2.1 Seconds

The Last Great Game: Duke vs. Kentucky and the 2.1 Seconds That Changed Basketball by Gene Wojciechowski


This was not a good book. First of all, it wasn’t really a book. It was more like a collection of essays about the Duke and Kentucky basketball programs. It was cohesive in that everything led toward the classic 1992 East Regional Final played between the two teams, but The Last Great Game was a very disjointed read.

Let me talk about that title, The Last Great Game: Duke vs. Kentucky and the 2.1 Seconds that Changed Basketball, for a bit:

• The Last Great Game: The primary title suggests that the book would be about the game, which is generally considered the greatest college basketball game of all time. The game is, I believe, worthy of a book telling its tale. This was not it. The game does not begin until the 67% point. The final 9% is comprised of the acknowledgements, references, and index; the actual text does begin at the 1% mark. This means that nearly three-quarters of the book is gone before the game for which it is titled actually begins. Once it does begin, only a tenth of the book actually discusses the first 44 minutes and 57.9 seconds of the game. Wojciechowski tells the game first from the Kentucky point of view, and then from Duke’s. This approach causes one to read about the entirety of the game two times. Both, however, are rushed. No, this book is not about the game. The game is just a backdrop.
  
• Duke vs. Kentucky: As I said earlier, this book is about the programs and how great Rick Pitino and Mike Krzyzewski are. It is also a series of puff pieces about how great a guy and very misunderstood Christian Laettner is and how wonderful Kentucky’s Unforgettables are. This is a Duke book and a Kentucky book all wrapped into one package. Duke’s games against Indiana, UNLV, and Michigan seem to be given more weight and importance in this book than did the one versus Kentucky.
  
• 2.1 Seconds that Changed Basketball: Wojciechowski did spend an entire chapter on the Grant Hill to Christian Laettner play, but there was no discussion of the play’s impact on basketball. Sure, it changed who won that year’s national championship, but doesn’t every NCAA tournament game-winner? There was no real meaning derived. It was just: this is what happened, it was great, and there were no losers on that day.

There were also plenty of bothersome clichés about the subjects’ character: “Krzyzewski was not a hippie and definitely wasn’t counterculture. He might have thought LSD was a standardized admissions test…Duty. Honor. Country. Those were their core beliefs, not the drugs, sex, and rebellion that belonged to the flower children.” And: “Because it was a convenient angle (and because it was partly true), the championship game was framed as Nice Guy Preppies (Duke) vs. Tire Iron-Wielding Hells Angels from Altamont (UNLV).”

This was a mess. This book does that game no justice.

C-