Howard Bryant on Duke vs UNLV 1991: The Upset That Changed College Basketball | 03.31

Summary

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The Right Time with Bomani Jones

Episode Title: Howard Bryant on Duke vs UNLV 1991: The Upset That Changed College Basketball

Air Date: March 31, 2026
Host: Bomani Jones
Guest: Howard Bryant
Producer: Wave

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Episode Overview

This episode of "The Right Time" reunites Bomani Jones and renowned journalist/author Howard Bryant for an in-depth, lively retrospective on the 1991 NCAA tournament semifinal between UNLV and Duke—a game widely considered one of the greatest upsets and most pivotal moments in the history of college basketball. Through personal recollections, social context, and basketball breakdowns, Bomani and Howard explore why the game was seismic: not only for the sport, but for cultural, racial, and academic reasons. The conversation illuminates the social dynamics of college sports in the late 80s and early 90s, the construction of the Duke "villain" image, and the lasting legacy of this singular matchup.

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Setting the Scene: The Cultural Context (04:50 – 12:30)

• Bomani opens by stressing how the 1991 Duke vs. UNLV game felt like “a really sad day for black America,” framing the matchup not just as a sporting event but as a cultural touchstone.
• The two programs were diametric opposites in identity and reputation:
  • UNLV: Coached by Jerry Tarkanian, built a "renegade" image, giving opportunity to players who might not otherwise make it to a university, with a style and swagger that made them "black America’s team."
  • Duke: Seen as the bastion of elite, academic, mostly white student-athletes; the “Boston Celtics, Utah Jazz, and Phoenix Suns of college basketball all rolled into one.”

Quote:

“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?... And especially against a team like Duke where…they're the elite citizens in addition to being basketball players.” — Howard Bryant (03:36)

• The basketball court served as a stage for tensions about race, class, academia, and the evolving culture of college sports.

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Race, Class & the Blackening of College Basketball (12:30 – 19:16)

• The 80s were a decade when college basketball became increasingly associated with black culture, something Bomani and Howard refer to as the "blackening" of the game.
• The conversation recalls programs like Georgetown (with John Thompson) and the impact of coaches using their roles for social uplift.
  • Programs like Georgetown and Temple were sometimes mistaken for HBCUs because of their visibility and black representation.
• Discussion on John Thompson’s and John Chaney’s efforts in making elite schools more accessible to black athletes.

Quote:

“I grew up thinking that Georgetown was an HBCU.” — Bomani Jones (05:24)

• Prop 48 and Prop 42 and their racially-tinged impacts are analyzed (16:00 – 17:23), with Howard recalling resistance from Black coaches who saw them as exclusionary policies.

• The importance of white players’ roles in college basketball at the time—“You were as good as the white dudes you could attract”—was another measure of a program’s power.

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The 1990 Blowout: UNLV Crushes Duke (19:16 – 26:19)

• In 1990, UNLV thrashed Duke 103–73 in the championship, a defeat that loomed over the 1991 rematch.
  • UNLV's style: Fast-paced, aggressive, and “just beating them down the floor.”
  • This season marked the introduction of elements like the shot clock and 19'9" three-point line, making the sport more dynamic.
• The loss cemented UNLV's dominance and called into question Duke’s ability to win big games.

Quote:

“If you're a college basketball fan of the 80s... you top 100 points in 40 minutes, you're doing something.” — Howard Bryant (20:15)

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UNLV: The Unlikely Dynasty & Their 1991 Invincibility (29:44 – 33:14)

• In 1991, UNLV returned its entire core (Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon, Anderson Hunt, Greg Anthony) and went undefeated in the Big West, dominating with a style both “explosive and black.”
• UNLV’s archetype: The “Oakland Raiders of college basketball”—bad boys, rule-breakers, and objects of both fear and envy.
• The team’s racial and cultural presence was powerful: “They’re too fast, they’re too black, they’re too athletic, they’re too everything.”

