BiblioVault - Books about NCAA Basketball Tournament

The Encyclopedia of Duke Basketball

John Roth

Duke University Press, 2006

Duke basketball is one of the most celebrated programs in intercollegiate athletics. With fourteen Final Four appearances and three national championships for the men’s teams and four Final Four appearances and five ACC championships for the women’s teams, the Blue Devils have established a worldwide reputation for excellence and have inspired the fierce devotion of generations of fans.

The Encyclopedia of Duke Basketball is the ultimate reference source for true-blue fans, with profiles of great games, classic finishes (both wins and losses), and compelling personalities, including players, coaches, and opponents. While it is filled with a wealth of statistical information, the Encyclopedia goes well beyond the numerical record to deliver insights on people and performances and anecdotes that will surprise even the most seasoned Duke supporter.

The Encyclopedia features:
— A timeline of key events in men’s and women’s basketball history.
— Capsules of the most important men’s and women’s games in the program’s history, including the men’s buzzer-beating overtime win against Kentucky in 1992 and the women’s stunning victory over Tennessee to reach the Final Four in 1999.
— An alphabetical encyclopedia with entries on players from Alaa Abdelnaby to Bill Zimmer and on coaches, customs, opponents, venues, and records.
— Exclusive interviews in which standout players, including Danny Ferry, Mike Gminski, Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, and Jason Williams, recount moments they’ll never forget.
— A statistical record book covering every season through 2005–06.
—130 photographs of Duke basketball history.

A source of entertainment as well as information, this volume will be a great resource for fans hoping to settle arguments, relive favorite games, or simply enjoy hours of pleasurable reading.

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Five Banners

Inside the Duke Basketball Dynasty

John Feinstein

Duke University Press, 2024

On an early morning in 1983, after the worst loss of his career (109-66 against Virginia) and amid the cries of powerful athletics boosters calling for him to be fired, Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski went to breakfast at 2:00 a.m. to vent with friends. Sports journalist and Duke alumnus John Feinstein was at the table. For Coach K, "the night at Denny’s” would mark a turning point in his career and for the team, and eight years later, the Blue Devils would win their first NCAA national championship.

In Five Banners, Feinstein tells the inside history of Coach K’s forty-two-year career at Duke and its five NCAA championships, from the first, against Kansas in 1991, to the most recent, in 2015 against Wisconsin. With unparalleled access to Coach K, the team, and its staff, Feinstein takes readers on a mesmerizing ride into the locker room and onto the court. Full of intimate details, personal memories, and previously untold on- and off-court stories, it is a book that only Feinstein could write.

Feinstein explores a basketball legacy that begins with his days as an undergrad Duke Chronicle reporter covering coaches Bucky Waters and Neill McGeachy (who went 10-16 in one year as head coach), includes the “drought years” of the 1980s and the glory of the teams of the 1990s, and moves into the present day with Jon Scheyer’s succession. Drawing on new interviews, Feinstein highlights the voices of Grant Hill, Nolan Smith, Christian Laettner, Tommy Amaker, and Bobby Hurley, who each bring new insights on the championship years.

Throughout, Feinstein unveils the momentous force of college basketball as a game of intense relationships and intimate conversations. Candid, revelatory, and engrossing, Five Banners is an essential book for all Duke fans and anyone who loves the college game.

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Making March Madness

The Early Years of the NCAA, NIT, and College Basketball Championships, 1922-1951

Chad Carlson

University of Arkansas Press, 2017

Throughout the NCAA Tournament’s history, underdogs, Cinderella stories, and upsets have captured the attention and imagination of fans. Making March Madness is the story of this premiere tournament, from its early days in Kansas City, to its move to Madison Square Garden, to its surviving a point-shaving scandal in New York and taking its games to different sites across the country.Chad Carlson’s analysis places college basketball in historical context and connects it to larger issues in sport and American society, providing fresh insights on a host of topics that readers will find interesting, illuminating, and thought provoking.

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