How cool would it be if UNLV, Duke meet in final

NEW YORK — The definition: A program that leverages personal experience, community leadership and professional excellence of basketball coaches nationally to increase awareness and promote healthy living, one that has raised nearly $87 million to fund research.

This the most important part of the annual Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, helping to improve the quality of life for patients and their families.

Semifinal matchups of a tournament are secondary to the cause.

But it doesn’t mean you can’t hope for specific ones.

History is pretty clear on this: You can’t begin listing the greatest Final Four games and not mention many — Magic vs. Larry in 1979, Texas Western and its all-black starting five vs. Kentucky in 1966, Jim Valvano looking for someone to hug in 1983, Villanova slaying Georgetown in 1985 — before reaching games between UNLV and Duke in 1990 and 1991.

The Rebels won a national championship by routing the Blue Devils 103-73, only to be denied a repeat the following year when Duke prevailed 79-77 in a national semifinal.

The schools haven’t met since and aren’t guaranteed to this weekend.

And that’s a shame.

UNLV has come to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., home to the Nets of the NBA and concerts and conventions and other events, to an arena that sits partly on a platform for the Long Island Rail Road, to meet Stanford at 4 p.m. PST today.

That game will be followed by No. 4 Duke against Temple.

The winners and losers meet Saturday, meaning UNLV and Duke have to produce similar results to make certain of playing each other.

The storyline will work out for Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski either way, and you expect his Duke team will beat a Temple side over which it is favored by 18. Krzyzewski will get a Saturday matchup against UNLV and the memories truTV can conjure from 23 years ago or one against his former player and assistant in Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins.

“Stanford is going to be enough of a challenge for us, a team that went to the Sweet 16 last year and has three returning starters and a great recruiting class,” UNLV coach Dave Rice said. “We haven’t talked to our team about Duke one bit. No one on our roster was even alive when those two games were played.

“I think kids care about who they’re playing in the moment and are more concerned with UNLV against Stanford in 2014 than some game that took place years ago. But one of my jobs as the facilitator of our program is to promote its tradition and history during the recruiting process.

“The bottom line is, parents and AAU coaches and high school coaches who help us recruit the young men all remember the glory years and what we’re trying to get back to. Our fans hope our program will be elite again, and I believe we are moving in that direction. It was a rivalry during that era, and I will stress during that era. It’s hard to have a rivalry when you don’t play them for 23 years.”

Rice admits that when he first heard Duke also would be part of this event, emotions within him stirred that the programs might finally play again. He was a member of those Final Four teams at UNLV and understands as well as anyone else the importance of them.

He’s correct in that it hasn’t been much of a rivalry, especially in terms of each program’s success. UNLV fans still love to hate anything associated with Duke, which is somewhat laughable when you realize that decades have passed and the national disparity between the teams is beyond massive.

Consider: Since the 1991 showdown, Duke has won more than 650 games and advanced to 22 NCAA Tournaments, in which it has won 55 times, made six Final Fours and claimed three national titles.

During that same span, UNLV has made eight NCAA fields and won just three games, never advancing past the Sweet 16.

Three tournament wins in 23 years.

But one way Rice believes UNLV can again elevate itself into at least the same conversation as Duke is by annually playing such powers in nonconference games. It’s a strength of his recruiting pitch, that the Rebels under his watch will be involved in such tournaments as Coaches vs. Cancer and the Maui Classic (next season) and others that include opponents among today’s college basketball royalty.

“We know what we’re coming up against,” UNLV freshman forward Dwayne Morgan said. “Right now, we’re just worried about getting a win against Stanford. If we handle that, we’ll try and handle the next game and probably get Duke. Coming out of high school, if you think you’re one of the best recruits, you want to play the best. You have to beat the best. You can’t do that by ducking them. You want them on your schedule. We have an opportunity to do that (this weekend).”

If that doesn’t mean a rematch 23 years later, news came Thursday from the Review-Journal’s Matt Youmans that UNLV and Duke have agreed to meet in the first college basketball game at the new MGM/AEG arena on Dec. 15, 2016.

It will eventually happen, these two tangling on the court.

It might happen Saturday. Might not.

“We obviously have a tremendous amount of respect for Duke and Coach K,” Rice said. “But our focus is 100 percent on Stanford. It’s human nature to want to play against an opponent (like Duke), but we know how good Stanford is.”

Matchups are secondary to the cause here.

But you can always hope.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on “Gridlock,” ESPN 1100 and 98.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.