March Rewind: Mike Gminski Lifts '78 Blue Devils to Regional Final

What's March without Duke Tournament basketball? With this year's ACC and NCAA Tournaments cancelled, we'll go back in time to look at the top Blue Devils postseason games from each date in March and early April. Special thanks to SportsReference.com for boxscores and the Duke Library for the newspaper archive.

In 1978, the seventh-ranked Blue Devils were looking to get to the Elite Eight, but Penn had other ideas. With about nine minutes to go, the Quakers were up by six points over the reeling Blue Devils, but Duke’s players were confident.

“They came over during the television timeout and said there was no way to lose this game,” coach Bill Foster said. “I didn’t tell them that I was worried.”

It turned out the players were right. They knew they had 6-foot-11 Mike Gminski on the inside.

On three straight possessions, Penn drove into the lane and attempted to score. Each time, Gminski blocked the shot. Duke got possession of the ball all three times and went down and scored.

Gminski blocked, in succession, Bob Willis, Tom Crowley and Willis again, setting up Blue Devil baskets by Kenny Dennard, Gene Banks and Gminski himself, tying the score.

Gminski finished with seven blocked shots, the second-most ever by a Duke player in March Madness, to go with 14 points and 10 rebounds.

Banks and Jim Spanarkel added 21 points each. Banks matched Gminski with 10 rebounds.

The Blue Devils shut down Penn the rest of the way, allowing just one basket inside of 16 feet in the last five minutes of the game as Duke won 84-80 and Foster advanced to the regional final in his first ever NCAA Tournament.