One of the best college games ever. What an incredible comeback by UConn. This was the National Championship for that year. Duke was by far the best team UConn beat in the tournament.
20 years and 3 more chips later, this is still the best Husky team of all time. If 06 hadn’t tripped on GM, they would have been. Love this 04 team though
An absolute classic. This one was really emotional for me as a fan. My grandmother passed away just a couple days earlier. She watched every UConn game religiously. When Emeka came back in the game from foul trouble and completely took over, it was like a sign from the heavens.
The meccas of college basketball, the University of Connecticut and Duke University going at it, for the 3rd time in NCAA Tournament, 1990, 1999 and 2004.... All 3 memorable games, with UConn winning 2 of those 3 games
I remember living in New London, CT in 2004. I was 4 months away from 21. On several occasions, I drove about an hour up to Storrs and partied with some students that lived in Carriage House Townhomes on campus. On this particular night, I figured they'd be doing the same thing since it was a Saturday night, but they weren't there (come to find out they went to San Antonio lol). Still unaware of what exactly I was getting myself into, I found a viewing party in a nearby apartment. That party was intense and the hosts were very welcoming. I couldn't sit down for 5 minutes without being offered a beer or some drunk and hot girl wanting to sit on my lap. After the win, the entire street became a bonfire party. It looked like a barely legal Mardi Gras without the beads. Epic night that ended with me DJ'ing at another nearby party and crashing on the couch.
After this comment was written, UNC defeated Duke in Coach K’s last home game, then retired him for good in the Final 4. A couple years after that, NC State beat them in the Elite 8.
this was the second best final four game ever...the first: the 1999 national championship game between you guesed it...Duke vs. UCONN and UCONN won 77-74 so ha...we own Duke in final fours although they have broken our hearts too in the tourny
Uconn had 7 players drafted into the nba on this team including the 2,3 and 7th overall.. I dunno how someone can comment earlier saying duke had a better 1-9
Like all the usual final 4 teams. They weren’t all freshmen thought like Kentucky the one and dones. That was the actual championship that year Uconn breezed through the finals I remember exactly where I was when it was the final 5 min. At bar and they wanted to turn the game off to do karaoke and I freaked out. Basically the game stayed on
How about how loaded this UCONN team was, my word. Okafor, Gordon, Villanueva, Boone, Rashad Anderson. Then you look at how loaded the Duke team was! Deng, Reddick, Duhon. Lot of pros in this one. Biggest bucket of the game was Anderson’s 3 that started the run. He misses that, they don’t win.
I remember this game, we dominated while Okafor was out.......bricked several 3's in transition and should have been up 20. That's why we lost. We had the better team 1-9 but no one to handle Okafor or Gordon. This UConn team was, imo, one of the decade's better teams
@ByronS360 UCONN in 1999 isn't just a Top 5 National Championship upset, it's the #1 National Championship upset. Still, it doesn't take anything away from Texas Western, Villanova, or N.C. St., who provided memorable moments of their own.
One other thing, i haven't seen it mentioned, but i think Josh boone won this game for uconn. When okafor was out, boone stepped up and got williams that 3rd foul. One last thing to mention is that had Duke BEAT Maryland in the ACC title game, this would have been the National Championship. Once again Shelden fouled out at the end of regulation, and maryland won. Duke would have gotten the number 1 overall seed, with Uconn the number 2 in the regional on the other side of the bracket.
Honestly I don't think EITHER team should complain bout refs. Starting at 2:33 is the best example. The refs blow calls for BOTH teams. And besides, UCONN would have destroyed Duke if they had Okafore the whole game, Williams was no where near as good...
This was the only game where Shalik Randolph lived up to his lofty status out of high school. Loul Deng did a lot of good that year but that contested 3 he took @ 6:20 was a killer. As Packer noted, not the shot you take there.
A graduate student of mine somehow got onto the floor as the game ended. Coach K did the mandatory line congratulations, then ran over to a ref, literally screaming, “You fucked us! You fucked is! You fucked us!” My grad student heard this from 15 feet away. At issue was the no-call with 11.6 seconds left. The replay shows a clean strip by the UConn guy, and that K had no view of what happened because he was seated behind the play. Hilarious!
