Wisconsin one win away from repeating history
INDIANAPOLIS – Don't worry if Monday's national championship game brings about a serious case of deja vu. It's natural to feel that way.
That's because this exact scenario, or at least one just like it, happened 24 years ago, when Mike Krzyzewski's Duke Blue Devils, en route to a national title, shocked undefeated and seemingly unstoppable UNLV in the 1991 Final Four, ending the Runnin' Rebels' quest for an unblemished season with a thrilling win in ... Indianapolis.
On Monday night, Wisconsin has a chance to do what Duke did all those years ago, to cap off a stunning Final Four win over previously unbeaten Kentucky with an excalamation-point victory over Duke at Lucas Oil Stadium in the heart of ... Indianapolis.
"You know you have to forget about the one you just played," Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said Sunday. "Today when we're at practice, they'll be reminded about a few things from last night, but it will be how we can get better."
The eerie similarities between 1991 Duke and 2015 Wisconsin don't end with beating an undefeated team and winning a title in the heart of Hoosierland.
On Saturday, in the late-night hours after the Badgers avenged last year's Final Four loss to Kentucky, they returned to their hotel to find a packed lobby full of screaming, cheering Wisconsin fans. The players took video of the reception, with the cheers so loud that their phones shook as they recorded the mayhem, and the whole scene went viral on social media.
In 1991, Krzyzewski and his team returned to their hotel to discover a packed lobby full of screaming, cheering Duke fans. Twitter wasn't around to spread the word about the reception, but it sounds awfully familiar.
"It was the emotion in the hotel, where our fans were literally delirious," Krzyzewski said. "It was so packed. They were right next to you. They didn't think we would beat Vegas. We were the ones who thought we could beat Vegas."
Krzyzewski thought Wisconsin (36-3) could beat Kentucky on Saturday. With so much talent returning from last year's Final Four team, Wisconsin, to Krzyzewski, looked like the team to beat in college basketball.
But along came Kentucky with its nine McDonald's All-Americans and its laundry list of future NBA draft first-round picks, and Wisconsin faded into the background. So much energy was put into Kentucky's run toward an unprecedented 40-0 campaign that everything else in college basketball felt secondary.
Until Saturday night, that is.
"Coming into the year, I thought they would be the best team in the country, and pretty much they have been," Krzyzewski said of Wisconsin. "It's just that Kentucky's undefeated performance overshadowed, I think, just how good Wisconsin has been until (Saturday) night.
"There were no shadows anymore."
Now the Badgers, darlings of this NCAA tournament because of their free-wheeling, fun-loving personalities, take center stage on the most important night of this college basketball season, and they have a job to finish. They have one final obstacle between them and a national title, between them and that exclamation-point victory.
If Wisconsin is the modern-day version of the 1980 Team USA hockey team, as Ryan said so many of his friends have told him, then Kentucky is their USSR and Duke is their Finland. And the USA, to complete the "Miracle on Ice," still had to beat Finland to make its semifinal upset of the USSR more than just a footnote in the history books.
"Duke is a really good team. I think Finland was a good team because they got to the finals," Ryan said. "So, yes, we know we've got 40 (minutes) more, as I've said a thousand times. But we know we got some work to do. I think last night's game simply says, 'OK, it puts you in position now to go after the championship.'"
Reach staff writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj).