College Basketball

Kidd’s college highlight was Duke upset

DURHAM, N.C. — When you first walk into the basketball practice facility at Duke University, your eye immediately is drawn to the banners adorning the wall.

In a manner that most universities would display conference title or NCAA Tournament appearance banners, the far wall surrounding the Coach K Practice Court is filled with a series of banners honoring each of the school’s 15 Final Four appearances — a testament to the school’s longtime excellence in men’s basketball. They include four national championships banners, all of which were achieved under the leadership of Mike Krzyzewski, college basketball’s all-time winningest coach.

When looking at the banners, its impossible not to notice the incredible streak of five consecutive trips to the Final Four from 1988-92 — including back-to-back national championships in ’91 and ’92. But when Nets coach Jason Kidd looks at those banners, his mind drifts to the banner that isn’t there for the 1993 NCAA Tournament.

That’s because it was that season when Duke — led by senior Bobby Hurley and junior Grant Hill — were upset by a freshman Jason Kidd and his California Golden Bears, 82-77, in the second round of the tournament at Rosemont Horizon Arena outside of Chicago.

“You’re talking about the elite, and playing the elite,” Kidd said with a smile while standing on that court following Friday’s practice during the Nets’ week-long stint at Duke for training camp. “You have to hopefully perform.

“As a college kid, you’re playing against the defending national champs, and you just hope to play well, and to have a chance to win.”

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Chris Collins knew all about Jason Kidd long before that game on March 20, 1993. The two had been roommates at the McDonald’s All-American Game in Atlanta the year before. Collins — the son of former NBA player and coach Doug Collins — couldn’t help but marvel at the prodigious gifts of Kidd, the latest in a line of big point guards to come out of the Bay Area that included Brian Shaw and Gary Payton.

“There really wasn’t AAU back in the day then, so a lot of times you didn’t see the other really good players around the country like you do now,” said Collins, now getting ready for his first season as the head coach at Northwestern University. “My first experience seeing Jason was the week of the McDonalds All-American Game. … [I spent the week] just being amazed and in awe of how good he was, and how big and strong and fast and good and talented that he was.”

Grant Hill goes over Kidd for a layup.AP

Not only did Cal have Kidd, but they also had Lamond Murray, who would go on to be a lottery pick alongside Kidd in the 1994 NBA Draft. And the Blue Devils, as usual, were loaded with talent, including Hurley, Hill, and fellow future NBA players Antonio Lang and Cherokee Parks.

But all eyes, not surprisingly, were on the two point guards heading into the game.

“Because of us having Hurley as a senior, and you had the hotshot freshman guard against the senior guard, it was a great matchup at the point,” Collins said.

Hurley was coming to the end of what easily was one of the best careers in the history of college basketball, having led Duke to three straight national championship games and the two straight national titles. Kidd, meanwhile, had averaged 13 points, 4.9 rebounds, 7.7 assists and 3.8 steals per game en route to claiming the U.S. Basketball Writers’ Association national freshman of the year award.

“I was really, really impressed, obviously, with the year he was having,” said Bobby Hurley, who is now preparing to begin his first season as the head coach at the University of Buffalo. “He just played with so much poise for a young guard, and he really had tremendous instincts for the game, and was really competitive.

“He was a really good leader for a young player, so I knew we’d have our hands full playing against them just because of how mature his game was for his age.”

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Cal, the sixth seed in the Midwest region, managed to race out to an early 47-37 lead at halftime, powered by seven assists from Kidd. Meanwhile, things went from bad to worse for second-seeded Duke. The Blue Devils suffered a key injury when Parks, the team’s anchor in the paint, sprained ankle just before halftime.

From there, Cal managed to push the lead all the way up to 70-53 with just over 13 minutes remaining in the second half, seemingly with the upset win within its grasp.

“I was wishing it was the end of the game,” Kidd said with a laugh. “[I had] two thoughts: You wished the game was over, but that they were going to make a run at us.

