The Last Great Game

October 24, 2011
The 1992 NCAA East Regional final between Duke University and the University of Kentucky is considered one of the best basketball games of all time, one that ended with the improbable. With just over two seconds left in overtime, Grant Hill threw a perfect 80-foot inbounds pass to Christian Laettner, who made the game-winning basket over two defenders as time expired. As compelling as this historic game was, so were the backgrounds of the teams involved. Kentucky was thought to be years away from a Final Four berth, but head coach Rick Pitino and his punishing game plan resurrected a scandal-plagued program. Duke, coming off a national championship, was a perennial powerhouse whose driven players were convinced another title was theirs. Wojciechowski, a senior reporter for ESPN.com, traces the two teams’ path to each other and the game’s impact on its participants, but little space is devoted to the hypothesis promised in the title. We never learn how this legendary tilt influenced college basketball or why it’s the defining game in an intensely popular sport. Though fans of both colleges will lap up the locker room tales and glory day remembrances, Wojciechowski’s effort reads too much like a prodigiously reported magazine article. 16-page color insert.

November 15, 2011
Thorough chronicle of the legendary 1992 NCAA basketball tournament clash between Duke and Kentucky. Duke's last-second triumph over Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA East Regional is one of the most indelible moments in the history of college sports. Most college-basketball fans remember where they were when Duke's Christian Laettner sank the miracle game-winning shot. Veteran ESPN columnist Wojciechowski (co-author, with Jerome Bettis: The Bus, 2008, etc.) tells the story of the game, and the two teams' seasons leading up to it, with a newspaperman's eye for detail. Arguably college basketball's most iconic program, Kentucky, under new coach Rick Pitino, wasn't even supposed to be a threat for the championship, just two seasons removed from crippling NCAA sanctions over widespread rules infractions. Duke, the defending NCAA champions, were on their way to becoming a modern dynasty under coach Mike Krzyzewski. The author explores the backgrounds and personalities of the opposing coaches and key players including, Kentucky's freshman superstar Jamal Mashburn and Duke's Grant Hill and Bobby Hurley. Wojciechowski neatly deals with the problem of a book-length exploration of a single game by retelling it twice, once from each team's perspective. Though it obviously cannot compare with the excitement of watching the action, the book ably recaptures the energy of one of sport's greatest moments. In Laettner, a villain to everyone except Duke fans, including some of his own teammates, the author finds a surprisingly complex protagonist, and the story's most intriguing character. A fitting, illuminating tribute to a game that many believe was the best ever.

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Starred review from January 1, 2012
Almost 20 years later, the highlight still gleams. In the 1992 NCAA East Regional finals, Duke center Christian Laettner takes the overtime pass from the opposite end line, spins, and lofts a shot from the top of the key. Swish. Duke wins 104103. Many consider it the greatest college basketball game ever. Wojciechowski builds to that momentous shot with a detailed history of both programs in the years immediately prior to the game. Kentucky, devastated by NCAA sanctions, hired coach Rick Pitino from the New York Knicks, and the volatile New Yorker instituted the killer conditioning program necessary to implement his full-court-pressing strategy. It worked. At Duke, Mike Krzyzewski had assembled a self-rejuvenating juggernaut that had yet to win an NCAA title, despite reaching the Final Four four times. The Blue Devils couldn't get over the hump. In a jaunty, humorous, thoroughly engaging tone, Wojciechowski profiles the coaches, players, assistants, and trainers, offering fascinating portraits of group dynamics as the two coaches employ very different styles to guide their teams to the monumental showdown. This thoroughly enjoyable book will attract college basketball fans across the country, regardless of team loyalties.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)