Speaker 1: Welcome to Special Teams, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: Greetings and Welcome Inside Special Teams with Jason Smith and
Speaker 1: Mike Harmon our weekly podcast, as we spotlight one season,
Speaker 1: one team, what made them relevant, what made them incredible.
Speaker 1: It could be a championship, it could be getting so
Speaker 1: close to a championship, it could be not winning a game.
Speaker 1: But every week we spotlight one team in sports history
Speaker 1: and take a look back at what made them so
Speaker 1: special part of our march to the national championship in
Speaker 1: college basketball. We're gonna celebrate today the two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: two thousand ten Duke Blue Devil's team that won the
Speaker 1: fourth national championship in program history as they beat Butler
Speaker 1: in a thrilling championship game where the heye The Butler
Speaker 1: Bulldogs were a team that took everybody by surprise their
Speaker 1: march to the national championship and maybe, as we get
Speaker 1: to it later on, one of coach Mike Schefski's biggest
Speaker 1: coaching mistakes that he got lucky didn't come back to
Speaker 1: bite him. Sometimes you you luck into it. And this
Speaker 1: is a Duke team. When you take outside looking in
Speaker 1: the hateable Duke Blue Devils for as long as you
Speaker 1: and I have been watching college basketball, it has been
Speaker 1: the al right, here's Duke again. There was nobody on
Speaker 1: this team that you said, all right, he's the hate
Speaker 1: herble one because other than coach k And that's one
Speaker 1: of the themes of college basketball is the you love
Speaker 1: or hate coaches. There they're they're like the forest. They
Speaker 1: stay right there there, evergreen and and the guys cycle through.
Speaker 1: But this team not a lot of big names, not
Speaker 1: a lot of guys that you necessarily remember and and
Speaker 1: had that target on them like so many Duke teams
Speaker 1: had before. And and that's the big thing is that
Speaker 1: the big player on this team was John Shire. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was All American point guard. But it's not like
Speaker 1: John Shire was Zion Williamson or one of the other
Speaker 1: big stars do Academy. This is a team that wasn't
Speaker 1: a classically great Duke team. Look, it was John Shire
Speaker 1: was really good. He led the team in scoring. Kyle
Speaker 1: Singler played really well, he led the team in in
Speaker 1: in three point shooting, Brian zoo Beck, Mason plum Lee,
Speaker 1: you know this team was Hey, they were good. They
Speaker 1: were talented. Nolan Smith as well, eventual player solid, They
Speaker 1: were very solid, but at this point it was, well,
Speaker 1: here's a pretty decent, pretty typical Mike Szewski Duke Blue
Speaker 1: Devil's team, and whether you expect them to win the
Speaker 1: national championship. Look, they hadn't been to the final four
Speaker 1: in five years. This is back when in two thousand ten,
Speaker 1: you know, the early odds, you were expecting Duke to
Speaker 1: go to the championship every couple of years. It would
Speaker 1: have been a five year drought for them trying to
Speaker 1: get back to the final four. Yeah, I mean you
Speaker 1: look at that period before you didn't get past the
Speaker 1: round of six team in straight years, which nowadays you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, does the guy get to keep his job?
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Schefski with his long track record, even
Speaker 1: at that point you're not looking to fire him, but
Speaker 1: certainly you're raising eyebrows of what happened in the program?
Speaker 1: Is he losing it? Are the players coming in just
Speaker 1: not as good? What about scholarship reductions? You have all
Speaker 1: those ancillary conversations that then flow out of it. But
Speaker 1: for college basketball, it's kind of like the Patriots not
Speaker 1: making it past you know, their first playoff game following
Speaker 1: the regular season is We're done with them for a minute.
Speaker 1: There could be another champion, There could be another team
Speaker 1: to become a villain and become hated, and no, here
Speaker 1: they were. They were Duke again. Yeah, this was a
Speaker 1: team that was pretty deep. You add Shire singler Nolan
Speaker 1: Smith each scored over six points during the season. All Right,
Speaker 1: the last time Duke had done that. You gotta go
Speaker 1: back almost a decade. And those are names like Jason
Speaker 1: Williams and Mike Dunlevy and Carlos Boozer, you know, guys
Speaker 1: who went on to play in the NBA for a
Speaker 1: long time. Like I said, this wasn't a classically great
Speaker 1: Duke team, but they started out, Hey, all right, maybe
Speaker 1: Duke is gonna be pretty good. And then what happened
Speaker 1: was they began their eventual rise in their rise to excellence,
Speaker 1: and they turned into a Duke team that when they
Speaker 1: got to March, it's okay, I'm ready to hate Duke again.
Speaker 1: It's a phenomenon that that is just you know, great
Speaker 1: in college basketball. That Duke can start and and the
Speaker 1: best college basketball season can start, and it's all I
Speaker 1: want Duke to lose. And then Duke loses, and you
Speaker 1: kind of forget about them for a while, then they
Speaker 1: get back up to them. One you saying I want
Speaker 1: Duke to lose again. Then they losing it. Then you
Speaker 1: get to the n c A Tournament and you go, oh,
Speaker 1: I really want Duke to lose. But then Duke loses
Speaker 1: and you go, oh, wait the tournament we just lost Duke.
Speaker 1: Duke was a lot of fun. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: the personality and look what people like to hate watched right, No,
Speaker 1: but it's it's the it's the same thing. Look, I
Speaker 1: think a perfect year for every college basketball fan would
Speaker 1: be for Duke to make it to the National Championship
Speaker 1: Game and lose. It's the same thing for Major League
Speaker 1: baseball every year. The perfect season would be for the
Speaker 1: Yankees to get to the World Series and lose. We
Speaker 1: can hate them and they can keep the attention of
Speaker 1: everybody all the way, but then at the end, the
Speaker 1: majority of the country is not rooting for them. They're
Speaker 1: rooting against the quote evil empire, and you want them
Speaker 1: to lose, and that's that would be the perfect season
Speaker 1: for college basketball baseball. You have an evil empire, get
Speaker 1: all the way because you want them to lose. That's great.
