25 Years ago today
On December 9th, 1989, I was one of 13,609 in Crisler Arena for what turned out to be the best basketball game I have ever seen in person. #6 Duke came into Ann Arbor to play defending NCAA Champions Michigan and the atmosphere was electric.
Duke was led by Bobby Hurley and Christian Laettner and would end up losing that year in the NCAA Final. Michigan was led by Rumeal Robinson, Terry Mills, Loy Vaught, and Sean Higgins. This was the first time the two teams had played in 20 years - and was the beginning of the modern day Michigan-Duke rivalry.
It seems like yesterday and 100 years ago at the same time. They don't make college basketball like that anymore...
From the AP:
Sean Higgins scored 7 of his 32 points in overtime, leading Michigan to a 113-108 victory today over Duke.
The Blue Devils (3-2) fell to top-ranked Syracuse, 78-76, Wednesday. Michigan (5-1) has won five consecutive games since its opener, a loss to Arizona.
Greg Koubek's tip at the buzzer lifted Duke to a 94-94 tie at the end of regulation. Higgins started the overtime with his sixth 3-pointer of the game. Loy Vaught scored Michigan's next 6 points, including a short jumper that put the Wolverines ahead to stay, 103-101, with 2 minutes 52 seconds left. Vaught finished with 27 points, Rumeal Robinson with 22 and Terry Mills with 18 for the Wolverines. Christian Laettner had 26 points for Duke
December 9th, 2014 at 1:07 AM ^
great game.
you know who else was there? Harbaugh.
December 9th, 2014 at 1:15 AM ^
December 21, 1963: Michigan 83, Duke 67
December 23, 1963: Jim Harbaugh is born in Toledo
I read that Jim refused to be born in Michigan so he could take his first dump in Ohio. I saw it on the Internet so it much be true.
December 9th, 2014 at 2:12 AM ^
December 28, 2014: HARBAUGH era begins and we flush 7 years of "what the fuck was that" misery down the drain!!!!!!!!!
December 9th, 2014 at 10:18 AM ^
It's like Y2K dejavu all over again.
May the Ohio Electric Grid fail upon the conversion.
December 9th, 2014 at 4:17 AM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 6:46 AM ^
that he can reduce the six degrees of separation down to one.
December 9th, 2014 at 12:38 PM ^
Urban meyer was born in Toledo on July 10,1964. That is exactly 200 days apart. If you add up the numerical value for the letters im Jimmy Harbaughg it also equals 200! I was born in Toledo as well. So this is an ABSOLUTE lock that Harbaugh coming to Michigan.
(if you are currently doing the math for the above problem, please stop and accept it as a factoid)
December 9th, 2014 at 1:08 AM ^
Just knew after that game that we would repeat as long as we didn't face Arizona. I think we debuted the new scoreboard and electronic game clock at midcourt that season.
December 9th, 2014 at 1:34 AM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 10:24 AM ^
I don't think they had iPhones back then. As we all know, the iPhone was the first portable camera.
December 9th, 2014 at 2:26 AM ^
I do recall that game pretty well. Watched it on my Philco in the wood panelled den in my parent's basement in Plymouth.
Arrived on campus to enjoy the Talley/Calip nightmare of 90-91. Then it was Fab 5 time.
December 9th, 2014 at 2:34 AM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 4:32 AM ^
I watched that game in my east quad dorm room. I believe it was the first non-conference home loss for duke in like 30 years or something like that.
December 9th, 2014 at 10:20 AM ^
RIP, Tractor.
December 9th, 2014 at 2:46 AM ^
Time just goes by so fast when you reach adulthood. Every day just flys by now. Its sad but inspiring to get off my ass and do more before its all over.
December 9th, 2014 at 2:58 AM ^
I'm pretty sure I was at that game. Is it sad that it is so long ago now that I can't remember for sure if I was there or just watched it on TV? I didn't actually attend Michigan until the next year so that is when I started going to every game.
Was that the game that Michigan had a bucket waved off because Vaught illegally lifted Rumeal up for a dunk (not like he actually needed it!)
December 9th, 2014 at 3:52 AM ^
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play?
December 9th, 2014 at 8:26 AM ^
It was in February 1967 . . . or February 1947 (if you'd really want to be technical.)
CC: Billy Shears . . . and Long Live The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!
December 9th, 2014 at 7:17 AM ^
Forgotten game by a somewhat forgotten team ... I think Eric Riley got some meaningful minutes (and a few blocks), too.
