunted Duke team that is inevitable now that we all hate now that always finds a way to win now they had lost four out of five to the eventual national champion yeah right so they it was sort of like okay when are y'all going to do it when are you going to win and it's wild to think about Mike Krzyzewski as the guy under pressure to produce are you you know to to ask the question of Mike Krzyzewski are you actually a winner and I I think about this when you go back to those time periods because there it was such a different period that in today's game his job would be in jeopardy you lose four times to the eventual champion people would look at you like you're the problem
Speaker 6yeah and look coming up next we're going to get to that game in 1991 and well yeah we'll get there coming up next it's time to slide your glass slippers over your lucky socks and hope for a fairytale ending it starts when you put in ten dollars on fan duel predicts and we match it with a ten dollar bonus buckle up for the buzzer beaters that break brackets shots that silence arenas and runs their rewrite history take a position on the spread or the winning team follow the action in real time March matchups are on fan duel predicts
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Speaker 5there's a million times more digital intelligence than there is biological intelligence it's hard to imagine humans being in control in that scenario i'm walter isaacson host of the new podcast the builders right now we're living through an ai arms race so i went directly to the people shaping that future elon musk dario amadei alex carr feifei lee palmer lucky because i wanted to understand what the most consequential builders believe what they fear and where they think this is all headed silicon valley is always saying the cliche thing about the way to predict the future is to create it well yeah it's up to us but when you say us who's us is it 400 people that you know in silicon valley is it me down here in new orleans they're brilliant controversial and they're already shaping the future the question is whose imagination do we want to live in this is going to determine the fate of nations and economies and the future of humanity listen to the builders on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts all right we are back with
Speaker 6howard bryant um so the thing about that 1991 unlv team rock stars everybody came back like they win a national championship larry johnson back stacy augman back anderson hunt back greg anthony back and they were playing in a backwater conference the big west right the big west was not really a thing they weren't in the big west back then
Speaker 7they were in the pcaa i think no they were in the big west they were in the big west they were in the west was the big west 91
Speaker 6yeah they were in the big west my apologies but they still set up a good non-conference schedule like they have the the game at barnhill arena number one versus two number two unlv against arkansas where todd day and larry johnson get into a fight there because arkansas had been to the final four that year before that was an up and down game boy like that was one of those it was like 100 something to 90 something type of games 40 minutes of hell so they run in the press um they are they are similar personalities similar archetypes because nola regis was like who who's in memphis come on down come on over here and let's go like i remember that game being such a big deal that that to me is like maybe at that point the blackest college basketball game that there had ever
Speaker 7been yeah that and and once again the underrated piece of of those teams and this is where i sort of separate georgetown because georgetown was a defensive team that had very questionable offense i mean until they got iverson they were not enough they were never georgetown was never there was never a thompson team that was offense first no but with nolan's teams and with tark's teams you got all that defensive intensity but they could put the ball in the basket too yes yes
Speaker 6and they had guys like lee mayberry was the first round pick todd day was the first round pick like that was a game unlv won that but unlv ran through their schedule they were from they were the national champions from day one it felt like wire to wire we knew which way this was going to go there weren't even any of them that were going to go to the top of the lineup they were going to be the top of the lineup they were going to be the top of the lineup even really a lot of close games along the way like when they had won the championship in 90 they lost games in conference right like those you know those kinds of things could happen that did not happen in this meanwhile duke is playing in i mean 1990s acc basketball is so like these are the glory days type of situation there there's a lot of guys in that conference you got kenny anderson coming back for his sophomore year north carolina with what turned out to be its first team to go to the final four in nine years and they're going to be the first team to go to the final four in nine years and they're going to be the first team to go to the final four in nine years and they're going to um nc state i think you got rodney monroe and chris corchiani were there like there were this con it was the gold standard conference of college basketball at