Speaker 1: You have r night of partying. Hey, Duke loses, they
Speaker 1: lost to Belmont or whatever, and then it's oh man,
Speaker 1: but we just lost too. Can now the tournament is
Speaker 1: less interesting? Well, it is the curiosity of college basketball
Speaker 1: as it relates to the sports calendar anymore anyway, where
Speaker 1: a lot of times it gets lost for the season.
Speaker 1: Much of it has been all right, here's a bunch
Speaker 1: of top ten teams getting upset. But it became so
Speaker 1: routine that it was no longer a top headline for
Speaker 1: you and I on the show each United Fox Sports Training.
Speaker 1: It's like, all right, that's now an update. This was
Speaker 1: Mike Sachowski's thirtieth year as head coach at two. Can
Speaker 1: you think about where we are now and you go
Speaker 1: this This was his thirtieth season. He has started in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two thousand ten was his thirtieth year. And
Speaker 1: it's the longevity that he has had. He never wanted
Speaker 1: to go someplace else, you know. The closest came was
Speaker 1: a few years ago when Kobe Bryant called when Phil
Speaker 1: Jackson left the Lakers, and it was hey, come coach
Speaker 1: the Lakers, and coach k talked to Kobe. He got
Speaker 1: off the phone and went to his assistance and said,
Speaker 1: you never to believe he just called, he wants me
Speaker 1: to go coach him Kobe Bryant. You know, But the
Speaker 1: fact that he always stayed, he never left it was
Speaker 1: it was a something that we took for granted. Coach
Speaker 1: K and do Coach K and do where everywhere else
Speaker 1: people want to leave, no matter what they accomplished. They oh,
Speaker 1: there's always someplace else. I gotta it's to scratch. I
Speaker 1: want to go, And Coach K never did well. It's
Speaker 1: like ed Orangeron and his ham sandwich. No matter how
Speaker 1: great the heights, you still want what you know. And
Speaker 1: for Coach K, he's never tried to leave it. How
Speaker 1: how interesting would he have been not only coaching Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 1: but Coach K and his personality in l A a
Speaker 1: guy who gets mad if you go anywhere near the baseline,
Speaker 1: if you're a fan after a game. You know, honestly, again, ah,
Speaker 1: these celebrities coming up, get out of here. I got
Speaker 1: basketball in the coach. Every time the Lakers lose, other
Speaker 1: fans would rush the court. He would get on principle
Speaker 1: you'd have to when you he would get so chapped
Speaker 1: about it. Uh so the two thousand ten do Blue
Speaker 1: Devils getting set for what would end up being a
Speaker 1: phenomenal year. At the beginning of the year, coach case listen,
Speaker 1: I have a good team. And you know he would know,
Speaker 1: being thirty years and having won three national championships. He said,
Speaker 1: we have a good team. So that's where it stood
Speaker 1: for Duke as they began the campaign, and since they
Speaker 1: ended with a championship in how about for what happened
Speaker 1: we look back at the magical year of two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten being discovered on YouTube. It was Justin Bieber.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's only been ten years we've been
Speaker 1: talking about Justin Bieber. No. I I feel like Bieber
Speaker 1: is like early two thousand's, like when everybody started listening
Speaker 1: to eminem and all that. That's when Bieber came right now,
Speaker 1: No, No No, two thousand and ten for Justin bie not
Speaker 1: quite that that long ago. Hurt Locker wins Best Director
Speaker 1: for Catherine Bigelow over James Cameron and Avatar, which was
Speaker 1: maybe one of the biggest upsets in the history of
Speaker 1: the Oscars. I'll be honest with you, Um I didn't
Speaker 1: like either film. Well, I like parts of hurt Locker,
Speaker 1: but overall, just I don't know, I want to be
Speaker 1: Unerst and Avatar. I just so speaking of Obtineum was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Uh That's when I first thought, oh, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: what's his name? Who was a star? Uh? Sam, what's
Speaker 1: his name? Sam Worthington. I said he could he could
Speaker 1: play Philip Rivers in the Philip Rivers story. I kind
Speaker 1: of thought that about still an opportunity. But even you
Speaker 1: talk about evil Empire James Cameron, nobody liked the guy
Speaker 1: Catherine Bigelow wins his X And honestly, hurt Locker was
Speaker 1: just okay. The first seventy minutes was great, but then
Speaker 1: the last hour was everything you just saw. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I have no other story to tell us now, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just do the same movie for the next hour.
Speaker 1: And they had the characters were such were so cookie cutter.
Speaker 1: You had the one kind of crazy army guy and
Speaker 1: then the one guy who was scanned and the one
Speaker 1: guy who was in the middle. And I'm like, really,
Speaker 1: this was this Win's best direct I mean, come on, really,
Speaker 1: you just ate James Cameron. Just say it. There is
Speaker 1: something to be said for that texting while driving bands
Speaker 1: go into effect in some states in two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: you could not text and drive. There in effect, in
Speaker 1: in theory oftentimes and making their debut something that many
Speaker 1: people wish never debuted. The vous Ella's at the two
Speaker 1: thousand ten World Cup sounded like cicadas. No, you sounded
Speaker 1: like Chewbacca right there. No, not quite a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you're gonna get the tongue roll there. I
Speaker 1: debated bringing something to my daughter's soccer tournament. I was
Speaker 1: told I really shouldn't. Oh, I think you would get
Speaker 1: thrown out. I'll tell you what, though there was there
Speaker 1: was a refer I would make sure the reference one
Speaker 1: couch that I thought needed to be tossed out. He
Speaker 1: was warming up like there's a game being played on
Speaker 1: the field and they're doing warmups. He brought two giant
Speaker 1: speakers and was blasting music while his team stretched. I
Speaker 1: think you should have been punched in the next Well,
Speaker 1: what movie? What music? Was he blasting some kind of
Speaker 1: dance thing, and then it drifted into something like you
Speaker 1: would be in a yoga studio. Now get down, up, dog,
Speaker 1: down dog, And now he's say, don't forget to breathe
Speaker 1: not mistake. That's horrible warm up music, and it was.
