One of my favorite games at U-Hall as a student. Virginia absolutely rocked Duke 81-64. When I checked the score I was surprised the margin wasn’t 20+. Virginia dominated and Duke wasn’t close to being in the game in the second half.
I dug up the box score and Anthony Oliver was high scorer with 21. Stith had 20, Crotty 16, and Kenny Turner 15. Laettner had a big game with 27, but that was about all Duke had going. An interesting stat is both Virginia and Duke were 2-for-10 from three - I’m pretty sure both teams shot and made a lot more threes during the season. Duke turned it over 24 times, and the only reason they were anywhere close at halftime was going 18-for-21 on free throws in the first half.
What really made it memorable was stopping at the Barracks Road McDonald’s an hour or so after the game. The Duke team bus was parked in the lot, and sure enough Laettner, Hurley, Hill, and the gang were lined up inside at the register, looking pretty demoralized. I’ve always wondered if K’s punishment for a road beatdown is making the players buy their own Happy Meals. Or maybe it’s special treatment reserved for losses to UVA.
I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard Duke had a late night practice after they rolled into Durham to get themselves straight. At any rate, Duke beat a ranked Georgia Tech team four days later by 41, and went on to win their first title that season.
Love the throw back memories and you seeing those guys at McDonalds. I remember AO having a big game where he was making shots and defending as usual. Bryant just being Bryant and I know Crotty was always up for that game facing younger PG in Bobby and both being from NJ. Turner was always a big game player and people do or dont remember he was as good as anybody in the ACC then.
One little “memory” was Laettner kinda getting into it with one of the fans who sat on the baseline every game all four of my years. She was an older woman and just there to support her team. Maybe she was in his head that day ha.
Thanks. That team had a couple of all-time UVA greats with good players around them, and was really fun to watch. That’s a funny story about Laettner - not surprised he was being a tool to the old lady on the baseline.
Laettner was probably Coach Holland’s biggest recruiting loss of all time. I think they were related and Mom wanted him at UVA. Maybe the origins of the Mom curse of UVA recruiting.
Playboy: Even after your success in the Five-Star camp?
Jordan: By the time they wanted to recruit me, they had heard that I was going to stay close to home, which was not necessarily true. I also wanted to go to Virginia because I wanted to play with Ralph Sampson for his last two years there. He was going into his junior year. I wrote to Virginia, but they just sent me back an admission form. No one came and watched me. Then I visited North Carolina and I was happy with the atmosphere, so I committed early.