Quote:

“Fab Fiving before the Fab Five, right?” — Bomani Jones (33:11)
“They were blackening the game up and the coaches were exploiting that.” — Howard Bryant (33:14)

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The 1991 Showdown: Social and Racial Stakes (35:04 – 41:44)

• The 1991 Final Four pitted not just two great teams, but two social visions of the sport.
  • The media pushed a “black hat vs. white hat” narrative.
  • UNLV represented "new money," excitement—and, for the establishment, fear of black dominance.
  • Duke represented tradition, discipline, the “right way.”
• The conversation dissects how Duke’s main challenge was to prove they weren’t scared—not just outclassed athletically, but “emotionally and racially intimidated.”

Quote:

“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 Krzyzewski and those guys knew that we're emotionally afraid of this.” — Howard Bryant (34:01)

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Game Breakdown: The Upset in Detail (41:44 – 49:00)

Key Game Moments:

• Greg Anthony’s foul trouble (Fouled out with 5 minutes left)—was pivotal.
  • “He’s the only guy that could run the offense.” — Bomani Jones (48:48)
• No huge runs; the game remained close, tense, and scrappy.
• Classic “pressure” game—UNLV was unused to being threatened, folded under unfamiliar adversity.
  • “Pressure is the possibility you could lose.” — via John McEnroe, relayed by Howard Bryant (43:13)
• Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon rendered ineffective late—UNLV simply couldn’t find the iron will or the play to win.

Timestamps:

• (41:44–44:57): Discussion of the pivotal foul calls, especially the charge on Anthony that shifted momentum.
• (45:19): Bomani’s analogy to the 1987 Fiesta Bowl—how the moment revealed “these are just kids.”
• (46:56): The alleged “fix”—addressed and dismissed through adult rewatching.

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Building the Duke Legend & White Villainy (49:00 – 55:15)

• Christian Laettner’s legend is cemented—this game was the platform for his mythical status.
  • “Christian Laettner gave it to every one of the top players of his era.” — Bomani Jones (49:34)
• Howard notes Hurley was actually neutralized in the game, but Laettner’s performance up front was the difference.
• Emergence of Duke as the sport’s “white villain”—the game marks the start of lasting animus and myth-making, later only compounded by later teams.
• The “white Duke” image: “Where was the creation of, like, of white Duke? It's Laettner.” — Howard Bryant (50:44)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the game's off-court subtext:

  “It really does sort of underscore that they're fighting for the soul at a sport right then and there.” — Howard Bryant (38:56)

• Coach K's psychology:

  “It's almost like—it’s like Rocky 4: He's just a man, right? In other words, you don’t have to be afraid of these black dudes. They’re just people. And we’re going to beat them.” — Howard Bryant (39:40)

• On the fix theories:

  “It was so implausible to us that Duke could win that game, that we widely believed… the game was fixed.” — Bomani Jones (41:45)

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Final Reflections: The Game’s Legacy (55:15 – End)

• The upset set Duke on its trajectory as college basketball's perennial villain—changing the way fans viewed both the Blue Devils and the sport itself.
• It also stands as a flashpoint in the debate over race, academia, and respectability in American sports.
• The game is remembered as a fulcrum—redefining who gets to be champion and who gets to set the tone for the sport.
• Both hosts agree the episode was an important look at how sport and society intersect.

Closing Quote:

“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.” — Howard Bryant (56:21)

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-------------|----------------------------------------------------| | 04:50-12:30 | Cultural context, Duke vs. UNLV setting | | 12:30-19:16 | Race, class, and the “blackening” of CBB | | 19:16-26:19 | UNLV's 1990 blowout and implications | | 29:44-33:14 | UNLV’s dominance and undefeated 1991 run | | 35:04-41:44 | Stakes, racial narratives in the 1991 Final Four | | 41:44-49:00 | The game itself: Analysis & key turning points | | 49:00-55:15 | The aftermath: Laitner legend & Duke’s new image | | 55:15-End | Reflection on legacy and enduring impact |

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Episode Tone & Style

The episode blends sharp cultural commentary, first-person reminiscence, and basketball analysis with warm humor and casual candor—hallmarks of Bomani and Howard’s conversational style. Their willingness to frame the game in terms of broader societal struggles, especially around race, makes the discussion feel both deeply personal and historically important.

