K vs. Roy, Part I
One of the best rivalries in coaching
One of the most iconic images in Duke Basketball history took place not during a game but rather immediately after the conclusion of the game.
I’m thinking of the epic 1991 Duke-UNLV match in the Final Four. Anderson Hunt misses a desperation 3-pointer, Bobby Hurley grabs the rebound and the celebration ensues.
Until the camera pans to Mike Krzyzewski, hands palm down, a scolding look on his face.
This was a semifinal game, after all. Duke still had work to do.
I’m pretty sure Krzyzewski would have had the same reaction if Duke’s title game was against pretty much anyone. Unfinished business is still unfinished business.
But that looming title game was against Kansas, coached by a 41-year-old coach in his third season as head coach.
Roy Williams retired last week, almost two decades after leaving Kansas. He and Mike Krzyzewski squared off 44 times. Krzyzewski won 24 of those. Forty of those 44 games took place as part of the legendary Duke-North Carolina rivalry.
Which makes it easy to forget that these two giants first squared off in a much different rivalry.
I’m going to take a look at some of those memorable Krzyzewski-Williams, Duke-Carolina matchups a little bit later.
But let’s start with the Duke-Kansas side of the relationship. Krzyzewski and Williams only met four times when the latter was at Kansas. But three of those meetings took place in the NCAA Tournament.
Duke and Kansas met four times in a three-year period when Larry Brown was coaching the Jayhawks. Duke won the first three, regular-season matches in Madison Square Garden and Allen Fieldhouse and a 1986 Final Four match. But Danny Manning’s 25 points led Kansas to a 66-59 win in the 1988 Final Four.
Kansas defeated Oklahoma two days later to win the NCAA title.
Two months later Brown left Kansas for the San Antonio Spurs, just ahead of NCAA sanctions for recruiting violations.
Enter Roy Williams, a longtime assistant for Dean Smith’s Tar Heels but a man who hadn’t been a head coach since high school back in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
Manning graduated from Kansas in 1988 and Kansas was on NCAA probation anyway. Still, Kansas went 19-12.
One of those 12 losses came in Cameron Indoor Stadium, a late-season meeting between the two thoroughbred programs. Duke dominated from the very beginning. It was 53-34 at the half and 102-77 at the final buzzer.
Danny Ferry led Duke with 26 points and 10 rebounds, while Quin Snyder added 10 assists. The Blue Devils shot a scintillating 65 percent from the field, including 7-of-10 from beyond the arc.
The following season Kansas went 30-5 and handed UNLV a 14-point loss.
That would be the same UNLV team that defeated Duke by 30 in the NCAA title game.
Kansas didn’t last long in the 1990 NCAA Tournament, however. They lost 71-70 to UCLA in their second game.
We all know about Duke’s win over the Running Rebels and their run to the 1991 title game.
But 1991 was also the only time Duke and North Carolina have advanced to the Final Four in the same year. The North Carolina-Kansas match was full of delicious subtexts, North Carolina coached by a Kansas alum, Kansas coached by a UNC alum, who had mentored the Kansas coach. The underdog Jayhawks pulled off the upset, 79-73, Smith famously walking off the court after being ejected.
And guess who led both teams in scoring?
You got it, Carolina’s Hubert Davis, with 25 points, the Hubert Davis who would end up replacing Williams as UNC head coach 30 years later.
On paper the 1991 Duke-Kansas game shouldn’t have been all that competitive. Evan a casual college-basketball fan recognizes Christian Laettner, Grant Hill and Bobby Hurley,
Most casual fans would not have recognized the names of Mark Randall, Adonis Jordan and Mike Maddox, not even in 1991. Randall would play 127 games in the NBA, Jordan 10.
That’s it.
Yet Williams got this team past Indiana, Arkansas and North Carolina to make it to the finals.
Most Duke fans remember Grant Hill’s jaw-dropping dunk off a slightly-errant Bobby Hurley pass in the opening minutes of the title game. But if that play discouraged Kansas, they certainly hid it well. They cut Duke’s lead to 22-20 before Duke stretched to a 42-34 halftime lead.
