When you look at Duke’s great NCAA tournament wins over the years, some really stand out and three in particular:
The first two were magnificent triumphs in very different ways. UNLV was thought to be unbeatable by many – until Duke knocked them off in the semifinals. The Kentucky game was astounding because the tension between the arrogance of Christian Laettner-led Duke and the arrogance of Kentucky fans who thought that their scrappy underdogs were destined to win. Laettner’s arrogance won out in the end, as it usually did.
The Butler game was very different.
First, that Duke team didn’t have a Laettner or Grant Hill or Bobby Hurley. It had some very good college players and while some became solid players in the NBA, no one emerged as a truly great pro.
And second, the tension with Butler was unbelievable. Duke tried to pull away and never could. Every time they got some separation, Butler just scrapped their way right back. It was an unbelievably tense affair.
The entire game, really, was a high-end bar fight, if you had a bar fight between maybe Rocky Marciano and Joe Frazier. Both teams just kept hitting each other with everything they had but neither could knock the other out.
We’d bet those of you who remember that game don’t remember this play by Jon Scheyer. He didn’t rack up a lot of blocked shots in college, but he caught Butler senior Willie Veasley on the break when Veasley, as the announcer says, eased up a bit on the break. It was a clean block that denied Butler a chance to tie the game 6-6.
It was early, true, but this was the kind of game that might have turned on any number of plays and importantly, Scheyer showed a remarkably focused and intense Butler team that Duke was not taking a back seat to anyone.