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For New Listeners

This episode functions both as a deep-dive sports history lesson and a meditation on how race, education, and fandom intertwine in American life. Even if you’ve never seen the 1991 Duke vs. UNLV game, this is a must-listen for understanding why some games are much more than their box scores.

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Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

5:00am I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change and head to work. Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius. No slowing down. Working late but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius Live Fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate [e-mail] K pop demon hunters, Haja Boy's Breakfast Meal and Hunt Tricks meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi?

[Bomani Jones]

It's not a battle. So glad the Saja boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day.

[Ad Voice]

It is an honor to share.

[Commercial Narrator]

No, it's our honor.

[Ad Voice]

It is our larger honor.

[Bomani Jones]

No, really stop.

[Commercial Narrator]

You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side.

[Bomani Jones]

Ba da ba ba ba and participate in McDonald's while supplies last. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Right Time a Wave original. My name is Bomani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. 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 chart, 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 them, 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 in the national semifinal round of the NCAA tournament 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 could 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. But first, Howard, 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 reads, 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 UNLB 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 had a strong program. They, you know, went to Final fours in the 1970s. Championship game in 1978 kind of fell off, but Mike Shashefsky 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 that. Duke has. That a fair way to put it?

[Howard Bryant]

That is a very fair way to put it. They.

[Bomani Jones]

They were.

[Howard Bryant]

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. 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. 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.

[Ad Voice]

And.

[Howard Bryant]

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.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. And it'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 the Temple would admit this. Which was they let John Thompson and John Chaney do a little bit of their cultural outreach. Right. That was their give back was this basketball team. And they created a brand new 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 difference.

[Howard Bryant]

Was way more black 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. And that's wild because all I knew about Georgetown was the basketball team.

[Howard Bryant]

Right.

[Bomani Jones]

But their mission was a little different. Right. Tarkan. 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 Jar Canyon was the coach at Long Beach State. And that's where he realized that playing fair was for suckers. Yeah.

[Howard Bryant]

He was Calipari before Calipari.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. Like he. But. But he looked over at UCLA and could see how the sausage is being made over there.

[Howard Bryant]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

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 at 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. 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 going, you know, was something that he did. These guys did wind up going to college and going to play, you know, 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, and especially

[Howard Bryant]

the hypocrisies of it. I think one of the things that I actually really did sort of appreciate about Tarkov 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 UCLAs and the Dukes and the North Carolinas 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 Tark, I see Barry Switzer. I see the guy who knows, who's just street smart enough to know how the game works. He's no dummy. He 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 gotta 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. And this is also before Las Vegas became seen as being a little bit more family friendly. And this is. This was Las Casino. Yeah, yeah. Like the area around campus, the college town in this case is Las Vegas. Right. Like, if you've ever landed in Vegas and you take your cab from. 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.

[Howard Bryant]

Where are we going after class?

[Bomani Jones]

Right. 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? The first superstar of the K era is Johnny Dawkins. That's how you wind up with these confused African Americans who are Duke fans, right? A lot of them got on board with him, right?

[Howard Bryant]

Like I was one of them. Dawkins, Amer.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, man, they 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 autumn white dudes is that the announcers were very obviously cheering for them. Like you, you, 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.

[Howard Bryant]

Denny. That Denny Crumb thing.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, man. Denny Crumb. I mean, 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 Bowman 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 only one that really held down the fort for, for the, 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 another program where it's like, huh, Engineers, you say? Um, 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. 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.

[Howard Bryant]

That'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 Amker 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 universe. Like, these things weren't. I was just a basketball fan. I watched Tommy Amaker through an alley oop to Johnny Dawkins, who was 62 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.

[Bomani Jones]

I want to say 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 B. Temple in the Elite Eight in 1988, when we were finally

[Howard Bryant]

the number one and only time, we were the number one team in the country at the Meadowlands, trying to get Coach Cheney to his first ever Final Four. And mark making shot 6 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, okay?

[Bomani Jones]

Just. Just needed to give context. Just need to get some context.

