This game will forever be remembered as one of the greatest final four games in the history of mens college bball

One of the best college games ever. What an incredible comeback by UConn. This was the National Championship for that year. Duke was by far the best team UConn beat in the tournament.

The meccas of college basketball, the University of Connecticut and Duke University going at it, for the 3rd time in NCAA Tournament, 1990, 1999 and 2004.... All 3 memorable games, with UConn winning 2 of those 3 games

An absolute classic. This one was really emotional for me as a fan. My grandmother passed away just a couple days earlier. She watched every UConn game religiously. When Emeka came back in the game from foul trouble and completely took over, it was like a sign from the heavens.

14 years later Emeka still playing in the NBA what more can I say besides way to go Emekai

Uconn had 7 players drafted into the nba on this team including the 2,3 and 7th overall.. I dunno how someone can comment earlier saying duke had a better 1-9

How about how loaded this UCONN team was, my word. Okafor, Gordon, Villanueva, Boone, Rashad Anderson. Then you look at how loaded the Duke team was! Deng, Reddick, Duhon. Lot of pros in this one. Biggest bucket of the game was Anderson’s 3 that started the run. He misses that, they don’t win.

One of the saddest Duke games to see over and over as a Duke.

I remember living in New London, CT in 2004. I was 4 months away from 21. On several occasions, I drove about an hour up to Storrs and partied with some students that lived in Carriage House Townhomes on campus. On this particular night, I figured they'd be doing the same thing since it was a Saturday night, but they weren't there (come to find out they went to San Antonio lol). Still unaware of what exactly I was getting myself into, I found a viewing party in a nearby apartment. That party was intense and the hosts were very welcoming. I couldn't sit down for 5 minutes without being offered a beer or some drunk and hot girl wanting to sit on my lap. After the win, the entire street became a bonfire party. It looked like a barely legal Mardi Gras without the beads. Epic night that ended with me DJ'ing at another nearby party and crashing on the couch.

this was the second best final four game ever...the first: the 1999 national championship game between you guesed it...Duke vs. UCONN and UCONN won 77-74 so ha...we own Duke in final fours although they have broken our hearts too in the tourny

This UConn team was practically a NBA team.

UCONN was favored in this game... hence, Duhon's 3 at the end caused millions of dollars to change hands.

I will forever love Emeka for taking over and winning that game for us.

Ben Gordon was just lights out that season

@ByronS360 UCONN in 1999 isn't just a Top 5 National Championship upset, it's the #1 National Championship upset. Still, it doesn't take anything away from Texas Western, Villanova, or N.C. St., who provided memorable moments of their own.

one of the all time great national semis. both games were epic

This is very beautiful quality even 12 years later👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿

2004 was the most exciting final four ever!

The best college basketball program ever.Go UCONN

My favorite UConn team of all time. EMEKA OKAFOR!!!

I remember this game, we dominated while Okafor was out.......bricked several 3's in transition and should have been up 20. That's why we lost. We had the better team 1-9 but no one to handle Okafor or Gordon. This UConn team was, imo, one of the decade's better teams

This was the last real exciting semifinal game in the Final Four until the Butler-Michigan State game last year.

dang! 04 was a thrilling final 4!

Thanks for posting it

@larma7 It really basically was. Gordon, Okafor, Boone, Villanueva, Armstrong, D. Brown, M. Williams all played in the NBA

BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!

Duke lost so therefore, I enjoy these highlights 😆

One other thing, i haven't seen it mentioned, but i think Josh boone won this game for uconn. When okafor was out, boone stepped up and got williams that 3rd foul. One last thing to mention is that had Duke BEAT Maryland in the ACC title game, this would have been the National Championship. Once again Shelden fouled out at the end of regulation, and maryland won. Duke would have gotten the number 1 overall seed, with Uconn the number 2 in the regional on the other side of the bracket.

Two great teams. Loved Emeka.

They took UCONN out of the Big Eat because we was dominating it now villanova is dominating it what a surprise big bynum was going to UCONN but the NBA came calling he went to the Lakers 10 years later 2 championships that would've been with UCONN son instead of 4 titles UCONN would've had 6 titles leading program of this era.

so. i'm pretty unfamiliar with that years teams , may i ask what was the full name of the duke player ____ ewing?

@jcaudill6921 Actually Connecticut beating Duke in '99 was the biggest upset in the Final. Connecticut was a 9.5-point underdog in that game. N.C. St. was a 7.5-point underdog; Villanova was a 9-point underdog and Texas Western was a 6-point underdog. Duke was an 8-point underdog vs. UNLV. All of them were great upsets though.

This was the only game where Shalik Randolph lived up to his lofty status out of high school. Loul Deng did a lot of good that year but that contested 3 he took @ 6:20 was a killer. As Packer noted, not the shot you take there.