Duke led by as many as 14 points in the second half but had to hold off several Kansas runs, the last one making it 70-65, before a Brian Davis dunk sealed the deal.
The final was 72-65.
But Williams had made an impression. He began to get higher-ranked recruits, players like Jacque Vaughan, Paul Pierce, Reef LaFrentz and Nick Collison. He signed 16 McDonald’s All-Americans at Kansas and made the NCAA Tournament every season after that first one.
But he never did cut down that final net.
Not in Lawrence, anyway.
And he only squared off Krzyzewski’s two-more times while he was in Kansas.
Both were in the NCAAs.
The next matchup came in the 2000 tournament. Duke was top seed in the East region. Senior Chris Carrawell and junior Shane Battier led that Duke team, that also included freshmen Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer and Mike Dunleavy.
Kansas was seeded eighth after a mediocre season that saw them enter the NCAAs with eight losses.
But it was a physical, bruising contest that saw both coaches jawing at the officials on regular occasions. Williams shot 2-for-15, Duke turned it over 23 times and the Blue Devils hit only 2-of-17 3-pointers.
Kansas led 13-4 early but Duke led by nine with six minutes left, before freshman guard Kirk Hinrich led a furious Kansas comeback. Kenny Bradford’s three-point play put Kansas up 64-63, with 1:18 left.
Boozer saved the day with two huge plays. He converted an offensive rebound off a Carrawell miss and then stole a pass, resulting in a pair of Carrawell foul shots.
Kansas had a chance to tie. But Hinrich missed a 3, Carrawell grabbed the rebound and Williams finished off the 69-64 Duke win from the foul line.
Battier led Duke with 21 points. Boozer added 15 points and 13 rebounds.
A big-time win like that should have led to a deep tournament run.
Should have. instead, Duke fell to Florida in the Sweet Sixteen.
Krzyzewski had captured his third NCAA title when he and Williams next met. Only Chris Duhon and Casey Sanders remained from that 2001 team two years later. Krzyzewski had rebuilt around a gifted group of perimeter players, led by Duhon, Rutgers transfer Dahntay Jones and sharp-shooting freshman J.J. Redick. But Duke’s post presence was so weak that Krzyzewski was forced to move the 6-6 Jones to power forward.
Duke tied for second in the ACC, two games behind Wake Forest but captured the ACC Tournament title.
Still, Duke’s 11-5 conference was their worst since 1996 and a deep NCAA run did not seem to be a realistic option.
Duke was seeded third in the West Regional, behind top-seeded Arizona and second-seeded Kansas.
Duke advanced to the second weekend with wins over Colorado State and Central Michigan, while Kansas defeated Utah State and Arizona State.
Like his mentor Dean Smith, Williams always prioritized interior presence. He recruited quality size and utilized that size, pounding the ball inside early and often.
And he arguably had the nation’s best big man in 2003, 6-9 senior Nick Collison, Collison averaged 19 points and 10 rebounds per game was named first-team AP All-America.
Duke simply did not have an answer for Collison. Sanders was physically overmatched and freshman Shelden Williams was still more potential than production.
Duke tried to counter with 3-point shooting. Jones made 4-of-7 from downtown but Redick only hit 1-of-11, as Duke went 10-for-26.
The game was tied 35-35 at the half and Duke led 44-36 early in the second half.
But Collison scored twice inside in a 9-0 Jayhawks run, tied the game at 51 and 56, put Kansas up for good (59-57) with a 3-point play. Collison scored 21 points after intermission and ended the game with 33 points and 19 rebounds, hitting 14-of-22 from the field.
Jones ended his Duke career with 23 points.
The final was 69-65.
Kansas defeated Arizona in the regional final and Dwayne Wade and Marquette in the Final Four, before falling to Syracuse in the title game.
Who could have imagined at the time that Williams and Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim would become regular rivals in a different conference?
By this time North Carolina terminating the ill-conceived Matt Doherty experiment. Williams had turned down his alma mater once but not this time.
The Mike Krzyzewski-Roy Williams rivalry would take on an entirely new dimension.