YouTube Gold: Vic Bubas On When The Dunk Was Banned

A lot of people really have no idea that Duke Basketball existed prior to the K era, but of course it did. Mike Krzyzewski was well aware of the Bill Foster era obviously; he was coaching by then and surely watched Duke in the 1978 tournament as that team captured the nation’s imagination.

Even before then though, the Blue Devils had a tremendous run in the 1960’s under Vic Bubas.

A protegé of NC State’s Everett Case, and like Case a native of Indiana, Bubas coached a fast-break style that was a lot of fun to watch. It was a glamorous era in Duke and ACC basketball like no other.

Bubas always understood that he was selling an entertainment product. He introduced the pep band and cultivated the student section that would later become known as the Cameron Crazies.

In 1967, the NCAA banned the dunk because of this guy, who was seen as unstoppable in college.

Bubas, who scheduled UCLA for back-to-back games in 1965-66 and 1966-67, would face UCLA and Lew Alcindor, as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was then known after the dunk was outlawed.

Bubas talks here about how foolish it was to ban the dunk. He points out that people pay “$2.50 and some places as much as 5.00” to watch games and that the NCAA is taking away a really fun part of the game. He also predicted, wrongly, that the dunk would be back within a year.

It took a bit longer – the dunk came back in 1976 – but Bubas was right. It’s become a key part of the game and one of the most exciting things in all of sports. The game is unimaginable without it.