Speaker 1: It was awful. It's horrible, Like it went from like
Speaker 1: a pulsating disco kind of thing to this, like this
Speaker 1: was his mix. Bad girl, I'll talk. You got a
Speaker 1: game where they're trying to communicate with their teams and
Speaker 1: they can't because this guy, this dope dope has his
Speaker 1: music plan. I just walked by it. I just shook
Speaker 1: my head. One of the dad's goes, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: like it's one of his kids is on the team,
Speaker 1: and he understood exactly why he got the head shake
Speaker 1: as I walked by. So that's what was going on
Speaker 1: in two thousand ten, the magical year for the Duke
Speaker 1: Blue Devils as they win their fourth national championship. Coming up,
Speaker 1: we get into the regular season and we get into
Speaker 1: the big heroes of the n c A Tournament and
Speaker 1: the big coaching mistake that coach came made in the
Speaker 1: championship game that he got lucky didn't come back to
Speaker 1: bite him and costing the championship. But special teams with
Speaker 1: Jason Smith and Mike carp We continue on special teams
Speaker 1: with Jason Smith and Mike Harmon as we look back
Speaker 1: at the championship year in college basketball for the Duke
Speaker 1: Blue Devils in two thousand nine, two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: the regular season began for Duke, and it was a
Speaker 1: typical Duke year. They ended up with a thirty five
Speaker 1: and five record. And it was just like you see
Speaker 1: Duke play. They'd win seven or eight row, they would lose.
Speaker 1: They win seven or eight row, they would lose. They'd
Speaker 1: win seven or eight row, they would lose. Their losses
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, two thousand and ten at Wisconsin
Speaker 1: during the a c C Big Ten Challenge, they lost
Speaker 1: at number twenty Georgia Tech, they lost at North Carolina State,
Speaker 1: they lost at number seven Georgetown, and they lost at
Speaker 1: number two a number twenty two Maryland. Those were their losses.
Speaker 1: They did not lose at home. All their losses were
Speaker 1: away from Cameron Indoor. And suddenly at the end of
Speaker 1: the year you look up in thirty five and five
Speaker 1: and this was Duke. You know, they didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of close calls during the season. It was typical Duke,
Speaker 1: looks like they're better than everybody else. At the beginning
Speaker 1: of the year, they win their couple of early games,
Speaker 1: they don't go out of state too much with Coastal Carolina,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, Charlotte. They beat Arizona State by double digits.
Speaker 1: They beat number thirteen Yukon by near double digits. They
Speaker 1: beat St. John's. They beat Gonzaga, who was ranked number
Speaker 1: that was in the country, right because you're you're talking
Speaker 1: about Gonzaga neutral site, big spotlight game at the Garden,
Speaker 1: and they just pummel them and limit them into forty one.
Speaker 1: That was your big statement win. Okay, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: Duke is for real because you look, Duke starts eight
Speaker 1: and one, nine in one. But you get to nine
Speaker 1: and one, your number seven in the country at this point,
Speaker 1: and you beat Gonzaga, whose program really started to rise
Speaker 1: whereas they started out. Hey, Gonzaga is a fun team.
Speaker 1: They win their conference and they can maybe pull an
Speaker 1: upset or two in the tournament. But this is when
Speaker 1: Gonzaga started to get really good in every year. Suddenly
Speaker 1: Gonzaga was a big time top twenty five team. Seventy
Speaker 1: forty one is your final score of this game, and
Speaker 1: this game in late December, this was Okay, we gotta
Speaker 1: deal with Duke this year. Yeah, and now it becomes
Speaker 1: the narrative. All right, let's start learning about the plumb leaves.
Speaker 1: Let's learn about the different guys on this roster that
Speaker 1: are making an impact, because this is gonna be a
Speaker 1: team with some legs. Because you beat a couple of
Speaker 1: top twenty programs, they're heading into the Christmas week, as
Speaker 1: it were, and now you're rolling into conference play on
Speaker 1: a high. You know, the thing about this Duke team
Speaker 1: is that this team was led by a couple of upperclassmen.
