Duke's Mike Krzyzewski likely will go down as the second-best coach in NCAA basketball history, only behind UCLA's John Wooden. When did the legend of Coach K begin? An argument could be made that it began 29 years ago today at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis.
That Saturday night, the Blue Devils were 10-point underdogs against an unbeaten UNLV team that was the defending national champion and had future NBA players such as Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony. That group had destroyed Duke the year before in the national title game, 103-73. However, Coach K's club got payback with a 79-77 upset in the 1991 Final Four.
Christian Laettner, who would be named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, was brilliant in that victory with 28 points and seven rebounds. He vastly outplayed Vegas star Larry Johnson, who would be the No. 1 overall pick in the 1991 NBA Draft. Duke would then beat Kansas to win Coach K his first national championship. He has since won four more, including the following year.
The Rebs, incidentally, were so loaded that year that they were -167 favorites to win it all. That's a crazy price. Kansas was the +450 favorite this season before things were shut down.
One interesting betting footnote on that Duke-UNLV game: You couldn't bet on it in Las Vegas. Back then, there was a law in place that Nevada sportsbooks were not allowed to put spreads down on any in-state colleges. About a decade later, Nevada gaming regulation 22.120(b) changed that.
New Jersey currently doesn't allow wagering on in-state collegiate events and in-state colleges. If one were to go to the William Hill sportsbook site in New Jersey, it offers national championship futures odds in football and basketball but without in-state schools like Rutgers or Seton Hall.
