Better Laettner than Never

I, for one, never hated Christian Laettner. Also, I’m no Duke-hater. In fact, I once owned a pair of Duke basketball shorts that I picked up during a visit to their beautiful campus. My favorite school teams were Georgia Tech and Michigan, but ultimately I was a fan of college basketball, and few teams were as memorable and skilled as the Blue Devils squad that featured Laettner, Grant Hill, and Bobby Hurley.

And so Gene Wojciechowski’s book The Last Great Game—an in-depth account of Duke’s and Kentucky’s seasons leading up to and beyond their epic battle in the 1992 NCAA East Regional—triggered all sorts of happy memories from the early 1990s. For those of us who watched the game live, it will forever be etched in our memories; for those who missed it, you have ESPN Classic to thank for this wonderful documentary.

For the uninitiated or the uninterested, please allow this fast-break summary: This contest between Duke and Kentucky has been called the greatest game ever played, and not just because of its incredible and improbable ending. It featured a villain (Laettner stomped on a fallen Kentucky player's chest during the game), a hero for Kentucky (Sean Woods hit a difficult bank shot over an outstretched Laettner to give Kentucky the lead with two seconds left in overtime), and a villain-turned-Duke-hero-remained-Kentucky-villain (Laettner and his final shot). But it was the incredible and improbable ending that clinched its status as the great game ever. Watching it still gives me chills. You?