Speaker 1: And Duke was one of the last teams to see
Speaker 1: players show up for the one and done. And even
Speaker 1: when players were doing that and coming or going right
Speaker 1: to the end, but whatever it was, we're not staying
Speaker 1: very long. Duke still was a school that would have
Speaker 1: players come and stay until their senior year. Look, John
Speaker 1: Shire was a senior and he was the best player
Speaker 1: on the team. Kyle Singler was a junior, Nolan Smith
Speaker 1: was a junior. These are all upper classman. Brian zoo Back,
Speaker 1: their center, was a senior. These were all players who
Speaker 1: stayed all the way for coach k through the last
Speaker 1: couple of years they have and this is when you
Speaker 1: would end with a championship, and you know, you don't
Speaker 1: get that anymore because the general consensus is if you're
Speaker 1: staying until you're a senior, then you suck. And why
Speaker 1: aren't you in the NBA? And why do I want
Speaker 1: a twenty two year old guy in the NBA when
Speaker 1: I could have an eighteen year old kid and he
Speaker 1: can spend four years getting used to play, and suddenly
Speaker 1: a twenty two he's a great player, whereas a guy
Speaker 1: could come out at twenty two and not be good
Speaker 1: until he's twenty five or twenty six. But this is
Speaker 1: this is how Duke always did. I always admired that
Speaker 1: about coach k was he got people to stay. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean he still does. Look where there are now your
Speaker 1: guys coming for a year and staying and leaving. That's
Speaker 1: just the way college basketball was. But Duke was like
Speaker 1: the last bastion of Hey, I'll come and i'll stay,
Speaker 1: and I'll go junior, senior year, stay as many, win
Speaker 1: as much as I can, then I'll move on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The change in philosophy as we've seen it role, Look,
Speaker 1: it's gonna flip back again here pretty soon, where guys
Speaker 1: won't even have to go for the cup of coffee
Speaker 1: into the collegiate ranks, but it was always one of
Speaker 1: the curiosities of Duke. And let's face it, you start
Speaker 1: talking about the quality of education, not that you can't
Speaker 1: find quality education at each of these institutions, but Dukes
Speaker 1: and nationally ranked academic institution. The crazy part of the
Speaker 1: season is that Duke was never number one until the
Speaker 1: end of the season. As good a year as they
Speaker 1: had look twenty nine and five going into the n
Speaker 1: c A Tournament, the highest they would get at the
Speaker 1: end is number four. It was enough for a number
Speaker 1: one seed in the South Regional. But this was not
Speaker 1: a Duke team that got to number one lost a game.
Speaker 1: They they started in the top ten and they never
Speaker 1: really left the top ten. You know, after they had
Speaker 1: a couple of losses, they dropped to tenth overall, but
Speaker 1: then they started winning a few more games and they
Speaker 1: finished at number four. They go into the a c
Speaker 1: C Tournament after absolutely pasting North Carolina eight two to fifty.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing about this Duke team, even though
Speaker 1: they were just okay, all their big wins this year
Speaker 1: were by big numbers. You know, they beat North Carolina
Speaker 1: both their games by double digits. They beat Georgetown when
Speaker 1: Georgetown was number seven, they beat them by twelve. You know,
Speaker 1: these were games that it was whoa. Not only are
Speaker 1: they beating these teams, but it's not an escape, it's
Speaker 1: not a lass second shot by Shire. This is they
Speaker 1: are just whooping up on teams when they play a
Speaker 1: big team. Yeah, and I mean that was the story
Speaker 1: of the year. I mean there weren't. You had the
Speaker 1: five losses, but other than that, not a lot of
Speaker 1: close calls. I mean we're talking double digits number of
Speaker 1: times they were hanging a hundred points on teams. And
Speaker 1: again you go back and you you run off the names,
Speaker 1: and if you're not really huge college basketball fans, you're
Speaker 1: kind of looking at each other going these this was
Speaker 1: a team running up a hundred guys, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: no disrespect great college athletes, and a lot of these
Speaker 1: guys played and had some time in in the NBA
Speaker 1: and rolled on. But it's it's one of those teams
Speaker 1: that you don't have that face, right, you don't have
Speaker 1: that guy that stands out that went on to the
Speaker 1: next level or became the embodiment of this team. You
Speaker 1: can pick one of any of these guys really and
Speaker 1: trying to put it to the forefront, putting statistics aside
Speaker 1: for a minute. You know, it was about coach k Yeah.
Speaker 1: The highest of an individual honor everybody got was John
Speaker 1: Shire was a second team All American. Alright, dude, Duke
Speaker 1: didn't have anybody in the first All American team. This
Speaker 1: that's why this was a deep team that got a
Speaker 1: lot from different players. And this was a Duke team championship.
Speaker 1: And not well, we were led by Grant Hill, we
Speaker 1: were led by Bobby Hurley, were led by one of
Speaker 1: those players. This didn't happen that way. Uh. They go
Speaker 1: through the a CC tournament pretty easy, to beat Virginia,
Speaker 1: they beat Miami, they beat Georgia Tech. They enter the
Speaker 1: n c A Tournament as the number one seed in
Speaker 1: the South Regional, number three overall. And this n c
Speaker 1: A Tournament, before we get into Duke's run, told you
Speaker 1: about Butler, which we'll get into in a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: But really the moment of this tournament, if you can remember,
Speaker 1: was Ali Ferrickmanesh for Northern Iowa. They pulled a couple
Speaker 1: of huge upsets in the tournament. They beat u n
Speaker 1: l V on his three, They beat number one Kansas,
Speaker 1: the big the big three he had when Northern Iowa
Speaker 1: in the final minute of a frantic comeback by Kansas,
Speaker 1: instead of killing the clock, he gets the ball in
Speaker 1: the corner and hits the three. By by the number
Speaker 1: of times people mention is who's this year's tournament, I mean,
Speaker 1: I could still see that three in which Northern Iowa
Speaker 1: gets the rebound, throws it down court with a few seconds,
Speaker 1: with like twenty seconds left in the game. Whatever it was.
Speaker 1: You're thinking, Okay, now, Northern i was going to just
Speaker 1: kill the clock and and try to take much time
Speaker 1: off and shoot free throws and and Farrukmanesh gets the
Speaker 1: ball in the corner. It was a pretty awkward play.
