Mike DeCourcy On The Laettner Game

Over at The Sporting News, Mike DeCourcy has a column up on the legendary 1992 game between Duke and Kentucky.

You know, the one where Christian Laettner hit a shot that’s been talked about ever since to clinch the game.

This article delves heavily into that legend.

DeCourcy spoke to Mike Krzyzewski, Bobby Hurley, Jay Bilas, Mike Brey and Len Elmore. Bilas and Brey were on the Duke staff while Elmore covered the game for CBS.

Hurley says that without this win, Duke would not have become elite in the way that it did. Or at least it would not have happened as soon as it did.

Here’s what Bilas had to say about the end of that epic game:

“He snapped them back to attention when they came back to the huddle.The guys came back kind of shocked, almost slumped shoulders. And he said: We’re going to win. Look, you can have that attitude and still not win; that’s an extraordinary accomplishment to execute that play. I don’t know whether you say it’s one-in-100 or whatever it is, but if they didn’t have the mindset of, ‘We’re going to win,’ then it’s zero percent.

“I really think he got them to believe that, when they didn’t believe it coming back to the huddle.”

The whole thing is still amazing and clearly still painful for Kentucky fans.