[Howard Bryant]

But 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 its race, it's class. It's not just basketball anymore. 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 us also not forget, an extremely important figure during this time period, and that's Al Campanis. 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 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Wayne Faunce was right there. Wayne Fonts was right there. Wayne Fonts was right there.

[Howard Bryant]

WAYNE FONTS CAPE VERDEAN but still,

[Bomani Jones]

that's how, that's how they get.

[Howard Bryant]

You just, just, you know, just, just providing a few things. But you also, but, 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 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 basketball. 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 those guys and Cheney were going off on because they thought it was anti bul black. Then you had, then they, 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 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 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, like, like it's, it's in. People have to understand at that time, this is the 80s are when college, the blackening of college basketball really happens. Like I was joking on Monday talking about how I saw Nebraska had five white dudes on the floor in that game. And I had never seen that in a real game before. Byu. Yeah, like I saw BYU with five black dudes on the floor.

[Howard Bryant]

They didn't have five black dudes on the court in the five decades previous.

[Bomani Jones]

Yes. Like it's, it's, it, it's wild times. Right. But the idea that obviously there have been a lot of great black college basketball players. Number one pick always was D D. But there were different programs had different racial profiles in. Just about every team had some white dudes on it. Right.

[Howard Bryant]

Like this. Like, like even Georgetown at the end of the bench.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, 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, to do that. Can stand over there in the corner, you know, you go get you some white dudes, man. Jared Tarkanian had no time for that. He was not even wasting his time thinking he was going to get them white dudes to go over there. Like, Larry Johnson and Christian Laetner 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.

[Howard Bryant]

Yes, they did.

[Bomani Jones]

Like, like, like that was, that was what the game was. They had. And so 1990, they wound up.

[Howard Bryant]

They were the Dodgers. Yeah, they were the, they were the dodgers of the 70s. That we don't just play the game, we play the game the right way, where the clean cut they're doing. There was an optics thing going on about how they were presenting.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. And 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.

[Howard Bryant]

Like, that's right.

[Bomani Jones]

They, they knew they had a thing that was working for them. And, and so they play 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. 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. But they actually were losing at the half to Georgia Tech in that game in the semifinal in 1990 with 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 going to win, right. No matter what the refs was going to cheat or something like that. Dude, Duke could have had seven players on the floor, man. They weren't going.

[Howard Bryant]

And they would have got, they still would have got beat by 30. That game was seminal to me for a couple of reasons. The first was the 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, keep in mind it was a 45 second shot clock in that time.

[Howard Bryant]

And also the other thing to remember, and that's what I mean about 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, I think the shot clock was only five years old. Yeah, because I still remember that 39, 36 Georgetown SMU game 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. 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. 87 might have been the first year of the 19 foot 9, 3 point line. 19, 9 for 3 points. And so the whole thing, everything is happening during that time period where it really is a very underrated transitional period in the sport.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, everything is changing. And these dudes were just beating them down the floor. Right.

[Howard Bryant]

And I was gonna say, Bo, I don't mean to interrupt, there's one last. I forgot a piece I was gonna 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 gonna look like. Because Duke got rolled. Yes, they 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 Phi Slama Jama 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. Well, a key is Jerry Tarkanian was a much better basketball coach than Guy V. Lewis was.

[Howard Bryant]

Right.

[Bomani Jones]

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.

[Howard Bryant]

Like that's when they play defense, right.

[Bomani Jones]

Like that was a coach that was there because look, that UNLV team, what it didn't have was a lot of size, right. Like its best player was 6 foot 5, Larry Johnson at power forward. And I. 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 of what he was able to do.

[Howard Bryant]

Oh boy. And also had Stacey Ogman, who was one of, one of those precursors to positionless basketball. He's actually, in a lot of ways, he was your second point guard on that team at 67 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Right. 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 Wanted 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 19:90 team was young. When you look back on it, it's a freshman Bobby Hurley, youngest team. Sophomore Christian Laitner, the youngest team in the Final Four. Yeah, it's 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 are 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.

[Howard Bryant]

And Hill was a freshman.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, no, Grant Hill. 90 Grand Hill isn't even there.

