A Duke-Kentucky matchup is always a marquee event. Even in 1988, when Kentucky was coming off the Emery scandal and Duke won 80-55, it was a big deal.
Look back at history.
In 1966, Duke and Kentucky were both essentially still segregated (CB Claiborne was a freshman Blue Devil and therefore ineligible at that time for the varsity team). Kentucky won that Final Four matchup and went on to lose to UTEP, which started five Black players in a game that had major historical implications.
Since then we’ve seen these:
- In 1978, Duke and Kentucky met in the championship game.