Someone posted a stat the other day that was sort of mind-boggling: this year’s Final Four trip is the first without Mike Krzyzewski at the helm in 47 years.
The first thing worth mentioning is that plenty of schools have never whiffed a Final Four. Duke has made it now under four coaches across six decades: Vic Bubas, Bill Foster, Krzyzewski and now Jon Scheyer.
This article from the NCAA.com looks back at the last time Duke got to the Final Four prior to Coach K taking Duke to blue blood status and just how cool that ‘78 team was.
The writer, Mike Lopresti, talks to Jim Spanarkel who was the leader and captain of that team, and he has some interesting recollections, like Goose Givens shooting an insanely lucky shot: “I knew we were in trouble during the game, when — I think it was the middle of the second half — he took a corner jump shot that grazed the side for the backboard and kind of banked in off the side of the backboard.”
From a 2025 perspective, it’s impossible to imagine an underdog Duke in 1978. The closest thing to it was probably NC State’s run last season and even that’s not entirely right because if State lost in the ACC Tournament they were not going anywhere. Duke had become quite good by the end of the ‘78 season. People just didn’t realize how good.
Aside from Spanarkel, they had a great big man in Mike Gminski, a dynamic pair of forwards in Kenny Dennard and Gene Banks and a rock steady point guard in the late John Harrell. That team passed brilliantly, too, and Banks had enough charisma to light up an arena on his own.
And while Duke fans had caught on, that team seemed to come out of nowhere for everyone else. By the time they destroyed Villanova in the regional finals, people understood that it had become a very good team ahead of schedule (Spanarkel was a junior, Gminski and Harrell sophomores while Banks and Dennard were freshmen, and in those days, that was a very, very young team to get to the championship game).
Unfortunately, the magic didn’t last. Duke remained a good team nationally for the next two years, but never quite caught the same spark again. Foster built brilliantly but he wasn’t comfortable being the hunted and after the 1980 season took off for South Carolina. Duke’s Tom Butters then made the legendary decision to hire a guy from Army with a losing record and the rest, as they say, is history.