Speaker 1: He got it turned with nobody on him because the
Speaker 1: floor spread, because you're thinking, okay, he's not gonna and
Speaker 1: he turned and shot at three and it was one
Speaker 1: of those no no, no, no, no, no, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: he made it. Oh my god, he made I mean,
Speaker 1: he was it. Most guys in an n c A tournament,
Speaker 1: if you're a Cinderella team, if you have one shot
Speaker 1: that is legendary, that's more than you can ask for.
Speaker 1: And he had too. In the n C a tournament,
Speaker 1: you know, back to back. Hey, I'm announcing I'm a
Speaker 1: superstar here in this tournament. By beating U N l V.
Speaker 1: And then we have it by beating Kansas, who was
Speaker 1: a number one seed in the tourney, becomes a college
Speaker 1: coaching or a college legend taking down you know, Bill Self,
Speaker 1: who was year to year one of those guys like,
Speaker 1: all right, when I fill out my bracket, is this
Speaker 1: a year that he chokes away in early game? Where
Speaker 1: do I have Bill Self in Kansas losing? Where do
Speaker 1: I Bunny? You did that with Duke, and you always
Speaker 1: did that with Kansas A right, is this the year
Speaker 1: that he's gonna make a deep run or are they
Speaker 1: bowing out early? With those two coaches, That's really what
Speaker 1: it became for a lot of your bracketology. So Duke
Speaker 1: goes into the tournament that is run by Ali Farokmanesh
Speaker 1: and and look, it was a very The tournament for
Speaker 1: Duke was very uneventful. Right, They win their first game
Speaker 1: against Arkansas Pine Bluff seventy four, right on, they killed him.
Speaker 1: They beat cal number eight seed in the second round
Speaker 1: fifty three, all right, Then they beat per Due by thirteen. Right,
Speaker 1: they beat Baylor in the Elite eight by seven. That's
Speaker 1: their closest game up until this point. Then they get
Speaker 1: to the Final four and they beat West Virginia, who
Speaker 1: was the sixth seed, seventy fifty seven, and suddenly it's
Speaker 1: Duke in the National Championship against Butler. It is everything
Speaker 1: you could want in an n c A tournament title.
Speaker 1: We talk about Duke getting to the tournament and winning
Speaker 1: and are getting and losing being the big story. You
Speaker 1: had the team, the evil empire that everybody hates in Duke,
Speaker 1: and you have arguably the biggest Cinderella to make it
Speaker 1: to the National Championship in Butler. Not because of the
Speaker 1: seeding because they were a five seed, but it's because
Speaker 1: they were amid Major. You're coming out of the horizon.
Speaker 1: Here they are in the horizon and they're in the
Speaker 1: National Look, this is Butler had back to back appearances
Speaker 1: in the National Championship game. But this is do k
Speaker 1: who is Oh my god. Everybody hates them or loves
Speaker 1: to hate them, and here's Butler. It's the David versus
Speaker 1: Goliath story that this was. Everybody glued to their television
Speaker 1: for this game because even though Butler now navigated to
Speaker 1: that point. It's still the all right, this doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense, right eighteen and oh they run the run
Speaker 1: the conference, I mean flat out four overall. But look,
Speaker 1: not often do you get to, you know, run the table.
Speaker 1: And you know you mentioned Butler in the Horizon League.
Speaker 1: They hadn't lost a game since December. They lost at
Speaker 1: U A. B. They go all the way through the
Speaker 1: rest of the season to the National Championship not having
Speaker 1: lost a game, and one of their wins on the
Speaker 1: way was it pains me watching Butler beat Syracuse. We
Speaker 1: were a one seed, and I said, okay, well, this
Speaker 1: is our year. We had a great team center, We're
Speaker 1: going we had West Johnson and Andy Routens, and we
Speaker 1: are gonna win. And we were beating Butler, and we
Speaker 1: were up by five with like four or five minutes
Speaker 1: left to go, and I remember Butler getting a possession
Speaker 1: and they come up the court and Shelvin Mack and
Speaker 1: now this is the play I remember from this game.
Speaker 1: Shelvin matt comes up all kinds of time left on
Speaker 1: the shot clock, five ft behind the three point line,
Speaker 1: and he throws up a three. And I'm saying to myself,
Speaker 1: this is where we win this game. We're up by five.
Speaker 1: He just put up a three. We're getting the rebound.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go down and score, and suddenly it's gonna
Speaker 1: be really tough. Except Nope, swishes a three. They're down too.
Speaker 1: And I remember saying to myself, oh man, they are
Speaker 1: not gonna go away. We are gonna struggle. And sure
Speaker 1: enough we struggled. Butler beat Syracuse, then they beat Kansas State.
Speaker 1: Then they beat Michigan State by two at Lucas Oil
Speaker 1: to move to the National Championship. And this is a
Speaker 1: game that's very close to Butler. They'll look Butler Indiana,
Speaker 1: the games in in Indianapolis. This is a it's a
Speaker 1: lot of hometown UH fans want to come to this game. Hey,
Speaker 1: come onto the game. Well, one are the big things here.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Syracuse a team we're scoring challenged is
Speaker 1: sometimes what you've called it in our years together ATOX
Speaker 1: was a great year. We were a great team that year.
Speaker 1: But your final the next round, they get a Kansas
Speaker 1: State team that had put up a hundred one the
Speaker 1: round before against Xavior, eighty four against b y U
Speaker 1: and and go back to eight D two in the
Speaker 1: first round, so a high scoring machine final. So taking
Speaker 1: the air out of the ball, playing forty minutes of
Speaker 1: defense and grinding you out became the hallmark of this squad.