Speaker 7this point 100 and and i think that that was the the other piece of it um when you think about at least what i was thinking about vegas was the the way that you follow up a championship they're undefeated they're undefeated like they they they were on the verge of making you rethink everything you thought you knew about college basketball um they were crushing everybody and they were crushing everybody and by the way underneath all of that was tark is dirty yes and and so you've got this there's an oakland raiders bad boy thing going on here where it's like oh we're gonna have to contend with these guys at the top of the game in a lot of ways fab five and before the fab five right yes and the fab five will tell you that and they were blackening the game up and the coaches were exploiting that because the biggest thing that we didn't talk about that was the what that was the most important thing in 1991 when you're duke walking out of there when after they got beat 103 to 73 in a championship game was we're afraid of them they're they're they're too fast they're too black they're too athletic they're too everything they're doing too many things that escape the rules of college basketball because let's also not forget back then it's a little it's a lot different today but back then one of the other things about college basketball was the officiating was part of officiating was still was also teaching back then when you watch the college basketball game my goodness they called every damn infraction right they i mean i believe a travel back then was one and a half steps in college where it's two steps in the pros and today it doesn't really matter and so they were really really structuring the game in a very um traditional way and vegas blew everybody's doors off and so the thing that if you're duke going into that tournament in 91 you know and i'm one of the forwards on that team brian davis you know had said it too that we have proved that we're not afraid of them and it's a certain type of fear there's there's the type of fear when you just know the other team's better than you and then there's the type of fear where you are racially and emotionally intimidated by them they were playing a black game and sheshefsky and those guys knew that that these that we're emotionally afraid of this and that's a different type of fear and somewhat
Speaker 6i don't even think ironic is the right word but i think you'll understand what i mean the brand of what they were doing was pushing back against this like this was a this was a stand that's in a lot of ways this
Speaker 7you know what this was bo this was in a lot of ways whether people want to admit it or not this was one of those unfortunately yet necessary racial referendums in sports about who gets to play and who doesn't play and who dominates and who teaches and who doesn't who's legit and who's not this is this is the the do it the right way trailblazers against the freewheeling 76ers
Speaker 6yeah and then you get to this final four which even in real time was a legendary final four of sorts in the end it turns out it's four hall of fame coaches but it was carolina's return to the final four it was roy williams at canada kansas first final four so you had on one side of the bracket you had carolina and kansas this weird incestuous pair of college basketball programs that sends people back and forth all through their history that's right it's a lot dean smith is a guy from kansas roy williams is the guy that coached kansas from north carolina larry brown north carolina guy who goes to kansas wins and they play in the 1957 the will chamberlain game like they they overlap a lot anyway but the big thing is roy williams dean smith is basically his dad that's right right and he's coaching in that game and then on the other side you have this rematch of unlv and duke and the media sold this one a lot harder because they had a lot more time to prepare for it it kind of happened haphazardly in 1990 because there was no guarantee you were going to get that game you had a week going in where it was absolutely black hat white hat white hat game going going into that um as much as by the way
Speaker 7and also by the way and vegas is also going after ucla's records they're undefeated yes and there hasn't been an undefeated team since uh bobby knight in 76 right and so there's a lot on the line for unlv yeah and
Speaker 6they felt just in total in that game it did not feel going into it like duke had a chance just because they had been outclassed so thoroughly but they did i mentioned this him in the in the that was important particularly in a game where what we learned as the game went on that was important for unlv was what they didn't have was depth yeah and greg anthony and foul trouble was a big deal and fouled
Speaker 7out yep with five minutes to go they were leading when he fouled out of that game um going into that game there were a couple of things too at work that were really important and that intimidation factor and and i went and re-watched the game on on youtube just to make sure my memories were okay and i was like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like accurate and one of the things two things really jumped out at me the first thing was just the journalism um watching the game you know in 1991 you james brown was a sideline reporter uh for cbs billy packer and jim nance were on the call um it wasn't dominated the the conversations and the the the discussion around the game was still dominated by professional reporters and not ex-players so there's a lot of it's a it has a different feel to it the other thing that hit me about that too in in watching these teams go at each other was that they the amount of time that they emphasized on intimidation there's a code word in there there's a lot of code in there that you're talking about making sure that mcafree and latner and hurley aren't intimidated by augman and johnson that was a billy
Speaker 6packer special exactly
Speaker 7right that was right in his wheelhouse and and it really does sort of underscore that they're fighting for the soul at a sport right then and there and what i thought was fascinating about watching that game was the number of and leslie visser was another sideline reporter on on that what i found fascinating about that was the number of quotes that they times that they had quoted sheshevsky in the timeouts talking about how because duke hung in there was a two-point game you know the largest lead in the game was two or three points four points you know here and there five points it was not nobody went on a big run in that game especially in the first half and and sheshevsky is imploring his team it's almost like it's like rocky four he's just a man right it's in other words you don't have to be afraid of these black dudes they're just people and we're gonna beat them and we're beating them and so you could tell that a lot of sheshevsky's coaching was to demystify this idea of black athletic invincibility and look