[Howard Bryant]

Oh, 90, I'm sorry, 91. 90, he's not even there.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, 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 going to 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 Duke is now four out of five years.

[Howard Bryant]

That's right. And also by the time you get down 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 you 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 ask the question of Mike Krzyzewski, are you actually a winner? And I think about this when you go back to those time periods, because they're. 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. 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 fairy tale ending. It starts when you put in $10 on FanDuel Predicts and we match it with a $10 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, total points or the winning team. Follow the action in real time. March matchups are on FanDuel Predicts.

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[Bomani Jones]

All right, we are back with Howard Bryant. So the thing about that 1991 UNLV team, Rock Stars. Everybody came back like they win a national championship. Larry Johnson back, Stacy Augment 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.

[Howard Bryant]

They weren't in the Big west back then. They were in the pcaa, I think.

[Bomani Jones]

No, they were in the Big West.

[Howard Bryant]

Was it Big West 91?

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, they were in the Big west. But they, but they still set up a good non conference schedule. Like they have the, the game at Barn Hill 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. They are, they are similar personalities, similar archetypes because Nolan Richardson was like, who, who's in Memphis? Come on down or 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 been.

[Howard Bryant]

Yeah, that. And once again the underrated piece 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, they were never. Georgetown was never. There was never a Thompson team that was offense first.

[Bomani Jones]

No.

[Howard Bryant]

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.

[Bomani Jones]

And 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 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. North Carolina State, I think you got Rodney Monroe and Chris Corciani were there like there were this con. It was the gold standard conference of

[Howard Bryant]

college basketball at this point, 100%. And, and I think that that was the, the other piece of it, when you think about, at least when I was thinking about Vegas, was the, the way that you follow up a championship. They're undefeated. Like, they, they, they were on the verge of making you rethink everything you thought you knew about college basketball. They were crushing everybody. And they were crushing everybody. And by the way, underneath all of that was Tarkus 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 going to have to contend with these guys at the top of the game in a lot of ways. Fab fiving before the Fab Five, right?

[Bomani Jones]

Yes. And the Fab Five will tell you that.

[Howard Bryant]

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 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. 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 traditional way. And Vegas blew everybody's doors off. And so the thing that if you're Duke going into that tournament in 91 and one of the forwards on that team, Brian Davis had said it, too, that we have to prove that we're not afraid of them. And it's a certain type of fear. 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 Krzyzewski and those guys knew that we're emotionally afraid of this. And that's a different type of fear.

[Bomani Jones]

And somewhat. I don't even think ironic's 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 in a lot of ways.

[Howard Bryant]

You 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 1977 NBA Finals. This is the do it the Right Way trailblazers against the freewheeling 76ers.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. 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 Kansas, first Final Four. So you had, on one side of the bracket, you had Carolina and Kansas City, this weird, incestuous pair of college basketball programs that sends people back and forth all through their history. 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 coached at Kansas Wednesday. And they play in the 1957, the Wilt 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. 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 as well.

[Howard Bryant]

Vegas is, by the way. And also, by the way in Vegas is also going after UCLA's records. They're undefeated. Yes. And there hasn't been an undefeated team since Bobby Knight in 76.

[Bomani Jones]

Right.

[Howard Bryant]

And so there's a lot on the line for unlv. Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

And they 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 nim part of this. But they did add Grand Hill and 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.

[Howard Bryant]

Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

And Greg Anthony and file trouble was a big deal.

[Howard Bryant]

And filed out. Yep. With five minutes to go. They were leading when he fouled out of that game. Going into that game. There were a couple of things too at work that were really important and that intimidation factor. And I went and rewatched the game on. On YouTube just to make sure my memories were accurate. And one of the things. Two things really jumped out at me. The first thing was just the journalism watching the game. You know, in 1991 you. James Brown was a sideline reporter for CBS. Billy Packer and Jim Nance were on the call. It. It wasn't dominated the. The conversations and 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 watching these teams go at each other was that 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 McCaffrey and Laitner and Hurley aren't intimidated by Ogman and Johnson. And it's a Billy Pulse.

