One of Nate James’ finest moments in a Duke uniform
In the 1970’s, Lefty Driesell set out to make Maryland “the UCLA of the East.” He didn’t quite there, but he did make the Terrapins into a serious national power.
At the same time, Duke had left the Vic Bubas era behind and it seemed that the Blue Devils were not going to become a power again. A lot had changed since the 1960’s.
Of course, Mike Krzyzewski came to Durham in 1980, after the brief Bill Foster era, and began to build Duke into a huge power. Driesell was forced out in the aftermath of the Len Bias scandal and Maryland spent some time in the wilderness.
Duke fans in the 1970’s would be amazed to learn that by the 1990’s, Maryland fans had grown insanely jealous and deeply frustrated by Duke’s dominance. In fact a lot of Duke fans had no idea that Maryland had truly come to loathe the Blue Devils.
At one point we had a spare ticket to a Duke-Maryland game - this was the late ‘90’s - and literally could not give it away.
Maryland fans would have taken it.
The rivalry arguably peaked out in 2000-2001 with four matchups. That was the year of the Miracle Minute and the massive Final Four comeback.
There was also another very high level matchup in the ACC Tournament in Atlanta.
This game was very tight and Steve Blake, who was as competitive as anyone who has ever come through the ACC, hit a huge three to tie the game up with 8.4 left.
After that, Duke brought the ball down and Jason Williams drove but missed. Then Nate James made one of the great plays in Duke history: Maryland forgot to put somebody on him and he went straight to the basket and tipped the missed shot in to give Duke an 84-82 lead.
A few weeks later, Maryland, still indignant, would go up 20 on Duke in the first half of the national semifinals.
Duke would come back and win 95-84. The Blue Devils outscored Maryland in the second half, 57-35.
