YouTube Gold: Duke-Clemson 1998
An underrated ACC classic
In 1995, Rick Barnes brought his first Clemson team to Durham and beat Duke and an exhausted, seriously ill Mike Krzyzewski. After that game, he took a leave of absence and sat the rest of the year out.
Famously, Barnes told his team not to celebrate after they won because they felt they should.
Fast forward to 1998.
Duke had recovered from the collapse of 1995-96 and had a very good team. They were ranked #2 when Clemson came to town and featured Trajan Langdon, Roshown McLeod, Steve Wojciechowski, Chris Carrawell and freshmen Elton Brand and Shane Battier.
Clemson was #24 with Terrell McIntyre, Harold Jamison, Tom Wideman and Andrius Jurkunas.
The ‘95 loss was a real anomaly because Duke almost always beats Clemson in Cameron and sometimes badly. But every so often, the Tigers are a handful and that happened in this one.
It was a tight game down to the last seconds. Wojo helped force a turnover on McIntyre but then bobbled the inbounds pass and Clemson got the ball back with just seconds left.
Wojo redeemed himself on the final possession though subtly: he forced McIntyre to bobble his dribble and back up a bit before attempting the winning shot. It missed, then Iturbe got the ball and missed a desperation attempt at the buzzer.
Just another day in the ACC.