Speaker 6man the thing about sheshevsky is he sees himself as a tough guy he is a bob knight disciple he he went army guy yeah so he went to west point he grew up polish kid on the south side of chicago the idea of being pushed around by any body is antithetical to his very being in very existence and what wound up happening with that unlv team it's still those dudes and so christian laytoner who's now a junior by the end becomes as unflappable as a college basketball player had ever been but you are absolutely right the idea was you can't be scared of those black dudes and they're like but we we i ain't a lot man we kind of are we are afraid of them yeah yeah like larry johnson
Speaker 8has gold teeth that's what i was about
Speaker 6to say you see that's what i was about to say you see that's what i was about to say you see that's gold tooth like like it's right there like you telling me i ain't i don't i don't really understand what you even talking about right now man
Speaker 7like that's right and underneath all of that is this idea that these guys aren't really college students they're not students they're not you know they're they're not this is not a molders or molders of men game that these guys dare you say the word thug right this is where it's all happening and let's also not forget underneath all of that the ncaa is looking very deeply into jerry tarcanian every chance it gets
Speaker 6yes at every turn it is a legal battle that went on for a very long time we have landmark legal decisions that um that come out of this but in the end you watched this game more recently than i did what duke just kind of won right because i mean well so the fix yeah we can bring this up now yes it was so implausible to us that duke could win that game that we widely believed that there was a wide belief that the game was fixed
Speaker 7widely believed that the game was fixed now
Speaker 6keep it in mind there were also like pictures of unlv players in a hot tub with a man who was referred to as the fixer um so i don't want to pretend as though like there's no reason that it might have come up in conversation is that moses scurry in the hot tub with the fixer i think it is moses scurry and i can't remember who the other
Speaker 7dude was yep and also yeah and and also there were those plays that kind of got circled and i think that's a good thing because i think that's a good thing you know did larry johnson hesitate on a shot that he could have made all of it and so so i the reason why i went and watched this game wasn't just to make sure that my recollections were accurate it was also to go look at those plays again i was like let me go see if i'm going to do a little eight men out and start circling plays and you know what i discovered about that game duke won the game really that what i saw in that i i saw there were there there's one clear comp to me in that game and maybe two if i can think about another one but there's one that really really really jumps out at me that's the 07 super bowl all over again that is giant that is giants patriots where everything is on the line and you could tell that unlv is like what do you mean we're losing i mean like the game's tied like the game's you know we they they hadn't trailed in the second half but twice all season you know what one was to georgia tech and the other one was i think ball state maybe or something like that they they really hadn't been they they killed everybody so badly and it reminded me of what john mackinrow used to tell me about pressure when he said i never forgot this it's really really great pressure is the possibility you could lose and now you start watching that game it's a two all of a sudden these guys didn't buck they're still here and then on top of that greg anthony gets into foul trouble they're up three and it looks like they're starting to pull away about five minutes left here they come right six minutes left greg anthony goes in for a layup that would have given them a five point lead they call a charge which wouldn't be called a charge today and the whole game changes and suddenly it's not the game that you thought it was and now anderson hunt has to play point guard and all of the stuff is and and you can tell by looking at them when they're passing the ball around they don't know what to do because they just got hit and you could tell that it was like holy shit this whole thing's falling apart we might we might not win and that to me when you watch that game is the real like we're supposed they never went on the 10-0 run they never went on the 18-0 they never got going played a game in the mud and never got out of the mud and didn't quite know how to close
Speaker 6and i think there's something i think interesting to me about that game for unlv that i view very similarly to the january 1987 fiesta bowl with penn state and miami which is and i don't people say they don't do this on purpose and it's true but i think it's one of those moments where you remember oh yeah these guys are 20 and 21 years old that's right right like like the the most humanizing element of college sports are those moments where you realize oh that's just kids they're just kids you know and that is like seeing michael ervin and alonzo highsmith and melvin bratton and all those guys bawling on the sidelines after they'd been truly obnoxious for all this time when they were on top and then it gets to the end and it's like oh yeah that's right that's that's where they are that's where they are in this and when unlv trying to get a shot off on that last