[Bomani Jones]

That was a Billy Packer special that Billy exactly right.

[Howard Bryant]

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 Krzyzewski in the timeouts talking about how because Duke hung in there, it 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 Krzyzewski is imploring his team. It's almost like. It's like Rocky 4. He's just a man, right? It's like, in other words, you don't have to be afraid of these black dudes. They're just people. And we're going to beat them, and we're beating them. And so you could tell that a lot of Krzyzewski's coaching was to demystify this idea of black athletic invincibility.

[Bomani Jones]

And look, man, the thing about Krzyzewski is he sees himself as a tough guy. He is a Bob Knight disciple. He went army guy. Yeah. He went to West Point. He grew up Polish kid on the south side of Chicago. The idea of being pushed around by anybody is antithetical to his very being in very existence. And what wound up happening with that UNLV team, it steal those dudes. And so Christian Laettner, 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 gonna lie, man.

[Howard Bryant]

We kind of are. We are afraid of them.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, yeah.

[Howard Bryant]

Like, Larry Johnson has gold teeth.

[Bomani Jones]

That's. I was about to say. You see that gold, too.

[Howard Bryant]

Like.

[Bomani Jones]

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.

[Howard Bryant]

Like, 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 Tarkadian every chance it gets. Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

At every turn. It is a legal battle that went on for a very long time. We have landmark legal decisions that. 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 could bring this up now.

[Howard Bryant]

Yes.

[Bomani Jones]

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.

[Howard Bryant]

Widely believed that the game was fixed.

[Bomani Jones]

Now, keeping in mind there were Also, like pictures UNLV players in a hot tub with a man who was referred to as the fixer. So I don't want to pretend as though, like, there's no reason that it might have come up in conversation.

[Howard Bryant]

Is that Moses Scurry in the hot tub with the fixer?

[Bomani Jones]

I think, yes, Moses Scurry. And I can't remember who the other dude was.

[Howard Bryant]

Yep. And also, yeah, and also there were those plays that kind of got circled, 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 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 Giants. 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 every, 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 really hadn't been. They. They killed everybody so badly. And it reminded me of what John McEnroe 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 point game at the half, and 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 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. They never got going that they played a game in the mud and never got out of the mud and didn't quite know how to close.

[Bomani Jones]

And 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.

[Howard Bryant]

That's right.

[Bomani Jones]

Right. Like. Like the. The most humanizing element of college sports are those moments where you realize, oh,

[Howard Bryant]

that's right, they're just kids.

[Bomani Jones]

They're just kids, you know? And that is like seeing Michael Irvin 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 with UNLV trying to get a shot off on that last possession, they choked.

[Howard Bryant]

Didn't even have a play.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah.

[Howard Bryant]

Didn't know where to go. Anderson went for the win, and Larry Johnson, that shot that he supposedly held up to get so to. To set up, they've got the lead and Duke comes back and ties it. And Laetner 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 in 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 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Because by the way, people were using this as fix evidence.

[Howard Bryant]

Exactly. This 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 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, the bully took a swing and they didn't go anywhere. They're like, okay, we had 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 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 Stacey Ogman did anything in the second half.

[Bomani Jones]

So.

[Howard Bryant]

And at the same time, Kristen Laitner had 20 in the first. Like those guys, it was a battle. It was a really, really great game. And, 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, he's the only guy that could run the offense.

[Howard Bryant]

That's right.

[Bomani Jones]

Like, that was. The thing is that once he went down, that's, that's when it fell apart. Now what this game, he doesn't fall

[Howard Bryant]

out they win that game. Yeah. Yeah.

[Bomani Jones]

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 Lightner.

[Howard Bryant]

This is where it starts.

[Bomani Jones]

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 had guided from him along the way, I suppose. But the big thing is this is the beginning of Chris, like you fully understand it. Christian Laettner gave it to every one of the top players of his era.

[Howard Bryant]

Yep.

[Bomani Jones]

Some. In some cases, multiple times. It's also got it multiple times from him. Home and on the road. Fab five got it home, road and neutral site. He gave it to everybody.

