Omaha, Neb. — More recently, it has been their meeting in the Champions Classic, an early-season college hoops showcase that has brought all kinds of hype and hoops hysteria to the Kansas-Duke rivalry.
But the Jayhawks and Blue Devils certainly have a history with one another that goes much deeper than a regular season game played in the bright lights of New York City or Chicago.
KU and Duke have faced one another 11 times heading into Sunday’s Elite Eight showdown at CenturyLink Center — Duke leads the series 7-4 — and three of them have come on the biggest possible stage.
Nine of the 11 meetings have come on neutral floors and five of them have come in the NCAA Tournament, three at the Final Four and one in the 1991 national title game, won by Duke.
KU has won two straight in the series, winning the last two Champions Classic games, with Andrew Wiggins closing out Duke in 2013 and Frank Mason III burying a game-winner last season in the Big Apple, and three of the last four meetings.
Here’s a quick look back at all 11…
• The first meeting came in the 1985 Preseason NIT championship game in Madison Square Garden, which Duke won 92-86.
• The same two teams met in Dallas in the Final Four semifinal game later in the 1985-86 season, a game which was the first-ever game between two 30-win teams. Duke won that contest, 71-67.
• In 1988, Duke traveled to Lawrence for a February non-conference game and came away with a 74-70 overtime victory in Allen Fieldhouse.
• Later that season the teams met again, as a part of KU’s revenge tour en route to the 1988 title and this time the Jayhawks won their Final Four meeting with Duke, 66-59, at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri.
• In February of 1989, KU made its first and only trip to Durham, N.C., and walked away with a very forgettable 102-77 loss on the Blue Devils’ home floor.
• The national title was on the line in the 1991 meeting — in Roy Williams’ third season at Kansas — and Duke prevailed 72-65 in Indianapolis. Duke’s Grant Hill had one of the most unbelievable finishes in NCAA title game history in that one and Hill will be calling the game for CBS on Sunday.
• The Blue Devils ended the Jayhawks’ season in the second round of the 2000 NCAA Tournament in Winston Salem, North Carolina, when KU freshman Kirk Hinrich went toe-to-toe with Duke’s Jason Williams in a 1-8 game that was much tougher than the top-seeded Blue Devils had bargained for.
• Three years later, when Hinrich was a senior, KU returned the favor, beating Duke in the 2003 Sweet 16 in Anaheim, California, en route to its Final Four run that ended with a championship-game loss to Syracuse.
• In 2011, Duke won the Maui Invitational title, defeating KU, 68-61, in the championship game that featured a monster performance by Thomas Robinson and a coming out party for KU big man Jeff Withey. That duo wound up leading the Jayhawks to the national title game later that season.
• In 2013, at the Champions Classic in The Windy City, Andrew Wiggins out-dueled Duke’s Jabari Parker in a thrilling 94-83 Kansas victory that featured two of the country’s top teams and the top two picks in the 2014 NBA Draft.
• In 2016, KU and Duke waged war on the big stage of Madison Square Garden in NYC and Frank Mason III’s late jumper after Duke stormed back from a double-digit deficit led the Jayhawks to a 77-75 victory.
• What will happen Sunday to add to this amazing rivalry between two of college basketball’s most storied programs?
