In the End, Cardinals Are Coup de ‘Ville : Louisville Gives Duke a Devil of a Time in Its 72-69 NCAA Victory

Duke might have had two political science majors out there and three studying economics, but no one asked them anything about proportional representation or the supply side.

Instead, the sons of the Doctors of Dunk, Louisville’s Cardinals, just asked if they could keep pace. Whereupon Duke’s rocket scientists forgot what they’d done with Johnny Dawkins, the one gun they had that was still firing, and fell, 72-69, Monday night in the NCAA final.

Louisville’s Denny Crum thus joins Indiana’s Bob Knight. They’re the only coaches to win two NCAA titles since John Wooden’s retirement in 1975.

Crum was lucky. Whenever his big gun, freshman center Pervis Ellison, was left out, he’d get an offensive rebound and cut himself back in.

Ellison scored 25 points and took 11 rebounds, including Jeff Hall’s airball that he turned around and placed in the basket with 39 seconds left, giving Louisville a 68-65 lead.

Twelve seconds later, Ellison made both halves of a one-and-one to make it 70-65. Those were all the points the Cardinals needed, and Ellison became the tournament MVP, the first freshman to win it since Utah’s Arnie Ferrin in the halcyon year of 1944.

Said Ellison to the horde of writers milling around him on the floor:

“I was just taller than anyone else.”

Caught up in the backwash of good intentions, dancing with what brung you, and other non-reactions to the situation at hand was Dawkins. He had gotten off to a dazzling start, scoring 11 points in the first 4:09 to put Duke into the lead, and another seven in 1:26 of the second half, to put the Blue Devils back ahead.

He scorched Milt Wagner, Kevin Walls, Herbert Crook and Tony Kimbro. He scored his 23rd and 24th points with 15:28 left in the game, giving Duke a 48-42 lead.

After that, he shot the ball twice and missed both.

For the last eight minutes, he was guarded by Hall, the slowest of the Card starters by about 1.5 seconds in 100 yards, which would put him about 2.5 seconds behind Dawkins. But if the Blue Devils were running an offense without Dawkins, he could break all of Carl Lewis’ records and no one would notice.

“It was either gonna make me or break me,” Hall said. “I was already tired from chasing him around. I was either gonna keep the ball from him or he was gonna embarrass me, one or the other.

“What could I do if he got the ball? Not much. He’s an NBA first-rounder. What can you say? He’s definitely gonna make some team happy in the NBA.

“Did I think I could hold him to no field goals? No.”

Forget Hall. Dawkins had run into the greatest defender of all, the Duke game plan. All season long, when anyone tried to cut one player out of the Blue Devil offense with a junk defense--like Louisville’s 1-3 with Hall chasing Dawkins--their other players stepped up. That was what they were going to try this time, too.

“I think they did a real good job of stopping him (Dawkins) from getting the ball,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “That opens up other areas. And all year long, we had fed off each other.”

Dawkins: “When we were behind early in the second half, I took it upon myself to do something. I felt I’d been a little lethargic early in the second half. I did some things, one-on-one. Fortunately, they paid dividends.

“After that, I just wanted to get back into our offensive system and good things would come.”

Did it occur to him that the rest of the offensive system was struggling?

“Oh no,” Dawkins said. “I just had all the confidence in them. I can see them shoot every day in practice. They shoot better than I do.”

But then there are the games. Everyone but Dawkins was in a slump and had been since the regionals started.

Mark Alarie, 18 for 50 in his previous three games, was 2 for 6 at the half.

David Henderson, 12 for 36 in the last three, was 5 for 15 at the half.

Tommy Amaker, 3 for 16 over three, was 1 for 3.

At the half, Dawkins was 7 for 13. His teammates were 7 for 21.

They had, however, just played some of the greatest pressure man-to-man defense anyone had ever seen, the speedy Dawkins and Amaker all but blowing Wagner and Hall off the court.

The Cardinals committed 14 turnovers in the first half. Surely they expected some problems, but this?

“If you want to know the truth, yes,” Louisville assistant coach Jerry Jones said. “We felt that was the key to the game, if we didn’t turn the ball over 100 times. And we were working on 100 at the half.”

The Cardinals managed to hang on to the basketball for longer periods in the second half, but they started to misplace their stars.

Wagner committed his fourth foul and sat down with 13:27 left. Billy Thompson committed his fourth and sat down with 12:29 left.

Crum: “You’ve got your two senior leaders sitting on the bench with 12 minutes left. That’s a little frightening.”

In those last 12 minutes, Ellison scored 11 points, including the three-point play that started the rally from a 56-50 deficit. The Blue Devils had gone to a zone defense and had caught Crum with his shooting guard, Hall, trapped at the point where his jump shot was of little use.

Crum had a new point guard, Walls, waiting at the scorer’s bench to go in, but Ellison hit an eight-foot turnaround, was fouled, and made the free throw. The Cardinals needed that.

With 7:19 left, Duke’s Henderson scored on a driving layup for a 61-55 lead.

That was the last Blue Devil field goal until 20 seconds remained, when the Cardinals were trying to avoid fouling, and Jay Bilas scored on a rebound. By then, Louisville led, 70-67.

In that time, Duke went 0 for 10. Dawkins took only two of those shots.

With 2:49 left, Thompson tossed in an eight-footer in the lane to put the Cardinals ahead, 66-65. With :39 left, Ellison rebounded Hall’s airball and scored.

After that, Louisville had only to make its free throws, which it did. When Wagner was fouled with a 70-69 lead and :02 left, Hall screamed, “It’s over!”

Wagner made both halves of the one-and-one. Hall then stole the in-bounds pass and started in toward the basket, and collided with Duke’s Danny Ferry. Hall, feeling he’d been blind-sided, fired the ball at Ferry, who seemed to have meant him no harm. Hall had to be led away and reminded to start celebrating.

“I don’t know what happened,” Hall said. “He clobbered me. I saw stars. That’s all right. We won.

“How long will I enjoy this one? I think about 50 years.”

The all-tournament team: Pervis Ellison and Billy Thompson, Louisville, Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie and Tommy Amaker, Duke.