One of the only times I can remember a Duke team choking and succumbing to the pressure. Most Duke teams would win a big game in which they had a 73-64 lead inside of five minutes, but this Blue Devil squad just wilted as Okafor and Company willed the Huskies to victory.
I don’t know why I felt UConn dominated this game. They pulled it off at the end, probably because they had one of the best rosters in college basketball, but they snuck that out at the end.
They took UCONN out of the Big Eat because we was dominating it now villanova is dominating it what a surprise big bynum was going to UCONN but the NBA came calling he went to the Lakers 10 years later 2 championships that would've been with UCONN son instead of 4 titles UCONN would've had 6 titles leading program of this era.
@jcaudill6921 Actually Connecticut beating Duke in '99 was the biggest upset in the Final. Connecticut was a 9.5-point underdog in that game. N.C. St. was a 7.5-point underdog; Villanova was a 9-point underdog and Texas Western was a 6-point underdog. Duke was an 8-point underdog vs. UNLV. All of them were great upsets though.
DanielSong39 true. But the duke-UConn was bogus. Ppl love duke so that’s where the money goes. That UConn was a great team. Slight upset at most. Whereas nova and nc st were borderline tournament teams the whole season that got hot in March. Those two were much bigger upsets.
@@marticehasty2837 Yeah the 1999 UConn team was the second best team in the nation The 1999 Duke team was the best team I've ever seen though. The only team that is close is 1996 Kentucky. Can't win them all
From 1999-2005 the ACC and The Big East were dominating the NCAA as 6 of the those 7 years, the National Champion came from either the Big East or the ACC: 1999- UCONN 2001 - Duke 2002 - Maryland 2003 - Syracuse 2004- UCONN 2005 - North Carolina The only time was 2000 were the champion was Michigan State from the Big 10. I am counting Maryland as ACC as their National Title from 02 came as a member of the ACC, well before they moved to the Big 10.
@@judd0112 yep, but that was before UConn’s 4 titles, I was in high school for that game, sellers beat laettner up and then he beat us at the buzzer..last time Duke had our number
@@lethrneck4 gotta see the espn 30 for 30 special on laetner. It’s called why we hate Christian laettner. And they show the buzzer beater show and they show him and rod sellers goin at it. I think he stomped on him under the hoop when he was down. And no one was ejected. Gotta love those days when not everyone was suck a pussy. If my grandfather was still alive. He was a WW2 marine was on peleliu island. And he/ his generation would seriously lose their minds at what all these people are getting offended about these days. They are prob all rolling over in the grave
@@judd0112 i do miss the old big east and its tough style of play..really as much as i love UCONN once they left for the AAC and left those rivalries behind being a fan lost a lot of its fun..glad they are back in the big east..seeing them playing the likes of providence, seton hall, st johns, Gtown etc again is awesome! saw the lattner 30 for 30...that was my favorite era of NCAA hoops
@@lethrneck4 yeah glad they r back in the big East. But it’s not the same without the Pittsburgh V’s Uconn finals & Syracuse overtime game at msg for the big East tournament. Was the best conference. But the acc used to get all the media. Hopefully it will get back to normal after this strange year of COVID.
The officiating i think was equal in this game. Shelden had cost us alot that year with his fouls and it finally caught up to us. They don't show it but Packer stated toward the end of the 2nd half when Okafor got his second foul and both williams and Okafor were on the bench that whoever got the 3rd foul, there team would lose. Coach K kept in Williams knowing he was a foul machine. Sure enough Williams got his 3rd before the end of the 1st half and that changed the entire game for duke.
your right it was bad reffing. But not just 4 Duke. Okafore was in more trouble than Williams was, and he was the best player in that game. But when UCONN had him bac his presence down low was too much 4 Duke and it ended up making the difference. The ref's did have a loose whistle, but not just against Duke...