Quite a few people don't realize that Michigan won the first game of what turned out to be a lopsided series. I still wonder what would've happened if they'd had a reasonable game plan against Loyola Marymount in the tourney. Yes, Loyola was hot that day, but playing into their hands (fast pace, shootout) wasn't a great idea.
December 9th, 2014 at 7:17 AM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 7:26 AM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 7:54 AM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 11:05 AM ^
Granted that Duke-Michigan has never seemed anything like UNC-Duke or Duke-Maryland or UM-MSU or UM-Ohio but Wikipedia does say this:
Duke and Michigan have played one another in men's basketball 30 times. The teams have played twice in the same season three times: 1963–64, 1991–92, and 2008–09. Michigan has played Duke more times than they have any other school outside of the state of Michigan that has never been a member of the Big Ten Conference. In turn, Duke's 30 games against Michigan are the most they have played any other school outside of the Maryland-Virginia-North Carolina-South Carolina region that has never been a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The rivalry goes back to the Cazzie Russell days.
Which means that Duke-Michigan isn't the way Notre Dame-UCLA used to be or even Indiana-Kentucky but it it's more similar to those rivalries than any against a conference opponent.
December 9th, 2014 at 8:18 AM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 8:33 AM ^
Coming off an incredible football regular season, going to this game as a Freshman was yet another indicator of how great my college choice was!
As others have mentioned, still a great team that was missing that one special something to get them all the way to the top again. After one loss (I don't remember which one), when asked what went wrong, Higgins replied, "We didn't get the ball to Glen enough."
December 9th, 2014 at 10:13 AM ^
Harbaugh was 25. Not his birthday. But he was 25. Harbaugh.
December 9th, 2014 at 10:45 AM ^
Even to read the words Bobby Hurley and Christian Laettner leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
December 9th, 2014 at 10:47 AM ^
Remember thinking as I left that game that we had put a cherry on top of the '89 tournament win and solidified our place as a perennial power on par anyone. Not exactly, given all that transpired in the ensuing 25 years (gulp!), but we're back where we belong with Beilein.
The Loyola game still burns me.
December 9th, 2014 at 10:57 AM ^
1. Hank Gathers - I was pulling for those guys to make it to the Final Four and win the darn thing.
2. UNLV - They were unstoppable and we were unlikely to beat them sans Glen Rice.
December 9th, 2014 at 10:59 AM ^
December 9th, 2014 at 11:07 AM ^
After seeing some of the games from that era, I've never seen a crowd get more wild at Crisler. People just went nuts.
December 9th, 2014 at 11:31 AM ^
There was a usenet discussion group started about that time called duke.basketball.sucks.sucks.sucks. An early precursor to what we're doing here. I used to go to the lab in ... I can't remember which building it was ... to read my discussion groups and that one was a fun break from the more boring scientific ones.
December 9th, 2014 at 12:05 PM ^
Was not at that game but in December 91 Duke came steamrolling into AA during finals week (I actually had trouble finding some people to go to the game with me - nerds! lol). It was the same cast of characters (Laettner, Hurley) vs the just emerging Fab 5 and it was a game we fell behind double digits but made one of the best comebacks I've ever seen and was probably the best atmosphere I've ever been in. The last portion of the game was one of those punch-counter punch duels where the lead constantly changed and every position was life and death. We did end up losing by 3 in OT but the 2nd half of that game was probably the only time I can remember physically shaking multiple times out of sheer excitement.
December 9th, 2014 at 12:10 PM ^
... getting ready to knock off the #1 team in the country, Wichita State, the first time any UofM team had done so. UofM would go on to lose to John Wooten's UCLA Bruins in the 1965 NCAA final. Youn knew UofM was in trouble when Gail Goodrich was "fouled" on his first driving layup. That would not have been called in the Big 10. Three UofM players would utlimately foul out in that game, something that pretty much never happens.
It would have been fun to see that team (Cazzie Russell, Bill Buntin, Oliver Darden, Larry Tregoning, and George Pomey) match up against the 1989 team.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964%E2%80%9365_Michigan_Wolverines_men%27s_basketball_team
December 9th, 2014 at 12:21 PM ^
Duke that year as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke%E2%80%93Michigan_basketball_rivalry
The first 4 meetings between Duke and Michigan (in the 1960's) were two Top 5 teams battling for the right to lose to UCLA, at some point.