Speaker 7They
Speaker 6choked. Didn't even
Speaker 7have a play. Yeah. Didn't know where to go. went for the win and larry johnson that shot that he supposedly held up they got so to set up they've got the lead and duke comes back and ties it and latner hits two free throws to give him the two point lead with 12.7 seconds left 12.7 seconds left is a lifetime in basketball right and back and back then nba rules are not the same as college rules back then back then you couldn't take the ball out at half court so you had to take the ball from your own basket but still 12.7 seconds is plenty of time to get what you want and by the time unlv got the ball over half court they were like oh shit we're gonna lose larry johnson larry johnson's got a kind of setup three but it's not a wide open i you know the way people talked about that it was like it was like he had pulled a ben simmons or something like he had a 10 footer and decided not to shoot and kicked it out because by the way
Speaker 6people were using this as fixed evidence exactly
Speaker 7this was the that the shot that larry johnson you know it was a three point from the elbow it's like a 22 foot shot maybe a little inside but it was a three-point shot he didn't take it he had a guy pretty you know rushing out at him i was like that's the fix it was so different from what i remembered it the conversation to be and and then they kick it back out and anderson hunt takes a desperation three with two guys on him and they you know it's a brick and they and they lose the game but to me what there were two things that really jumped out watching that game the first was that duke didn't fold it's like what you know the you the bully took a swing and they didn't go anywhere they're like okay we're here to play they were here to play that's the first thing the second thing was how different the game of basketball is played you go back and hop on youtube and watch that game that shit is packed in the paint i mean it is detroit pistons packed in the paint like everybody is on top of each other and today the game is so spaced and there's movement and there's flow and guys you know there's open shots there were no open shots in that game in that second half of that game it was it was straight up hardcore basketball old school basketball where you're like on each other defensively and you know and and by that point you know the biggest piece of it was that your best player national you know player of the year material larry johnson they didn't give him the ball in the second half he had a little tiny run with about seven minutes left but for the most part neither he nor stacy ogman did anything in the second half so and at the same time kristen had 20 in the first like those guys it was a battle it was a really really great game and um and then of course the the the last thing about it was your you know your point guard fouls out and you didn't really know what to do
Speaker 6yeah he's the only guy that could run the offense that's right like that was the thing is that once he went down that's that's when it fell apart now what this he doesn't fall out they win that game yeah yeah here's the fun part on this this game led to the building honestly i don't think there's been anything like it since then which is the building of the legend of christian leitner um where it starts this is this is where it starts like this is the big win i mean he went to four final fours won two national championships and what this was and there are a couple that it guided from him along the way i suppose but the big thing is this is the beginning of christ like you fully understand it christian leitner gave it to every one of the top players of his era yeah some in some cases multiple times it's also he got it multiple times from him home and on the road fab five got it home road and neutral site
Speaker 7he
Speaker 6gave it to everybody yeah one thing about
Speaker 7that game though that i also i i do want to go back to that but one thing about this game too that i thought was interesting was my recollection was also that it was bobby hurley giving him the business too and it wasn't oh it wasn't anderson hunt and greg anthony ate his lunch that was a guard run offense and anderson hunt and and and greg anthony they killed bobby hurley they killed him they hunted bobby hurley they were looking for where he was and he couldn't hang with them he couldn't hang with them but leitner could in the front court yeah and that was the difference and that was also when you think about it this is really and you can go back when you think about like when we were talking about some of the social racial stuff of it too like where was the creation of like of white duke it's a yeah because well with a dash of fairy and fairy but the 86 team had mark allery and jay billis and those guys but it had dawkins and amaker right right and also because they didn't win okay they got fairy but they didn't win yeah you know and nobody would have said oh you put danny fairy up against shack you know and i mean it's not it wasn't the same leitner because of who he was giving the business to yes emboldens the whole thing in a way that has always driven me crazy in terms of our our discussion it's like okay white great player suddenly comes with implications right it's not just that he's a great player and he did his thing it's like he's the standard now yeah and it
Speaker 6may and it required them to do some obviously hypocritical things because leitner was such a jerk that's right right like like like that was the part of it it was like i mean he stepped on somebody in the in the lead eight round and they did not gain which allowed him to continue having what one might argue was the greatest game anybody's ever played in the history of college and
