Duke won a remarkable ACC Championship over Virginia on Saturday, and Blue Devil fans will remember this one for a long time. It may be the most satisfying championship many fans have ever seen. But the most satisfying?
Maybe, although we can think of three that might rival it.
In 1960, Vic Bubas was an unproven head coach. He took the job after being an NC State assistant, and no one expected the Blue Devils to win the 1960 ACC Championship. He would only coach through 1969, and college basketball
would change immensely by the time that he was finished.
Duke wandered in the desert for a few years before Bill Foster arrived in 1975. By 1978, he had the outline of a team that could be great in a year or two, because in 1978, young teams didn’t win. And in 1978, Dean Smith was in charge of the ACC.
Only, Duke did win, and got to the ACC Finals, where it met a tough Wake Forest team. It was such a great year that John Feinstein wrote Forever’s Team about it. That team would catch magic and run all the way to the championship game, before losing to Kentucky.
The third was in 1986. Mike Krzyzewski had a good first season in 1980-81, but in the next two years, Duke struggled as he put the pieces in place to challenge UNC, Maryland, and NC State, the ACC powers at that time.
By 1984, Duke started winning, but Coach K’s first truly great team was in 1986. As great as that team was, it only beat Georgia Tech by one point, 68-67, to win the ACC Tournament.
Of course, that Tech team was great too, with Mark Price, Bruce Dalrymple, and John Salley.
Saturday’s ACC Championship, coming with two starters out, stands up to any of those three. It was a testament to grit and commitment that we’ll be talking about for years.