Speaker 1: So Butler heads the National Championship against Duke and a
Speaker 1: championship game that was worth the way. Coming up next,
Speaker 1: we break it all down for you. We got to
Speaker 1: that big coach game mistake. Will tell you where everybody
Speaker 1: is now as we continue on special Teams with Jason
Speaker 1: Smith and Mike Carmond Blue Devils. So, just how did
Speaker 1: the Duke Blue Devils hold off the Butler Bulldogs and
Speaker 1: win their fourth National championship in front of over seventy
Speaker 1: thousand people in Indianapolis. This game television, it broke a
Speaker 1: lot of records for viewership because, as we told you,
Speaker 1: it's clear David versus Goliath. Everybody tuned in to see
Speaker 1: this game. Everybody wanted to see Duke lose. This is
Speaker 1: Brad Stevens becoming a legend. And oh my goodness, Butler,
Speaker 1: how do they get so good so fast? How is
Speaker 1: a mid major team in the National Championship? This had
Speaker 1: everything on a team playing on its home court basically, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, when you really look at geographically according to
Speaker 1: the notes. I mean, you're you're looking at U. C.
Speaker 1: L A all the way back at the late sixties,
Speaker 1: really the last for that opportunity. So not only do
Speaker 1: you have this underdog story, but it's a all right,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna add a little more to the table.
Speaker 1: It's like adding, you know, the points that are part
Speaker 1: of the spread, saying, hey, you get to play in
Speaker 1: front of folks that are gonna be predominantly cheering for you.
Speaker 1: Not that you wouldn't see that most of your year
Speaker 1: years at Duke anyway, Right, you're probably used to getting
Speaker 1: the the jeers and the the booge of the crowd,
Speaker 1: but certainly here at the Scott size and scope that
Speaker 1: we talked about the national title game, it's a whole other,
Speaker 1: whole other measure. Now. I mentioned Shelvion mac but obviously
Speaker 1: the star of Butler was Gordon Hayward, who has gone
Speaker 1: on to a great career in the National Basketball Association.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember when he was a senior, was
Speaker 1: Gordon Hayward, Come on, he's not gonna be a great
Speaker 1: player in the end b A. And you watched him
Speaker 1: play in this tournament, and I remember going people are
Speaker 1: sleeping on Gordon Hayward. This is a guy that's gonna
Speaker 1: score at the next level. He's big, he's got skills,
Speaker 1: and I thought, this is a guy that people are
Speaker 1: going to regret not drafting. And certainly Gordon Hayward plays
Speaker 1: into this game in a large way. The first half
Speaker 1: was a classic back and forth battle. Shelvin Mack got
Speaker 1: hot early, hit a couple of threes. John Shire would
Speaker 1: hit a couple of shots. He he would get hot
Speaker 1: at times, and it's a thirty three thirty two Duke
Speaker 1: lead at halftime, and it's pretty much everything you expect
Speaker 1: at this point. You know, it's not you know, when
Speaker 1: the game started, I think everybody had the fear of point.
Speaker 1: Now the clocks is gonna strike midnight for Butler and
Speaker 1: Duke is gonna boat race him. But every time it
Speaker 1: looked like Duke would get out to a lead, Oh
Speaker 1: they gotta they gotta lead by six. They got to
Speaker 1: a six point lead with a few sets, with a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes left before halftime, and then Butler reeled
Speaker 1: him in, hit a couple of shots like they do.
Speaker 1: They would hit threes. That's how they did it. And
Speaker 1: it's a one point game at halftime, and it's anybody's
Speaker 1: game in the second team that grounds you down. We
Speaker 1: talked about the low scores earlier in the tournament. There,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna run away and hide on this team,
Speaker 1: right shooting from the outside. Hayward a guy the the
Speaker 1: veteran savvy as it were, to put a nice euphemistic
Speaker 1: term on it. But a team that Brad Stevens got
Speaker 1: to buy in to the philosophy, so they weren't about
Speaker 1: to to back down no matter what the name was
Speaker 1: across the chest. And you saw that in the second
Speaker 1: half because it was snug all the way through. The
Speaker 1: second half was a lot like the first. A team
Speaker 1: would go on a mini run, get up by four
Speaker 1: or five, the opponent would answer it gets to the
Speaker 1: point with three minutes left to go, a little bit
Speaker 1: over three minutes left, Duke has a five point lead.
Speaker 1: And this is where again I'm thinking, right now it's
Speaker 1: gonna end for Butler. This is gonna be at the
Speaker 1: pressure is gonna beat too much. But Matt Howard, who
Speaker 1: anchored both butler final four teams, scored four points, cuts
Speaker 1: the lead to six to fifty nine three seconds left
Speaker 1: in the game and Duke is going to the free
Speaker 1: throw line for foul shots. Brian Zubek goes in to
Speaker 1: make however many he can make. If he makes one,
Speaker 1: it's a two point lead. He makes him both, it's
Speaker 1: a three point lead. This is where Mike Chaschowski made
Speaker 1: a mistake that he's lucky did not come back to
Speaker 1: Hauna and Zubik was a free throw shooter on the year.
Speaker 1: This is icy proposition three point six remaining. You could
Speaker 1: see I may you could actually see him do it
Speaker 1: on the broadcast. He says, make it and then miss
Speaker 1: it and now in you and that's always just just hey,
Speaker 1: your average and just do what he What what Schofsky
Speaker 1: wanted to happen was make the first for a two
Speaker 1: point lead, missed the second and forced Butler to get
Speaker 1: a really bad shot with only three seconds to get
Speaker 1: up to hope for a goofy bounce off the rim
Speaker 1: one or two taps, whatever it means. So zoo Bec
Speaker 1: makes the first, and you know, I was on the
Speaker 1: air this night on All Night on ESPN Radio, and
Speaker 1: we talked about this final play for a long long
Speaker 1: time because zoo Beck then misses the second, but Butler
Speaker 1: gets the re bound and Gordon Hayward just misses a
Speaker 1: buzzer beater from half court that would have won the game.
