Duke basketball :: essays research papers

Duke Basketball If you want to talk about success stories, Duke basketball is the one to talk about. This miracle didn't just happen overnight, it took time. Krzyzewski became coach in 1980-81 with not a lot of talent. He makes big moves in recruiting in 1982. Some of the people he recruited included Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, David Henderson, Jay Bilas and Weldon Williams. People looked at this new and approved team as one of the nations best team. This started the miracle the still lives on today. Joining this powerful team was guard Tommy Amaker in 1983. Duke won 24 games in 1984 and earned the first NCAA bid under Coach K. With the same boys, they were now seniors, the 1986 Duke team won an NCAA-record 37 games while claiming titles in the Big Apple NIT, ACC regular season, ACC Tournament and the NCAA East Regional. They made a school record with a 21-game winning streak during the year. They were undefeated at home, advanced to the NCAA Championship game in Dallas and played more games than any other team in college basketball history. With the loss of the five seniors, many expected Duke to start losing again. Coach Krzyzewski was going backwards, he wanted to keep moving forward. . The team won 24 games and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament before losing to eventual national champion Indiana in 1987. Amaker closed out his career as the National Defensive Player of the Year, while Coach K looks back at the season as the one that showed people how Duke was going to become a winning basketball program. The 1987-88 season began the school's amazing streak of five straight NCAA Final Four appearances as the Blue Devils won 28 games, again swept to the ACC title, won another East Regional championship and ended up in Kansas City. Senior Billy King followed Amaker by winning the National Defensive Player of the Year award, the second in a row by a Blue Devil. The role of leadership again fell to the senior class in 1988-89. This time it was the National Player of the Year Danny Ferry, Quin Snyder and John Smith taking the role. They lead the team to another trip to the NCAA Final Four with a win over favored Georgetown in the East Regional final. In 1989-90, seniors Alaa Abdelnaby, Robert Brickey and Phil Henderson again took a big role.