The Shot Heard Round The World

When they're not seeking divine intervention, the Laettner family makes a habit of looking for omens. Pulling into Indianapolis for the Final Four the year before, Bonnie, husband George and daughters Leanne and Katie had spotted a license plate reading MR & MRS K. In Ontario in December, on their way to Ann Arbor for Duke's game with Michigan, they had seen a sign for Hurley Realty. And days after the Duke-Kentucky battle, on their way to Minneapolis for the Final Four, the family would stop for gas somewhere in Wisconsin. The prices on the pumps would read 104 and 103.

The endgame began with Laettner's bank shot, the first of the Five Possessions: In slightly more than a half minute Duke would have the ball three times and Kentucky twice, and each time the teams would make a play that on any other night would have been a worthy game-winner. The Wildcats answered Laettner's immaculate bank shot with a series of passes around the perimeter—"ball reversal," the coaches call it—that ultimately left Mashburn with an opening. He slipped along the baseline for a layup. A beaten Antonio Lang came by too late and fouled him, and after Mashburn sank the free throw that pushed Kentucky into the lead again, 101-100, he allowed himself to believe the game was won.

Yet moments later Mashburn spent his fifth foul, once again on Laettner, whose free throws put Duke up 102-101. Pitino sent Farmer in to replace Mashburn. All four Kentucky seniors were now on the floor.

While the Wildcats mustered during a timeout with 7.8 seconds remaining, those who knew the team best might have suspected that the play would begin with the ball in Woods's hands. Yet the Kentucky guard hadn't completely rid himself of his complex about taking shots late in the game. As a junior, with the Cats trailing by three at Mississippi State, he had dribbled the length of the floor for a worthless layup at the buzzer. Pitino's play nonetheless called for Woods to drive, and to kick the ball out to the wing if the Duke defenders were to pinch in.

As Duke broke its huddle, Hurley reminded his teammates to call time if Kentucky were to score. I forgot to remind them of that, Krzyzewski thought to himself. Damned if Hurley doesn't still have his mental edge.

Woods took the inbounds pass from Farmer, laid a head fake on Hurley and accelerated right, leaving the Duke guard on a Pelphrey pick. Two steps later, in the lane. Woods flipped up a shot that today he calls "a little push, one-hand shot." Yet it must have had some arc on it, for it cleared the outstretched arm of Laettner, who had come to the middle of the lane to help. All in all, it was a preposterous shot—drifting and homely, one that would have been left dateless for the prom. Krzyzewski thought briefly that it was just the kind of shot that gets players benched. But he also thought, ominously, that it was the kind of shot Woods had been making all game long.

"A terrible shot," Elmore said after the ball glanced off the backboard and through the hoop.

"How did he find the courage to take that kind of shot?" Lundquist wanted to know.

Four of the five Duke players on the floor immediately signaled for a timeout. The clock showed 2.1 seconds remaining.

In the stands Grant Hill's mother, Janet, was busy consoling Antonio Lang's father, Eural. "Wait a minute," said Grant's dad, Calvin Hill, the former All-Pro running back. Too many times he had been with the Dallas Cowboys when Roger Staubach delivered them from wickets stickier than this. He was watching Krzyzewski, and the coach seemed to have a plan.