Around 1987, Maryland fans began to experience what would eventually become a psychotic reaction to Duke.
In 1987, Duke and Maryland, then an ACC team, were heading in opposite directions.
Duke had made the championship game the previous season. It had lost four starters but was still a Top 15 team.
The previous summer, the night of the NBA Draft, Maryland’s Len Bias had died of a cocaine overdose after going #1 to the Boston Celtics.
In the aftermath, long-time coach Lefty Driesell had been fired, the roster was decimated and the Terps would go on to a 9-17 season under Bob Wade.
Up until this point, for much of the early ‘80’s, Duke and Maryland had been roughly at the same level although Duke made it to the Final Four and title game the previous spring, something Maryland would not do until 2001 and 2002, and never since.
Duke began to soar under Mike Krzyzewski while Maryland struggled for several years. Ultimately, Wade would only last three seasons before being forced out under an NCAA cloud. Gary Williams, an alum, would return to coach Maryland in 1989 and was saddled with the NCAA punishments for Wade’s misbehavior. It would take several more years before his grit and determination got the Terrapins back on track.
This 1987 game from Cameron, we think, marked the beginning of the deranged obsession Duke caused for many Maryland fans, who had a hard time seeing a school they once dominated greatly surpass them. This was the beginning of a hatred many Duke fans barely noticed until it boiled over in the Shane Battier/Jason Williams era.
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