Speaker 1: I mean it, this goes and and your hardest in
Speaker 1: your throat for a second, going, this is how it's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. It's gonna be Bobby Plump, it's gonna be Hoosiers,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be this big half court shot. Gordon Heyward's
Speaker 1: gonna be the hero, and it just misses. Duke wins.
Speaker 1: And this is why I looked at this and I
Speaker 1: said this was a mistake by coach k because what
Speaker 1: he did was he put losing the game back on
Speaker 1: the table. If Zoo Beeck makes them both, all right,
Speaker 1: the best thing you can do. You're inbounding the ball
Speaker 1: with three seconds left, you have to shoot at three.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be off balance from somewhere. And the worst
Speaker 1: thing that can happen is you tie the game. What's
Speaker 1: gonna happen if you miss and get the rebound, You're
Speaker 1: gonna get an off balance from three from somewhere. But
Speaker 1: instead of tying the game, the worst thing can happen
Speaker 1: is you lose the game. He put losing back on
Speaker 1: the table, and when he was asked about it in
Speaker 1: the post game US conference, I remember him answerally going,
Speaker 1: I wanted Brian to do this was they didn't have
Speaker 1: a you know what? He you know what, they didn't
Speaker 1: make it. Like that was at the end of trying
Speaker 1: to explain it. He was trying to cut himself off
Speaker 1: and coach Kay said, I wanted Brian to make it.
Speaker 1: I wanted I thought it was the tougher shot for that.
Speaker 1: Then he was asked to get it. You know what,
Speaker 1: they missed it. They didn't make it. We won, end
Speaker 1: of the conversation, it's over. We won. But that was
Speaker 1: a big mistake. I can't see a team doing that now.
Speaker 1: Three seconds. Three seconds is a long time to get
Speaker 1: a shot. You get it, comes off, you get it
Speaker 1: right up to half court, you get three or four
Speaker 1: dribbles and get a shot. That was really, really dangerous.
Speaker 1: And I guarantee you, even though it worked out for him,
Speaker 1: if he was doing that again, he would have done
Speaker 1: something else well. One of the fun pieces as we
Speaker 1: we go through these classic teams is finding the super cuts.
Speaker 1: The highlights are going through a game or two, in
Speaker 1: this case talking about a national title game. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then you watch it and then you see the slow
Speaker 1: mo and in one of the notes, it was that
Speaker 1: ESPNS analysis says it was less than one degree about
Speaker 1: three inches off from Hayward drilling that shot. I mean,
Speaker 1: visually you see it, but when you actually put the
Speaker 1: analytics and the computer modeling to it, that you're talking
Speaker 1: about a three inch difference between Butler doing the absolutely unthinkable. Again,
Speaker 1: five seed a strong team, but we all know how
Speaker 1: after the first six team it starts getting a little
Speaker 1: dicey in terms based based on all, right, what why
Speaker 1: did why are there five and not an eight over here?
Speaker 1: But yeah, for Gordon Hayward made just a game of
Speaker 1: inches literally, And this final play wasn't really run well
Speaker 1: by Butler because Duke kept their players up for the rebound,
Speaker 1: which normally you get a player shooting and you're up
Speaker 1: and coming, you have all your guys back on defense, right,
Speaker 1: they didn't have that. You know, this is this was
Speaker 1: a play where you know, the the Blue Devils have
Speaker 1: four guys right around the free throw line, and so
Speaker 1: this is where you can get that rebound and you
Speaker 1: have a guy releasing, you can throw that pass up
Speaker 1: and get a pretty good shot. In three seconds. But
Speaker 1: Hayward comes down with the rebound and dribbles all the
Speaker 1: way past you know, just past half court when he
Speaker 1: puts up the shot. And this was if you have
Speaker 1: a better play called Hey, this is how Duke is
Speaker 1: playing this. We're gonna have a guy, We're gonna have
Speaker 1: Mac up at half court. You get it, throw it
Speaker 1: out to him. He takes two or three dribbles and
Speaker 1: he shoots the three, and you win that game. And
Speaker 1: you know what doesn't get a lot of attention because
Speaker 1: of this last play is the shot before it, the
Speaker 1: shot that Butler missed to put zoo Beck on the
Speaker 1: line because it's a one point game. Butler's got the basketball.
Speaker 1: Gordon Hayward gets it, you know, on the wing with
Speaker 1: about eight seconds left. He dribbles all the way down
Speaker 1: to the right side and he puts up one of
Speaker 1: those Kobe Bryant stop fade away shots. That look shows
Speaker 1: his athleticism and how good a player he is. And
Speaker 1: it's a pretty decent look. You know, it's a big
Speaker 1: fade away that this one just missing the floater out
Speaker 1: of his over the outstretched arms, right. So you've gotta
Speaker 1: you know, the degree of difficulty definitely goes up a
Speaker 1: bit with Zoo beck fully extended to try to block
Speaker 1: that shot. You know, And and this is the case
Speaker 1: too obviously you're playing You're playing Monday Morning quarterback. But
Speaker 1: I wonder if Gordon Hayward had pushed it to the
Speaker 1: rack instead of trying the fade away, if he could
Speaker 1: have drawn a foul call because he goes you can
Speaker 1: tell him he's coming down the lane. But Zoo bec
Speaker 1: is there and he decides to pull back because he
Speaker 1: wants the good look because he's a shooter, right and
Speaker 1: that and that's the whole thing, is that when when
Speaker 1: you're a shooter, shooter shoot. So he gets the ball. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fade away. I have a good look, a
Speaker 1: look that I really like, so I'm gonna take it.