I doubt that. In fact, I'd argue that if you don't include Callipari, no one recruits basketball ATHLETES like Calhoun.He is a little better with x's and o's but not by much. Outcoached K in '99, simply had the best players this year. Of Uconn's 3 titles, this team was the best imo. Their defense was magnificent.
LMAO @ the Duke fans whining about the refs. The refs spotted you a whole half without Okafor (thanks to his bogus 2nd foul) and you couldn't close the deal.
@allclear1981 remeber 2 weeks ago when you said to let you know when duke made it to the final four? :) good call about scheyer youre a basketball genius
Seems like UCONN owns Duke in the big games. Uconn beat Duke in one of the biggest upsets in College Basketball history back in 1999 then of course this....in the Final Four in 2004... broke Coach K's heart twice......close games.
Lol? They also have a ton of excellent players in the NBA. In fact other than UNC, I can't think of a school with as many good players in the league right now.
I tend to agree, but the argument is valid. I wasn't watching back then to get a feel for how good any of those teams really were, which is the only way to definitively settle this. Logic would tell us that an 8 over a 1 is a bigger upset, and I think the announcer (forgot his name) alluded to it that night in '99.
This is 1 of the most coincidential scoring moments in UCONN history. Duke beat Uconn by that exact SAME SCORE! Then the ending for the 2011 final four against Kentucky went the same way with free throws to ice the game. As Okafor did in this one, Napier did in the other, then came the final shot with Kentucky chucking up a meaningless 3 to show a win by a point. Eerie isn't it.
@jayfey77 Yet he can't beat Calhoun when it matters, lol. 0-2 against UConn in the FF. And Coach K gets his pick of McD's AA's every year. Calhouns had something like 8 total, and gotten 3 titles. Replace K with Calhoun at Duke and he wins even more than 3 titles, can't say the same if you put K at UConn.
Lastly, remember, if these guys swithched, Calhoun would have to recruit guys that would compete in the classroom, or at least graduate from DUKE, something he has not been known for at UConn.
@jcaudill6921 Perception is often at odds with reality. UConn beating Duke in '99 WAS a bigger upset than Villanova over Georgetown. The point spread archives by the Gold Sheet prove this point.
I'm a Duke fan, but I give Uconn props. They played a really good game. We just came up one point short. It would have been nice though to go up against GT. We would have won the championship.
He's played ball. That's all he's ever done as a player - i think you can't call guys like that a bust, because they never seek out the spotlight or the accolades. He didn't posture himself to be picked so high. Put him on the Celtics and he'll be the unsung hero.
number 2 overall picks should not be the unsung hero. they should be THE guy, like Durant, or Jason Kidd. Top 5 picks are expected to be superstars, or at least all stars in the NBA.
This was the "real" National Championship Game in 2004. No disrespect to Georgia Tech, but once they pulled the upset over a better Oklahoma State team in the first semifinal this became the de facto title game. No way were either of these teams going to lose to GT in the final.
I would take Jabari over Luol Deng (although he is a fantastic nba player) Ina draft, but it's funny that Parker has 0 tournament wins. Sure he never played with a great college player like Reddick, but it's still Duke. Of course, the same goes for the UConn side in the case of Andre Drummond. Already an established NBA center, with 0 tourney wins. And he played with Napier, Lamb, Roscoe, Oriaki, etc. Now I really don't know why I posted this.
@jcaudill6921 Here is the objective evidence: Biggest upsets in NCAA Championship Game (From Gold Sheet archives) 1999 Connecticut +9.5 over Duke 1985 Villanova +9 over Georgetown 1988 Kansas +8 over Oklahoma 1983 North Carolina St. +7.5 over Houston 1966 Texas Western +6.5 over Kentucky No bias or delusion involved. Just the cold hard facts.
It's not so much my view of UCONN 1999 team but just the standard that everyone placed on Duke. They were supposed to be unbeatable and leading up to that game, practically everyone had Duke as the favorite. It was Uconn's first Final 4 appearnace. We can disagree because you simply look at the fact that its two #1 seeds. Thats true and may take away from it a little but I still say its a Top 5 National Championship upset. If you disagree, name me 5 bigger upsets for the National Championship.