[Howard Bryant]

Yeah. One thing about that game, though, that I also. And 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 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 Leitner.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah.

[Howard Bryant]

Because.

[Bomani Jones]

Well, with a dash of Ferry and ferry.

[Howard Bryant]

But the 86 team had Mark Allerry and Jay Billis and those guys. But it had Dawkins and Amaker.

[Bomani Jones]

Right, right.

[Howard Bryant]

And also because they didn't win. Okay. They got Ferry, but they didn't win. Yeah. You know, and nobody would have said, oh, you put Danny Ferry up against Shaq. And I mean, it's not. It wasn't the same Leitner because of who he was giving the business to emboldens the whole thing in a way that has always driven me crazy in terms of our discussion. It's like, okay, white great player suddenly comes with implications.

[Bomani Jones]

Right.

[Howard Bryant]

It's not just that he's a great player and he did his thing. It's like, he's the standard now.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. And it required them to do some obviously hypocritical Things. Because Laitner was such a jerk.

[Howard Bryant]

That's right.

[Bomani Jones]

Right. 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 throw him out of the game, which allowed him to continue having what one might argue was the greatest game anybody's ever played in the history of college basketball.

[Howard Bryant]

And there 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.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, right.

[Howard Bryant]

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 semifinal. And so. And then they went back and said, oh, no, I really don't think so. On second thought, he hit him with the shoulder, not the forearm. But it was still very much a you can't intimidate us moment.

[Bomani Jones]

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.

[Howard Bryant]

That's right.

[Bomani Jones]

Unless you want to walk home.

[Howard Bryant]

That's right.

[Bomani Jones]

And.

[Howard Bryant]

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 ballin 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.

[Bomani Jones]

I.

[Howard Bryant]

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 Krzyzewski 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 going to get one of these? And is Tarkanian going to roll me again? Two years in a row.

[Ad Voice]

Right.

[Bomani Jones]

I mean, this is a milestone moment in the history of college basketball.

[Howard Bryant]

100%.

[Bomani Jones]

Like this, this whole thing. And like I said, Laetner 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. I mean, yeah, after Laitner graduated and then won there, Jalen Rose said, 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 gone. We. We got. We got something for all of y'.

[Howard Bryant]

All.

[Bomani Jones]

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 then it kind of got reinforced in the arts, because that 99 Duke team, which I contend is the best team ever had, and I don't know if any white dudes got any minutes on that one. That's Elton Brand, Corey McGetty, William Avery, Trajan Langdon.

[Howard Bryant]

Whoo.

[Bomani Jones]

Because that was when they was coming off after his back had messed up. And when they. When Duke needs to recover, they can recover. Yeah. They don't. They don't really get so caught up.

[Howard Bryant]

Yeah. You know.

[Bomani Jones]

You know, where they care about otherwise.

[Howard Bryant]

You know, where they're looking for players.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But 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 AAU coach. Yeah. Come on down, partner.

[Howard Bryant]

Duke as villain starts here. Yes. You know, and. And Duke. And also Duke as hero starts here.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah. I guess it depends 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 mother people a little long time to get wise. We was on it. We saw it.

[Howard Bryant]

We saw it. Yeah. I mean, I. 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 in whatever direction you want to take them when they don't win.

[Bomani Jones]

Yeah.

[Howard Bryant]

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 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 rewatching that game, the. The. The illusion or just the. The. You know, the idea of education 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, like, 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.

[Bomani Jones]

That 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.

[Howard Bryant]

Oh, my pleasure. This was fun. Like I said, I. I love. I've just forgotten all about all of that. And it's. I think it is like, I remember, like, I had a girlfriend who used to just laugh at me, like, because I used to watch, you know, ESPN Classic and stuff. Like, did the score change? No. When was the game? 30 years ago.

[Bomani Jones]

Why are you watching it?

[Howard Bryant]

But it was fascinating watching this basketball because it's not the same basketball that we see today.

[Bomani Jones]

Nah, 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. 323-59-67767. Remember, follow the right time. 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. And we'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.

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