Mutombo, Gtown Get Revenge on Duke 35 Years Later - Go to Final 4

 

Dikembe Mutombo helped the Hoyas to an early lead, then after a bunch of lead changes Alonzo Mourning - the second half if the greatest shot blocking duo - took over for a 79-74 win over Duke's 2015 national champs. Click here for Hawks pictured tweet.

The win avenges these Hoyas for the upset win by Duke to keep them out of the actual 1989 Final 4. The win is fitting after the finger wagging Mutombo who went onto be such an inspirational human off the court, passed away September 30, leading to tears and choked off interviews with many who knew him.

The Hoyas will advance to play a Big East rival semifinal against the 2023 champs from UConn. The 2022 champs from Kansas are in the other semifinal, but they will be underdogs against the Fab 5 from Michigan's 1993 team. As shown in the box score at the bottom of the blog, Mourning had 24 points and 10 rebounds after Mourning had 8 early points. The Hoyas defense forced 18 turnovers to only 11 forced by Duke. The Hoyas also pounded it inside with only two 3-pointers to six for Duke.

Rankings of Final 4

• UConn moved up from 11th to 10th in our all-time rankings with their Elite 8 win, so Georgetown will still be the underdog as their win moved them up from 33rd to 26th all-time.
• Meanwhile Kansas moved up only slightly from 49th to 45th all-time, making them the underdog against Michigan that moved up from 35th to 23rd to pass Georgetown by a couple of spots.

Of the 234 all-time great teams in the Value Add Basketball Game, these Final Four teams and the champs of our two previous all-time great tournaments are the only six undefeated teams after 301 total games between the teams.

This third batch of teams included teams from 2022 - 2024 - after the first 160 teams were created. After initially allowing no more than one team per school in each century in the first batch of 96 teams (Bill Walton's UCLA beat Michael Jordan's UNC for the title), we had some leeway in our next 64 teams (Paul Pierce Kansas won title).

Separate from these 301 games we also played the 2020 tournament cancelled by COVID, and Creighton beat Duke for that title. That year I was at the last NCAA game and watching Creighton in Madison Square Garden until the game was cancelled at halftime after the NBA canceled their season. 

Pos	Georgetown 1989	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht	Season Stats
1-PG	Charles Smith	13	1	4	2	2	7	3	0	1	6'1	18.7 Pts, 3.6 Reb, 5.1 Ast
2-SG	Dwayne Bryant	6	0	3	0	0	4	2	0	1	6'2	7.2 Pts, 2.6 Reb, 3.4 Ast
3-SF	Jaren Jackson	8	0	3	2	2	1	0	0	2	6'4	12.3 Pts, 5.2 Reb, 1.8 Ast
4-PF	Mark Tillmon	5	1	1	0	0	6	0	0	3	6'2	8.3 Pts, 2.3 Reb, 1.1 Ast
5-C	Alonzo Mourning	24	0	9	6	9	10	0	6	3	6'10	13.1 Pts, 7.3 Reb, 0.7 Ast
1-PG	Bobby Winston	6	0	3	0	0	2	0	0	3	6'5	5.0 Pts, 3.1 Reb, 3.0 Ast
2-SG	Ronnie Thompson	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	6'4	1.7 Pts, 0.4 Reb, 0.6 Ast
3-SF	John Turner	7	0	3	1	2	5	1	2	1	6'8	6.6 Pts, 6.2 Reb, 0.9 Ast
5-C	Dikembe Mutombo	8	0	4	0	0	3	0	0	1	7'2	3.9 Pts, 3.3 Reb, 0.2 Ast
	Turnovers 11	79	2	27	11	15	36	6	8	16
Pos	Duke 2015	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht	Season Stats
1-PG	Tyus Jones	15	2	4	1	1	3	3	1	2	6'1	11.8 Pts, 3.5 Reb, 5.6 Ast
2-SG	Quinn Cook	12	1	3	3	4	3	0	0	3	6'2	15.3 Pts, 3.4 Reb, 2.6 Ast
3-SF	Justise Winslow	10	1	2	3	3	9	1	2	3	6'6	12.6 Pts, 6.5 Reb, 2.1 Ast
4-PF	Jahlil Okafor	13	0	6	1	2	8	1	2	2	6'11	17.3 Pts, 8.5 Reb, 1.3 Ast
5-C	Amile Jefferson	8	0	3	2	2	6	1	2	5	6'9	6.1 Pts, 5.8 Reb, 0.8 Ast
1-PG	Matt Jones	9	1	2	2	2	2	0	0	3	6'5	6.0 Pts, 2.3 Reb, 1.0 Ast
2-SG	Marshall Plumlee	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	7'0	2.2 Pts, 2.4 Reb, 0.3 Ast
3-SF	Semi Ojeleye	5	1	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	6'8	3.0 Pts, 2.3 Reb, 0.2 Ast
	Turnovers 18	74	6	22	12	14	35	6	7	20