One of the only times I can remember a Duke team choking and succumbing to the pressure. Most Duke teams would win a big game in which they had a 73-64 lead inside of five minutes, but this Blue Devil squad just wilted as Okafor and Company willed the Huskies to victory.

Honestly I don't think EITHER team should complain bout refs. Starting at 2:33 is the best example. The refs blow calls for BOTH teams. And besides, UCONN would have destroyed Duke if they had Okafore the whole game, Williams was no where near as good...

sooo many nba players in thi game. redick,deng,villunueava, okafor,gordon,armstrong

From 1999-2005 the ACC and The Big East were dominating the NCAA as 6 of the those 7 years, the National Champion came from either the Big East or the ACC: 1999- UCONN 2001 - Duke 2002 - Maryland 2003 - Syracuse 2004- UCONN 2005 - North Carolina The only time was 2000 were the champion was Michigan State from the Big 10. I am counting Maryland as ACC as their National Title from 02 came as a member of the ACC, well before they moved to the Big 10.

@allclear1981 is that right?

Uconn had so much talent back then what happened ?

I don’t know why I felt UConn dominated this game. They pulled it off at the end, probably because they had one of the best rosters in college basketball, but they snuck that out at the end.

UConn! I won too big bets that night!

I'm a Duke fan, but I give Uconn props. They played a really good game. We just came up one point short. It would have been nice though to go up against GT. We would have won the championship.

duke was a 2 point dog with that 3 at the buzzer they cover man the wiseguys r really good with the lines

@jayfey77 So explain why they blew an 8 point lead with 3+ min left, lol.

We went nuts when Emeka managed to scoop that ball off the floor and lay it in.

LMAO @ the Duke fans whining about the refs. The refs spotted you a whole half without Okafor (thanks to his bogus 2nd foul) and you couldn't close the deal.

UCONN is just THAT team that always has dukes number in the tourney when they have met

This shit still hurts. When I started hated uconn. Go Duke

Uconn going to repeat this year 2012!!! let's go Huskies!

I can relate, however. That is how I felt about Dean Smith when I became a Duke fan. Always though K got more done with less.

A graduate student of mine somehow got onto the floor as the game ended. Coach K did the mandatory line congratulations, then ran over to a ref, literally screaming, “You fucked us! You fucked is! You fucked us!” My grad student heard this from 15 feet away. At issue was the no-call with 11.6 seconds left. The replay shows a clean strip by the UConn guy, and that K had no view of what happened because he was seated behind the play. Hilarious!

@jayfey77 Yet he can't beat Calhoun when it matters, lol. 0-2 against UConn in the FF. And Coach K gets his pick of McD's AA's every year. Calhouns had something like 8 total, and gotten 3 titles. Replace K with Calhoun at Duke and he wins even more than 3 titles, can't say the same if you put K at UConn.

8:19 DUKE +2.5🤯 it mattered nantz!!

Calhoun has Coach K's number

@allclear1981 remeber 2 weeks ago when you said to let you know when duke made it to the final four? :) good call about scheyer youre a basketball genius

if Notre Dame and Georgetown played in another conference, they're be rank pretty high. Big East is just a beast this year.

Emeka Okafor. Chike Okeafor plays football.

@CheezyDoDo973-What u mean? UCONN just made the Final Four last year........

The officiating i think was equal in this game. Shelden had cost us alot that year with his fouls and it finally caught up to us. They don't show it but Packer stated toward the end of the 2nd half when Okafor got his second foul and both williams and Okafor were on the bench that whoever got the 3rd foul, there team would lose. Coach K kept in Williams knowing he was a foul machine. Sure enough Williams got his 3rd before the end of the 1st half and that changed the entire game for duke.

Dear Jim Nantz.........Chris Duhon's shot MATTERED! It might be the single most money changing shot in NCAA History. IT MATTERED!

Villanueva came up huge in this game!!

JJ just had 16 this game?? wow. Ben Gordon was a monster at UCONN. Just think if Caron Butler was on this team. WOW!

Seems like UCONN owns Duke in the big games. Uconn beat Duke in one of the biggest upsets in College Basketball history back in 1999 then of course this....in the Final Four in 2004... broke Coach K's heart twice......close games.

great win by uconn

who won it all in 2004? UConn. Thank you.

Best team won. Duke chocked up 9 with 4 minutes plus to go.

Lol? They also have a ton of excellent players in the NBA. In fact other than UNC, I can't think of a school with as many good players in the league right now.

I doubt that. In fact, I'd argue that if you don't include Callipari, no one recruits basketball ATHLETES like Calhoun.He is a little better with x's and o's but not by much. Outcoached K in '99, simply had the best players this year. Of Uconn's 3 titles, this team was the best imo. Their defense was magnificent.

The media, along with myself and others, were ready to call this Duke team the greatest in recent memory. That's what really made it an epic upset.