Speaker 1: But if instead he had tried to get to the
Speaker 1: free throw line, which he could have done, I mean
Speaker 1: he could have, he could have taken a step forward.
Speaker 1: You know, Zoo bec is a little bit off balance
Speaker 1: on the play and he could really get there. But instead, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back because I like the jumper. I
Speaker 1: like the look. Boy, he gone in for a layup
Speaker 1: either he gets foul or maybe he actually makes the shot,
Speaker 1: because it was maybe, and now we got chaos with
Speaker 1: the three percent freak turt shooter uh going in instead
Speaker 1: of what Zoo Beec eventually had to do. But just
Speaker 1: classic stuff and for Coach K, decision time and the
Speaker 1: miss shots and what could have been for the Butler Bulldogs.
Speaker 1: Duke wins the national title. The final score is sixty
Speaker 1: one to fifty nine. As we said, it is the
Speaker 1: fourth n c A title for the Duke Blue Devils.
Speaker 1: Later on they get both Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler
Speaker 1: drafted into the NBA. But again, this was not one
Speaker 1: of your classically great Duke teams. This was hey, not
Speaker 1: so much a war of attrition, but they survived everything
Speaker 1: during the tournament. They didn't fall victim to the big
Speaker 1: upset and in the end it was well, here's just
Speaker 1: the Duke factory putting out a team and once in
Speaker 1: a while, that's the type of team that's gonna win
Speaker 1: the tournament, grind it out, and this is a team
Speaker 1: that Coach K. I'm sure there's been some recruiting classes
Speaker 1: where this is becomes the hallmark of look, here's what
Speaker 1: we teach, here's the discipline, stick with us. Here's how
Speaker 1: the program works. Yeah, you're gonna have someone and Dunns
Speaker 1: pop through. But this is a testament to a guy
Speaker 1: grinding away for forty years at one institution. So this
Speaker 1: was Duke winning their national title. We talked about some
Speaker 1: of the players on the team have a little bit
Speaker 1: Awhere are they now, Mike Harmon, how about we start
Speaker 1: with well, now I want to leave zoo Beeck for
Speaker 1: last because he's got a good one. Okay, very good. Alright.
Speaker 1: First off, you got Nolan Smith, right, he's at the
Speaker 1: team director of basketball operations. Stayed home. He's with the
Speaker 1: Duke Blue Devils. Uh. He played a number of years
Speaker 1: overseas Croatia, Turkey a little bit and it was a
Speaker 1: player of the year and that the conferences. Uh. Ryan
Speaker 1: Kelly playing basketball in Japan at last looked the Sun Rockers. Saboya,
Speaker 1: the former second round pick of the Los Angeles Lakers,
Speaker 1: was like the Sun Rockers. That's a pretty good name.
Speaker 1: I'm rocking the Sun. That's called people who like to
Speaker 1: get a tan plan. So done. Uh. Shire Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: played overseas a bit. He's the social assistant head coach
Speaker 1: for Duke. Right now. And then we got two good
Speaker 1: ones for you. You got Jordan Davidson, Goldman Sacks in
Speaker 1: their securities division rank and cash. And then I go
Speaker 1: back to zoo. Back alright, an ahead, the Pride of
Speaker 1: hadden Field Memorial. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa the hospital. He
Speaker 1: made it at the end Waight, Michael Myers killed everybody
Speaker 1: in the end of the second movie. He the only
Speaker 1: one that made it was Jamie Lee Curtis Well. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe there's an unwritten tale out of hadden Field Memorial
Speaker 1: in New Jersey. That's that's that's a very scary but
Speaker 1: it's a very scary place. So here here's the deal.
Speaker 1: After finishing this, he had some maspirations, right. I love basketball,
Speaker 1: but he also loved baking, so he took a shot
Speaker 1: at opening a place called dream Puffs, which were his version,
Speaker 1: his spin on a cream puff bakery, All cream Puffs.
Speaker 1: He was gonna look to sell the name at last,
Speaker 1: and he'd gone into real estate. I just thought you'd like,
Speaker 1: Hadn't Field and dream Puffs Hadn't Fields a big deal?
Speaker 1: I mean, look, hadn't Field Memorial. I think that we
Speaker 1: talked about that Halloween too, you know, we talked about
Speaker 1: the worst the worst lit hospital in the world. I
Speaker 1: mean you had a night where where where you at?
Speaker 1: A homicidal maniac killing people, the only survivors brought to
Speaker 1: the hospital, no police protection, no nothing, just like nine
Speaker 1: people working in an entire hospital. Nine people. Short steps
Speaker 1: and the lights are not budget cuts. They had some
Speaker 1: some electrical issues and they were doing whatever they could,
Speaker 1: just try to scrimp and save normally a safe place.
Speaker 1: And sorry doctor, but the lights on the second floor
Speaker 1: will be out for the next fort It's do an hour.
Speaker 1: Thank you, you charged your phone. Hey, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to bring the brightness up a little bit if you
Speaker 1: want to finish this part of the operation. Now, this
Speaker 1: is this is I think Halloween two as there was
Speaker 1: no phone thing a remake. Oh gotcha? Gotcha? All right,
Speaker 1: So there we go. There is our look back at
Speaker 1: the two thousand and two and ten do Blue Devil's
Speaker 1: your national champions fourth overall. I'm Jason, he is Mike.
Speaker 1: You want to hit us up on Twitter at how
Speaker 1: about a frescop Mike at Swollen Dome. You got an
Speaker 1: idea for any teams you'd like to see featured on
Speaker 1: special teams let us know. We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 1: Before you go, rate and review the show, whether you're
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Speaker 1: like it. We will love you forever and ever and ever.
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