YouTube Gold: The 2001 Duke-Maryland ACC Tournament Thriller

In 20001, the Duke-Maryland rivalry was at its height. Gary Williams had done a remarkable rebuild in College Park after the Len Bias death and Bob Wade’s subsequent crash and burn. Maryland basketball had flatlined.

He rebuilt it in his own image, full of scrappy rage, fueled by resentment, and it worked. Maryland soon rose from the ashes, built not around the glittering McDonald’s All-American types Duke and UNC had, but around overlooked talents: guards a step too slow, centers a bit too short, players who in general were not always highly regarded.

Williams had an eye for his sort of players though and they were as fueled by resentment as he was.

In 2001, Williams started Lonny Baxter, Terence Morris, Byron Mouton, Juan Dixon and Steve Blake.

Of those, Baxter was a 6-8 center, Morris was a 6-9 forward who was talented but sometimes lost focus, Mouton committed to Rick Pitino’s program but chose Tulane after Pitino left for the Boston Celtics and Juan Dixon was recruited after Williams saw him show some guts in an AAU tournament, but he wasn’t on many radars at the time.

Only Blake was really highly rated in high school and he was a perfect fit for Williams’ program.

Duke and Maryland played four times in 2001: Duke won in College Park in the Miracle Minute game, Maryland won in Durham in the regular season rematch and beat the Terps again in the Final Four.

It was a tight game throughout and in the end, Duke was up 80-78 with a minute and a half. Danny Miller was fouled on a drive with 22.8 left and split his freebies.

Duke’s Mike Dunleavy hit a pair of free throws with 16.5 left to play to put Duke up 82-79 but hold the phone! Blake nailed a three with about 7.5 left on the clock to tie it.

Jason Williams drove downcourt and took a layup but missed. However…

If you hit pause and use the right-left arrow keys, you’ll see that no one was paying attention to Nate James.

And James was focused on following the ball.

And Maryland, focused on Williams, never saw him coming. And James, a native of Maryland who the Maryland fans had jeered for his entire career for choosing Duke, who had once (foolishly) tried to provoke a fight with his father, a Marine, during a game, got his revenge by tipping the ball in with 1.7 to play.

Dixon got a three off but it bounced off the rim and Duke won, 84-82.

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