Jim Sumner On A Critical But Overlooked Duke Team

The 1987 team showed that Duke wasn’t going anywhere after the great class of 1986 graduated.Most of us have a favorite Duke team. Perhaps one of the five title teams. Not a bold choice but certainly a defensible one. Or that 1978 team, the one dubbed Forever’s Team, the one that came from last place in the ACC to the NCAA title game. Or the senior-laden 1986 or 1994 teams that came one stop from cutting down the nets.

But let me throw another name into the mix. Not Duke’s greatest team but certainly one of its most underrated and one of the most important teams of Mike Krzyzewski’s tenure at Duke.

Context is crucial here, so let’s go back to March 2, 1986 when top-ranked Duke hosted…