If you were to mention the 1991 Final Four this week, the first reaction you’d get from every college basketball fan over 35 years old would be something to the effect of, “Oh, you’re going to compare 1991 UNLV to 2015 Kentucky, right?”
The comparison between those Runnin’ Rebels and these Wildcats is, of course, impossible to resist as the Final Four comes back to Indianapolis, the site of the 1991 event that electrified the sport. The Hoosier Dome was the venue 24 years ago, and the city has super-sized by moving this party to Lucas Oil Stadium for Saturday’s show, but even with that difference in mind, the similarities between 1991 and 2015 are unavoidable. Seeing Kentucky try to do what 1991 UNLV couldn’t will lend this Final Four its richest vein of drama.
What’s fascinating about the 1991 Final Four, then, is that it parallels the 2015 Final Four in several ways other than the obvious one. Sure, the UNLV-Kentucky linkage is there, and it’s going to be written about a lot. (The UNLV-Kentucky comparison grows when linking the coaches of the two teams: Jerry Tarkanian and John Calipari have been thorns in the sides of the NCAA on multiple occasions, figures more antagonistic toward the organization than the other three coaches who joined them at these two Final Fours, 24 years apart.)
However, the composition of that Final Four and its collection of principal actors provides a much fuller story than just two teams – one then, one now – trying to go unbeaten in a full season.
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What else about the 1991 Final Four is worth revisiting, 24 years after a weekend of Indianapolis intrigue that changed the way we look at multiple programs and coaches?
Let’s start with the full makeup of the Final Four. This year, Michigan State and Tom Izzo face Duke and Mike Krzyzewski in the first semifinal, followed by Wisconsin and Bo Ryan against Kentucky and John Calipari in the second semifinal. Back then, Kansas and Roy Williams clashed with North Carolina and Dean Smith in the first semifinal, followed by Duke and Coach K versus UNLV and Jerry Tarkanian in the nightcap.
One by one, you’ll find a fascinating parallel between teams, games and coaches… and – as a sidebar item – even the announcers.
When Michigan State plays Duke, the Izzo-Coach K matchup will feature the most combined Final Fours in an active Final Four coaching matchup (19 – 12 for K, 7 for Izzo). Why that word “active”? Because there’s one Final Four coaching matchup from the past with more combined Final Fours. In the 1968 national championship game, John Wooden and UCLA beat Smith and North Carolina. Wooden and Smith combined for 23 Final Fours (12 for Wooden, 11 for Smith). Obviously, they hadn’t accumulated their 23 Final Fours when they actually met in 1968. It’s a matchup of Final Four kings in retrospect. Izzo-Krzyzewski is a clash of kings in the present moment.
What does the 1991 Final Four have to do with this discussion of the most combined Final Fours in coaching matchups on the grand stage? Consider this amazing cluster of facts:
The 1991 Final Four marks the only time Mike Krzyzewski and Dean Smith coached in the same Final Four (just not against each other).
It marks the only time Krzyzewski and Roy Williams coached in the same Final Four and against each other in the Final Four.
The 1991 Final Four didn’t produce a “present-tense” matchup of all-time Final Four coaches, but it did produce two “past tense” matchups that rate highly on the list: The Williams-Smith semifinal accounted for 18 Final Fours and could still rise if Williams is able to achieve more in the remaining years of his career. (In that sense, the first semifinal of the 1991 Final Four closely parallels this year’s Izzo-Coach K clash.) The Williams-Krzyzewski championship game accounted for 19 and will grow if either man reaches more Final Fours in subsequent years. That 23-Final Four total with Wooden and Smith from 1968 could be tied if Duke and North Carolina make the Final Four a regular tour stop in the next few seasons.
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Here’s the next great parallel between the 1991 and 2015 Final Fours: While everyone’s natural inclination is to focus on the connection between UNLV then and Kentucky now, the opponents of those teams enjoy some evident similarities.
