The Final Score: My March to Madness

I recently bumped into my former Theology teacher, Ray Aguas. I believe Ray loves three things: God, the Ateneo Debate Society and March Madness (I hope he never mixes up the order). He asked me if I thought Kansas would go all the way.

"I don’t know about Kansas," I replied. "I cheer for Duke." Ray retorted, "You…like…Duke?" I might as well been asked if I liked the Nazis. Ray was stupefied. He knew I belonged to a generation of Ateneans who, as students, never experienced watching a UAAP Final Four game. The Blue Eagles of our generation were mandated by law to miss the Final Four. Yet we were trained by the Jesuits to believe. So in Ray’s mind, my Ateneo upbringing in the 90’s compels me to always root for underdogs and never for empires. Duke is an empire. Coach K is its emperor. Everyone deals with Duke’s mystique every year. And it makes them sick. How can anyone stand Mike Krzyzewski? Coach K runs his teams the way he fixes his hair; same style, same cut, same results. His teams win most of the time and when they do, it adds to the Duke aura. So let me answer Ray’s question. I like Duke because 1) they’re not North Carolina, 2) Cameron Indoor Stadium looks like a shrine on TV and 3) I saw the 1991 Final Four game between Duke and UNLV and was changed forever. The Blue Devils were once the heartbreak kids of college basketball. They were always good enough to make the NCAA tournament but not talented enough to win it all. When they reached the NCAA title game in 1990, they lost by 30 points to UNLV. I saw that game too. So when Duke returned to the Final Four in 1991 and faced the same team that walloped them by 30 points the year before, nobody gave the Blue Devils a chance. There was no way Duke could overcome Coach Jerry "The Shark" Tarkanian, Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon, Anderson Hunt and Greg Anthony. And here comes Duke led by 5-foot-nothing point guard Bobby Hurley and bratpack-looking forward Christian Laettner tasked to slay the five horsemen of the apocalypse. Duke, however, kept in step with an undefeated team that won by over 27 points per game. For the season. The Blue Devils kept it close through 17 deadlocks and 25 lead changes. In the end, Duke won by two, 79-77. The Devils rocked the world and Emperor K started his reign. I remember how sportscasters kept silent at final buzzer. They let the moment speak for itself. No histrionics were needed to magnify one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Hurley jumped into rookie Grant Hill’s arms. Then, they ran into the dugout accompanied by the sound of jubilation and shock. The Blue Devils might be the talented preppy douche-bags of the NCAA today. But to me, they will always be the underdogs who made 1991 my true march to madness. – GMANews.TV