Interesting in a number of ways
When the end of the Mike Krzyzewski era was drawing near, we knew a lot of people would think that Duke Basketball, having started with him, would depart with him as well.
There were two problems with that: first, Jon Scheyer has done a brilliant job so far in maintaining the program. And second, Coach K would be the first to tell you that there was a great tradition when he got here.
Here’s a piece from SI’s Vault. It’s part of a 1962 season preview and just to give you one idea of how much things have changed since then, this preview is dated December 10th.
We learn in the first paragraph just how quickly Vic Bubas just two years into the job, had established himself as the best recruiter in the land.
This preview focuses on his forwards, Art Heyman and Jeff Mullins, but also touches on Buzzy Harrison, Jay Buckley and Hack Tison, Duke’s first Twin Towers as well as Ron Herbster, Fred Schmidt and Denny Ferguson.
This was an era when Cincinnati won, well, like Duke won in the K era: Cincinnati and Oscar Robertson got to the Final Four in 1959 and 1960, then won back-to-back titles in 1961 and 1962. The run ended with another trip to the championship game in 1963, losing to Loyola of Chicago, 60-58 in overtime.
Cincinnati became irrelevant in the 1980’s before Bob Huggins took over in 1989 and brought the Bearcats back.
As it turned out, Duke didn’t get to dethrone Cincinnati - Loyola thumped the Blue Devils 94-75 before nipping the Bearcats in the finals as mentioned above.
As brilliant as Cincinnati’s run was, Bubas’s was pretty great too. He would help Duke make three Final Fours and revolutionized recruiting on his way to the Hall of Fame in 2007.