Speaker 7there was a moment in that game too where grant hill pops greg anthony in the face with his shoulder which was once again like i don't i don't want to overstate this was once again duke had to prove they weren't punks yeah right and billy packer in that game goes he needs to get thrown out of the game for that and i'm thinking imagine grant hill getting thrown out in the first half of that of that semi-final and so and then they went back and said oh no i really don't think so that on second thought he hit him with the shoulder not the forearm but it was still very much a you can't intimidate us
Speaker 6moment yeah and then if they need to prove to anybody they weren't soft they needed to prove it to that man over there screaming at them in that suit that's right unless y'all want to walk
Speaker 7home that's right and and then a couple plays later larry johnson walks by grant hill and gives him a shoulder to the face i'm like oh they balling right now this is this is a territorial game right this is a territorial game and and i loved it because i was like oh i did i these are all things like when i watched that game i was what i was 22 years old so now you look at it with different eyes and you go oh man there was a lot at stake here these guys were trying it was it was an alpha game it was an alpha game and for sheshefsky as well to prove once again like like i said because you got to remember him he's probably at the sidelines also thinking at some point when am i gonna get one of these and is tarkanian gonna roll me again two
Speaker 6years in a row right i mean this is a milestone moment in the history of college basketball 100 like this this whole thing and like i said leitner did not beat the fab five in those three locations he simply beat them on the road and on the neutral site the next year fab five came to cameron um i mean that yeah after later graduated and then won there jaylen rose said sheshefsky beat him four times in that whole career uh they gave it to temple they gave it to arkansas they gave it to georgetown anybody that had a whiff of it they was like hey we gonna we got we got something for all of y'all like this was that you're right i think your point is a great one that this is really kind of the building of the idea of duke being white and this is the building of the idea of duke being white and this is the building of the idea of duke being white and this is the building of the idea of duke being white and then it kind of got reinforced in the arts because that 99 duke team which i contend is the best team sheshefsky ever had and i don't know if any white dudes got any minutes on that one that's eldon brand cory mcgetty william avery trajan langdon whoo because that was when it was coming off after his back had messed up and when they when duke needs to recover they can recover yeah they don't uh they don't really get so caught up yeah you know they care about otherwise you know
Speaker 7where they're looking for players
Speaker 6yeah yeah yeah like like we hey man we ain't got time to play with y'all no more come on yeah you you with the shady a you coach yeah come on down partner duke as
Speaker 7villain starts here yes you know and and do and also duke as hero starts here yeah i guess it
Speaker 6depends on what because they they been villains in our house my you know my daddy was ahead of the game you know what i'm saying maybe just most people a little long time to get wise we was on it we saw it we saw it yeah i mean
Speaker 7i and i love that because i like i said i remember it's easy to like a team and it's easy to take a team um in whatever direction you want to take them when they don't win yeah and then once they win now you start looking at all of it differently you know it was kind of cute when tom brady won his underdogs and they beat the rams and oh and then it wasn't cute in five years later it doesn't get you know because now now the lens changes and i think that what is fascinating about that about that game is that you can you know you can do this you can circle seminal games and moments that sort of shift the balance and shift where things are going and i think like i said in re-watching that game the the um the illusion or just the the uh you know the idea of Communication is on top of this, too, because let's not forget, nobody would question Duke as an academic institution. People question UNLV because it didn't even exist in 1975, right? So it's like, this ain't even a real school. Right. So all of those different things, when you take all of those elements and you put them on the basketball court at an extremely high level with extremely high stakes, you got something remarkable. And that was a remarkable game.
Speaker 6That is Howard Bryant. Check out Kings and Pawns. I still got my copy right here for you guys to see here. It is an excellent book that I still highly recommend you go check out. Kings and Pawns on Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson. Give this a look. My brother, I appreciate you.
Speaker 7My pleasure. This was fun. Like I said, I've just forgotten all about all of that. I remember I had a girlfriend who used to just laugh at me because I used to watch ESPN Classic and stuff. Did the score change? No. When was the game? 30 years ago. Why are you watching it? But it was fascinating watching this basketball because it's not the same basketball that we see today.
Speaker 6Nah, man. It's a different game, brother. I appreciate you. And ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us here on The Right Time. We do this four days a week. Ryan Brumley handles everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Hit the voicemail line 323-596-7767. Remember, follow The Right Time. Subscribe. Like. Rate us. View us. Give us five stars. We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.
Speaker 1Someone once said everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. I did. Mike Tyson. That's a low blow. Totally. No, Mike. With a plan that's $25 a month forever. Boost Mobile. What's your plan?
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