“We just hoped we could hold on and respond when they made that run.”

Duke, as anyone would have expected with veteran leaders like Hurley and Hill, did make that run. Over the following 11 minutes, the Blue Devils went on a 24-6 spurt, taking a 77-76 lead with two minutes remaining and seemingly putting the plucky young Golden Bears away like they had countless other teams during Hurley’s three-plus years in a Duke uniform.

“I thought so,” said Nets general manager Billy King, who was in the stands that day to cheer on his alma mater, where he’d helped start the streak of five straight Final Four trips back in 1988 as a senior. “Duke has always figured out ways to win those games.

“That was a game where you were almost in shock when they lost, because they never lost like that before.”

“Once we did make the big run,” Hurley said, “considering they were a younger team and we had a lot of experience, yeah, I thought once we did take the lead, we would be able to close it out.”

But for Kidd and Murray, Cal’s freshman stars, they were focused on figuring out what the next play would be.

“In the moment, you’re thinking, ‘How can we get the lead?’ ” Kidd said. “We needed a basket and a stop.

“Being young and naïve, you’re not thinking, ‘We just let it get away.’ You’re just trying to figure out how to get a basket.”

It didn’t take long before Kidd would get his chance. Duke had the ball up one with less than two minutes remaining when Hurley received a pass and pump-faked Kidd into the air, setting himself up for a wide-open 3-pointer. But although Hurley made six 3-pointers that night, this one rattled in and out, with Cal eventually coming up with the loose ball and a chance to regain the lead.

That set the stage for Kidd to make the kind of heads-up play he went on to complete countless times during his stellar 19-year NBA career. After receiving an inbounds pass, Kidd drove past Thomas Hill and tried to make a pass underneath the basket, only for Hurley to get a hand on it and knock it away.

“We thought we were getting a steal,” Collins said.

But then Kidd, who had followed the ball into traffic once it got knocked away, somehow came up with it and, in one motion as he was falling toward the court, flipped it up with his right hand over his shoulder, off the glass and through the net — while being fouled — to give Cal a 78-77 lead, one he would extend to 79-77 with the ensuing free throw.

“I was dropping from the strong side to the help side and I got my hand on a ball, and I just couldn’t come up with a 50-50 ball,” Hurley said. “He got it and picked it up and got fouled and laid it in.

“It was one of those plays that, as a competitor, regardless of all the success that I had, I wish I had that play back to get that loose ball. It was really a turning point late in the game when Jason made that play.”

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Hurley got another chance to tie the game when he got a second open look from 3-point range with about 30 seconds left, but it was just a hair long, and Murray, who finished with 28 points, came down with the rebound and hit a free throw to ice the game.

“I remember feeling like I should have scored even more points in that game than I did,” said Hurley, who finished with 32 points, nine assists and just one turnover. “I had one of my best scoring games, but I left a few on the table.

Jason Kidd drives by Bobby Hurley.AP

“You do look back with some things and wish they would have happened a little differently.”

Kidd, however, saw Hurley’s performance in a totally different light.

“I just know Bobby had 32 points on us,” said Kidd, who finished with 11 points and 14 assists. “Everybody talked about how we beat Duke, but there was no slowing Bobby Hurley down. He had an unbelievable game.

“It was very eye-opening [going up against him], and I took from it that I had a lot to work on.”

Asked where that victory ranks all-time for him, Kidd didn’t need long to answer.

“Oh, it’s up there,” he said. “It’s one of the top five, because you had an opportunity to play against the best and come up victorious.”

It doesn’t hurt that Kidd has gone on to play for Krzyzewski on the U.S. Olympic Team, with which he won a gold medal in 2008, and now works for King. That’s given him plenty of opportunities to bring the game up to both of them.

“Almost every time I see them,” Kidd said of how often it enters the conversation. “Sometimes Coach K will bring it up and say, ‘This is the guy who ended our run.’

“But Billy? I just tell him once in a while that I’m undefeated against Duke.”