Before Mike Krzyzewski got to Duke in 1980, we had the relatively brief Bill Foster era.
Foster was more of a builder than a sustainer. He did a nice job at Rutgers, then again at Utah, before moving to Duke.
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He found some underappreciated talent in Jim Spanarkel, then Mike Gminski when he was college-eligible as a junior, before striking gold with Gene Banks, who was seen as one of the top three prospects in 1977. The others? Albert King, who went to Maryland, and Magic Johnson, who chose Michigan State.
Duke made it all the way to the national championship game in 1978, but in 1979, when great things were expected, things went south. Duke seemed to suffer a crisis of confidence and didn’t live up to expectations.
As an older team in 1979-80, the team would get to the Elite Eight, but point guard Bob Bender would suffer appendicitis that spring and that probably ended Duke’s chances.
In the fall of that season though, we still had the Big Four Tournament. That event included the four North Carolina schools in the ACC and the championship game came down to Duke and UNC.
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Duke outplayed UNC, winning 86-74.
Kenny Dennard was a four-year starter for Duke and he was a junior in this game. He also posted this video.
We’re not 100% sure, but we think the TV crew is Jim Thacker, Billy Packer and Bones McKinney, which was peak 1970’s ACC coverage.
Also, check out the Blue Devil: in a few years, the Big Head Devil would replace the normal human-sized version. It looks very odd from this remove.
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