How many times have Duke and Connecticut been to the final 4? Together it must be more than the rest of the NCCA combined.

And also the Big East is the Greatest conference ever.

Calhoun does not 'own' Coach K, as much as I wish he did. You're forgetting 1990 and 1991.

Good edit, not Sports Center material, but good none the less.

your right it was bad reffing. But not just 4 Duke. Okafore was in more trouble than Williams was, and he was the best player in that game. But when UCONN had him bac his presence down low was too much 4 Duke and it ended up making the difference. The ref's did have a loose whistle, but not just against Duke...

Years later and I’m still tryna figure out what da hell was Loul Deng thinking smh!! We could’ve won that fuckin game

@CheezyDoDo973 um... uconn has been in the final four back to back years and oh by the way... are the 2011 national champions

Where is Sami Ameziane

@driver8train yeah

I love how some of the people called Drummond and Lamb busts.

this was a good game unc beat uconn that year 2 uconn was very good

I tend to agree, but the argument is valid. I wasn't watching back then to get a feel for how good any of those teams really were, which is the only way to definitively settle this. Logic would tell us that an 8 over a 1 is a bigger upset, and I think the announcer (forgot his name) alluded to it that night in '99.

They were. When Okafor was healthy, he was the best big in the country.

This is 1 of the most coincidential scoring moments in UCONN history. Duke beat Uconn by that exact SAME SCORE! Then the ending for the 2011 final four against Kentucky went the same way with free throws to ice the game. As Okafor did in this one, Napier did in the other, then came the final shot with Kentucky chucking up a meaningless 3 to show a win by a point. Eerie isn't it.

@jcaudill6921 Perception is often at odds with reality. UConn beating Duke in '99 WAS a bigger upset than Villanova over Georgetown. The point spread archives by the Gold Sheet prove this point.

CAN YOYU GET THE FINAL PLEASE FROM BEGINNING

This was the "real" National Championship Game in 2004. No disrespect to Georgia Tech, but once they pulled the upset over a better Oklahoma State team in the first semifinal this became the de facto title game. No way were either of these teams going to lose to GT in the final.

Omg Duhon bent me over so far it came outta my mouth with that backdoor cover. I will gladly take the moneyline on small spreads til the day I croak

@dukenthaylor the and-1 no-call @ 5:20!

I lost my house because of that stupid meaningless shot at the end of the game by Duhon. Thanks Chris...

He's played ball. That's all he's ever done as a player - i think you can't call guys like that a bust, because they never seek out the spotlight or the accolades. He didn't posture himself to be picked so high. Put him on the Celtics and he'll be the unsung hero.

Rashad the assassin!!

@jcaudill6921 Here is the objective evidence: Biggest upsets in NCAA Championship Game (From Gold Sheet archives) 1999 Connecticut +9.5 over Duke 1985 Villanova +9 over Georgetown 1988 Kansas +8 over Oklahoma 1983 North Carolina St. +7.5 over Houston 1966 Texas Western +6.5 over Kentucky No bias or delusion involved. Just the cold hard facts.

Where's UCONN'S program now? Still glad they won this game.

It's not so much my view of UCONN 1999 team but just the standard that everyone placed on Duke. They were supposed to be unbeatable and leading up to that game, practically everyone had Duke as the favorite. It was Uconn's first Final 4 appearnace. We can disagree because you simply look at the fact that its two #1 seeds. Thats true and may take away from it a little but I still say its a Top 5 National Championship upset. If you disagree, name me 5 bigger upsets for the National Championship.

"even coach k was making comments about the officials, something that he never does." dude, nobody bitches about calls more than coach k. which is ironic because nobody gets more calls than duke. if you noticed uconn started with a 15-4 run. then okafor got 2 bullshit touch fouls the first 5 minutes of the game. if okafor was actually allowed to play in the first half duke won't not have been leading down the stretch of that game.

One last thing...if you watch this game you realize Duke defintely was the more talented team. My coach, Coach K, was just out coached, period. Unfortunately, Calhoun has Coach K's number

Lastly, remember, if these guys swithched, Calhoun would have to recruit guys that would compete in the classroom, or at least graduate from DUKE, something he has not been known for at UConn.

UCONN!💯

number 2 overall picks should not be the unsung hero. they should be THE guy, like Durant, or Jason Kidd. Top 5 picks are expected to be superstars, or at least all stars in the NBA.

jcaudill, I given up on you. Thats your opinion and there are many that will disagree with you including the announcer Jim Nantz 'just when they believe you can't..you can..and UCONN has won the national championship'..hat was one of the most memorable quotes in college basketball history.... If you just want to deny the obvious then thats who you are and its okay.... Nonetheless, UCONN over Duke in two of the biggest games in both schools history and 1999 (one of biggest upsets)