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We’ve linked to this before obviously but the Duke comeback at Louisville is kind of like the Laettner Shot. It’s an indelible moment in Duke Basketball history.
To recap, Louisville was just killing Duke. The Cardinals were rolling to a major win with a 20 point second half lead. It looked totally hopeless for Duke.
Louisville was still up by 19 with 7:11 left. Then it started.
Jordan Goldwire got a rebound and Tre Jones got a layup. Then boom:
Tre Jones steal. Zion Williamson steal. Zion Williamson steal. RJ Barrett layup. Zion Williamson layup. RJ Barrett steal. Zion Williamson steal. Cam Reddish three pointer. Tre Jones steal.
That’s impressionistic; we’re not trying to list every single play. But by the time that last Jones steal and layup were in the books, Duke was down just 69-66.
And then came perhaps the most swaggering play in Duke Basketball history.
RJ Barrett had the ball on the right side of the court near the end of Duke’s bench. He knew Cam Reddish was behind him and dropped off a pass between his legs to Reddish, who rose up and hit a long three to tie the game.
It was a staggering achievement really to come back from 19 down with 7:11 left. But we’re pretty sure that at some point Coach K pointed out to his team that they were still down by 19 late and not to get too carried away with the achievement.
But that’s one of those games that, when these guys are older and thicker and past their playing days, they’ll call each other and reminisce about it. What an amazing thing to have happened!