The 1991 Duke Blue Devils had reached consecutive Final Fours entering their semifinal against UNLV – four straight, in fact. The 2015 Wisconsin Badgers are not the fourth straight Final Four team to emerge from Madison, but they are repeat Final Four visitors. Achieving the back-to-back feat at the Final Four is no small thing in college basketball. Wisconsin’s national reputation has been enhanced by that accomplishment. Yet, while 1991 Duke labored under the pressure of not having won a title for Coach K, Wisconsin has similarly not yet won a title for Bo Ryan. Sure, Duke was playing with house money against UNLV in a narrow sense, but the program was dealing with the enormous pressure that accompanies a lack of a national title for the current head coach.
The Duke-Wisconsin parallel across 24 years is enhanced by a comparison of Christian Laettner and Frank Kaminsky. Sure, Laettner was polarizing (and an on-court jerk) in ways Kaminsky will never be, but in terms of style of play, there’s certainly some Laettner in Kaminsky’s game. They’re not exactly the same player, but they could both shoot long-range jumpers, put the ball on the deck, and score in either face-up or back-to-the-basket situations. They were/are the most important players on their teams. They made their way to the center of the Player of the Year discussions during their careers.
One more fundamental parallel between 1991 Duke and 2015 Wisconsin is simply this: Both teams had lost to their upcoming semifinal opponent in the previous Final Four – Duke in the 1990 title game to UNLV, Wisconsin to Kentucky in the 2014 national semifinals.
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The next great Final Four connection between 1991 and 2015 can be found in the droughts of the coaches in the first semifinal (one in 1991, two in 2015).
North Carolina, though making the Sweet 16 in every NCAA tournament from 1983 through 1990, did not reach the Final Four in any of them. The Tar Heels lost as a higher seed in three Elite Eight games during that stretch, making it a painful part of Dean Smith’s career (though not the most painful – his first six years in the 1960s witnessed an incident in which Smith was hung in effigy).
Imagine if Twitter had been around in the latter half of the 1980s. Smith’s performances in March would have been shredded from coast to coast. The fact that Smith was able to return to the Final Four in 1991 not only took a lot of pressure off his back; the feat seemed to give Smith fresh oxygen entering the final stretch of his career. North Carolina made three more Final Fours under Smith and – as the Dean had hoped – made the Final Four in the first season of the Bill Guthridge era, affirming that when Smith left the program, the Tar Heels were in position to succeed.
This Saturday’s first semifinal between Tom Izzo and Coach K is a matchup of coaches who have not been to the Final Four since 2010. A five-year gap for each of these men is hard to believe, but it’s true. This shows how hard it is to make the Final Four. What also shows how hard it is to get this far in March is that only three men in history have reached the pinnacle of their profession more than seven times (Wooden, Coach K, and Smith). If North Carolina’s presence in the 1991 national semifinals made people appreciate Dean Smith more, this 2015 clash between Michigan State and Duke should enable the public to admire Izzo and K in a fuller way.
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Finally, as something of a postscript, while there are so many linkages between and among coaches and programs in a comparison of the 1991 and 2015 Final Fours, consider the broadcasting angle. Each Final Four is historic in broadcasting terms.
In 1991, Jim Nantz – previously the studio host and anchor for CBS’s NCAA tournament coverage – debuted in the play-by-play chair at the Final Four, replacing Brent Musburger. Here, in 2015, Nantz is the established figure, but Bill Raftery – a veteran of the Final Four on CBS radio – is calling his first Final Four on the television side.
Knitting everything together, the TBS/CBS crew for this Final Four includes a man who played for the team that cut down the nets in Indianapolis, 24 years ago: Grant Hill of Duke.
The 1991 Final Four in Indianapolis’s Hoosier Dome. The 2015 Final Four in Indianapolis’s Lucas Oil Stadium. These two events, spanning almost a quarter of a century, do so much to knit together the larger history of college basketball.
All that’s left is to play the 2015 national semifinals and see how they stack up against 1991’s results.
