Interesting that we won again that year. Everybody knows that the term “86″ means “to be through” with something, or to “be out of something.” Twentieth century slang.

Denny always said that this was the easy one. Nobody really expected us to win…not like 1980…they expected we would be a contender, but not to win. But when we beat Dean and Carolina on that Thursday night and drew LSU for the semi’s, man did I have my hopes up.
I guess the guys all didn’t run down to the student union and put there handprints in cement like Eaves and Griffith and Poncho. Maybe it’s because the program was more mature…in any case, the 1986 NCAA Championship solidified our claim as Team Of The Eighties. After this one, there could be no doubts.

Interesting how Mark McSwain never got much ink. I will always remember his determined and gritty inside game. And I’ll always remember the reams of tape wrapped on his thigh to allow him to play.

To a lesser extent, Billy Thompson does not get as much ink as you might expect. As smooth as a vanilla shake, his maturity, along with Milt’s, helped put us over the top. Yeah, he was elegant.

And we did it, didn’t we? Did it all again. And in our road reds. And over Duke.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nice stuff, Frank.