903.
Did you really expect K to drag this out?
Krzyzewski, who treats attention toward himself like a curse, only wanted and only needed one chance to pass his old coach Bob Knight last night for the 903rd win of his career.
In winning, K reached the peak. He reached the pinnacle of his chosen profession. A man who went 111-106 his first eight years as a coach now sits as the greatest of all time.
903. Wow.
He didn’t win those games by himself, of course, as he’ll readily tell you. He’ll say his players were responsible. He’ll say he was just lucky to recruit good kids.
“I think it’ll mean a lot when it’s over,” he said to reporters in the press room of Madison Square Garden Tuesday night. “I think this is a program moment.”
But to say that is to deflect reality, to gloss over the most seminal moment of his storied coaching career.
Over the past 31 years, Duke fans have gotten to watch a man who is now, unequivocally, the greatest coach in college basketball history. Last night’s game—a 74-69 win over Michigan State—was a sloppy win, and the team looked rough in the final few minutes, but it doesn’t matter. K got 903.
It was a long, long road to this point. In 1980, athletic director Tom Butters hired Krzyzewski away from West Point, where he had coached for five years, and where he was coming off a 9-17 season. When he came to the school, as a Polish guy with a funny name, the newscasters—and Butters himself—both mispronounced his name on the nightly broadcasts. Go look it up, it’s on YouTube.
K lost big and he lost badly his first few years. He went 17-13 in 1981, then 10-17 in ‘82 and 11-17 in ‘83. While he struggled, Dean Smith, on Durham’s left, won his first national championship. Jimmy Valvano, on the right, improbably won one for N.C. State. K and the Blue Devils, meanwhile, languished. Their ‘83 season came to an ignominious end with a 109-66 loss to Ralph Sampson and Virginia.
In a Denny’s after the game as the coaching staff licked its wounds, someone raised a glass. “Here’s to forgetting tonight,” he said. K’s response?
“Here’s to never f—ing forgetting tonight,” he said.
It would be eight years before Duke lost to Virginia again. Krzyzewski and Duke went on a roll. Nine years after that night at Denny’s, Krzyzewski won the first of his four national championships. He soon became widely considered as the best coach in the game.
He won a ton of ACC championships and an Olympic gold medal, and he publicly spurned the NBA three times. He won more national titles than anyone else in the ’90s and ’00s, and he said last night that winning those championships was more special than breaking the record Tuesday night, because the whole group got to experience it.
Somehow I think that the former players who made the trip to Madison Square Garden last night, from Grant Hill to Shane Battier, from Carlos Boozer to Chris Duhon, from Olympians Chris Paul to Carmelo Anthony, all felt last night was pretty special, too, though.
“This something I’m going to remember for the rest of my life,” Seth Curry said in the locker room afterward.
After the final buzzer reverberated throughout the Garden Tuesday, “Let’s Go, Duke” chants rang out. “Taking Care of Business” played through the loudspeakers. Krzyzewski shook Izzo’s hand. Photographers flocked around K, their flashbulbs lighting up the coach’s face like the Christmas trees in the Macy’s window sills a few blocks away.
Krzyzewski headed over to where Knight sat at the ESPN booth. The two, who went through a contentious time in the late ’90s, embraced.
“Coach, I’m not sure people tell you this, but I love you and I love what you’ve done for me, and thank you,” Krzyzewski said.
Weighty stuff. But then again, this was a big moment.
The question that will follow now will be simple—what will drive K after this? Sportswriter and Krzyzewski confidant John Feinstein told me last week that he believes that K does not really need milestones like this to self-motivate. He enjoys the challenges of coaching, the fluid nature of his teams.
But for now, that’s not what’s important. K is at the top. Hail, hail.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.