Last Sunday, I was standing in front of my seat, dead center of the court, behind the benches of UConn and Duke, during a timeout with just 27 seconds left in the game and Duke holding a 72-69 lead.
Amidst the deafening noise from the fans, I watched Dan Hurley of UConn and Jon Scheyer of Duke give the final directions to their teams before the last seconds that would decide which team would advance to the Final Four.
At that moment, I thought back to almost 26 years to the day, when I was in the Philadelphia Spectrum with Duke trailing 103-102 with 2.1 seconds left, just moments before the most famous shot in NCAA history by Christian Laettner.
The fact that Grant Hill, the player who threw the pass to Laettner, was sitting directly across the court broadcasting this game for CBS, made me wonder if I was going to see another ending that would be talked about for decades.
The NCAA Regional East regional in Washington D.C. was an epic confluence of four of the most storied programs — Duke, UConn, Michigan State and St. John’s and all-time great coaches Rick Pitino, Tom Izzo and Hurley.
These programs and coaches have won 14 NCAA championships in the last 26 years.
The Capital One Center in D.C. was also the perfect venue for this battle royal with this location easily accessible for all four teams.
Friday night’s semifinal doubleheader was the most expensive Sweet 16 ticket in history as a fan could watch the two monumental games — UConn-Michigan State and Duke-St. John’s for one price.
Typically, in the basketball doubleheaders, the fans of the teams in the second game start arriving after halftime of the first game, and the fans from the first game leave after their game. Friday night, though, was not typical.
The passionate fans of all four teams, almost equally divided, packed the house for the tipoff of Duke-St. John’s and stayed to the conclusion of the UConn-Michigan State game, five hours later.
The interesting fact about all these four teams is their fan bases have very little love for the other three teams after decades of historic wins and losses between the four.
The excitement of the night was enhanced by the presence of so many former players from all four programs that attended the game in support of their teams.
Imagine standing in line at the concession stand with two 7-footers in front of and behind you.
With two sons starting on the Duke team, former Blue Devil great Carlos Boozer was the man of the hour, shaking hands and posing for pictures with all the Duke fans.
Behind the UConn bench was comedian/actor Bill Murray, whose son Luke is the top assistant on the UConn team and headed to become the head coach at Boston College.
Plus D.C. sports royalty was in the building. Sitting next to me was Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn and his family.
UConn played with a ferocious intensity in the second half during its 19-point comeback, like a fighter losing a fight but taking punches, that was not matched by Duke.
UConn players were diving into the crowd and on the ground for loose balls and hustling back on defense. These extra possessions were the difference in a one-point game.
On the final inbounds pass by Duke, the Devils up two with 10 seconds left, I was surprised Duke: 1) Did not call a timeout to set up the inbounds play (especially because it is a young team); 2) That it did not call a timeout when Cayden Boozer was trapped at midcourt; 3) Did not have starting point guard Caleb Foster in the game along with Cayden to handle the ball.
I give a ton of credit to UConn freshman Braylon Mullins and senior Alex Karaban for staying calm and not throwing up a panic shot after the key Duke turnover.
Mullins threw it to Karaban and Karaban threw it back to Mullins — all in two seconds — before Mullins made the 35-foot shot that will be talked about for decades.
After Laettner hit the shot 26 years ago, the Duke fans (including me as a Duke graduate) had a moment of shock, and then there was pandemonium.
Last Sunday, Duke fans experienced the same shock but the pandemonium was in the UConn section.
But just like 26 years ago, I knew I had just watched a moment that will never be forgotten in sports history.
Ira Kaufman, an Altoona native and traveling sports fan, periodically contributes to the Mirror. He hosts IRA on Sports on trueoldiesfla.com on Monday night from 7-8 p.m. It is available on Soundcloud & iTUNES, search Ira On Sports. His pictures of the game-winning shot of the Duke-UConn game was viewed on social media more than 500,000 times.
