www.si.com Open in urlscan Pro
151.101.194.98  Public Scan

Form analysis
1 forms found in the DOM

GET /search

<form class="m-off-canvas--search" role="form" action="/search" method="GET"><input class="m-off-canvas--search-input" aria-label="Search" placeholder="Search" name="query"><button class="m-off-canvas--search-button m-icon-button"
    aria-label="Submit Search" type="submit"><phoenix-icon-fallback class="m-svg m-icon-button--icon" icon="ico_search"><phoenix-icon-fallback class="m-svg" icon="ico_search"><svg>
          <use xlink:href="/assets-global/icons/svg-sprite.svg?v=2022-03-04-212131-d4fe63e-024873#ico_search"></use>
        </svg></phoenix-icon-fallback></phoenix-icon-fallback></button></form>

Text Content

Skip to main content
March 7, 2022

NCAAB

NFLNBACFBCBBMLBSOCCERWNBAGOLFNHLMMAFANTASYBETTINGSI SportsbookWhat's on TV
SUBSCRIBE
Search


 * Home
 * College
 * College Basketball

UNC Spoils Coach K’s Final Home Game


UNC Spoils Coach K’s Final Home Game



COACH K’S STAGGERING SEND-OFF STRENGTHENS THE BEST RIVALRY IN SPORTS

Duke couldn’t compartmentalize the pomp and circumstance of Mike Krzyzewski’s
final home game, and North Carolina took advantage in a thrilling farewell to
this era of the Tobacco Road rivalry.
 * Author:
   Pat Forde
 * Publish date:
   Mar 6, 2022

DURHAM, N.C. — Mike Krzyzewski said it himself on Thursday: “In sport, you never
know what’s going to happen—so the spontaneity of emotion and performance, it’s
one of the great things about sport. It really is reality TV, and reality TV is
not reality TV. Sport is, and that’s the beauty of it.”

That’s the beauty of it, and that’s the wreckage of it, too. Storylines get
ruined. You want to ensure a happy ending? Go to the movies. Go to a sporting
event and you take your chances. The spontaneity of emotion and performance can
send things flying off in any direction.



Sport can script a perfect end scene for a team and a man, but there is another
team involved and that team might not go along with the script. That other team
might tear the thing up and author its own ending. The other team might rise up
in a sweltering cauldron of emotion and show no reverence for the legend who is
coaching his last game in one of the cathedrals of the sport. The other team
might remind everyone that they represent a pretty good program, too, with
decades of tradition, and might let it be known that they didn’t come to town to
serve as ceremonial cannon fodder.



That’s how you get a shocker like North Carolina 94, Duke 81, in Mike
Krzyzewski’s final game in Cameron Indoor Stadium after 42 years as coach. A
celebratory 48 hours was building toward a crescendo Saturday night, and instead
the curtain came down to the sound of a few howling Tar Heels fans amid an
otherwise despairing silence.





As defeat became inevitable, Krzyzewski spent the final minute of his Cameron
career in silence. He stood with his hands behind his back, then folded his arms
across his chest, shifting his weight from side to side. Finally he sat down,
said something briefly to assistant Chris Carrawell, then clasped his hands on
his right knee and watched it end. The last shot a K-coached team took in this
arena was an errant three-pointer by Paolo Banchero, and then it was time to
shake hands and walk off Coach K Court with a slight limp and pursed lips.

In-depth analysis, unrivaled access. Get SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's best stories every
weekday. Sign up now.



Chris Keane/Sports Illustrated

The Tar Heels have won bigger games—they own six national titles—but not many
more satisfying. This is Carolina’s biggest of their 141 victories in the
history of this rivalry—and the fact that a team that has looked very bad for
much of this season could do this is the ultimate stamp of the rivalry as the
best in all of sport. Great rivalries produce great upsets, and this is one for
the ages.

It is absolutely a validating victory for first-year coach Hubert Davis, whose
team vaulted from the NCAA tournament bubble to safely in the bracket in 40
stunning minutes. And it is a sufficiently dispiriting defeat for Duke that it
left Krzyzewski opening a suddenly awkward postgame ceremony by apologizing to
the 9,300-plus fans who wedged into the old building.





“I’m sorry about this afternoon,” K said in a raspy voice, and the fans started
to audibly disagree before he cut them off. “Please, everyone, be quiet. Today
was unacceptable, but the season has been very acceptable. And I’ll tell you,
this season isn’t over, all right?”



They cheered at that reminder, and the honoring of K could proceed on a lighter
and happier note. Not that the Duke players seemed to be consoled at all. They
filed back onto the court for the postgame ceremony, sat down on the visiting
bench Carolina had just ecstatically vacated, and stared blankly into the
distance or at the floor as a tribute video played on the overhead scoreboard.
The Blue Devils looked like they could scarcely contain their own self-loathing,
having ruined the Party of the Century.

Fortunately for them, their coach has 75 years of wisdom and perspective. He
could be bitterly disappointed in the outcome, but capable of tucking that
emotion in his back pocket long enough to appreciate the outpouring of support
from the fans and from his former players, nearly 100 of which attended the game
and formed a tunnel for him to walk through to center court.

The number of all-time greats in attendance was staggering, a human wall of Duke
tradition. The sight of them all, plus his 10 grandchildren, moved Krzyzewski to
tears before the game, as the totality of the tribute came home.





“It has been emotional,” K said. “Before the game you’re getting a little
teary-eyed, then, ‘Whoa, I can’t do that.’ Then you come out for the game and
start crying. … It’s good to be emotional, especially at good things. If you’re
crying because of joy, you’re a pretty lucky person.”



All that said, Krzyzewski acknowledged that he’s relieved this milestone event
is over. It had been circled on the calendar for nearly a year, but that doesn’t
mean the moment could be easily contained. The closer it got, the bigger it
became. The basketball game became secondary, to a damaging degree for Duke.

“It means a lot,” K said. “All this stuff means a lot. And the clock’s ticking.
You know there’s an ending. Cameron has been a very special place to me, and I’m
disappointed I wasn’t able to honor it today like it deserves.”


SI RECOMMENDS


ACC TOURNAMENT BETTING PREVIEW: DUKE A HEAVY FAVORITE

By Frankie Taddeo


NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE BASKETBALL BIG EAST TOURNAMENT BETTING PREVIEW

By Jennifer Piacenti


FORDE MINUTES: PREDICTING THE CONFERENCE TOURNAMENTS

By Pat Forde

As it turned out, even one of the most focused coaches in history couldn’t
compartmentalize everything that surrounded this game. After locking up the
Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title—Duke’s first outright since
2006—the focus on that and on Krzyzewski became its own phenomenon. “It was a
celebration of me,” he said. “I don’t like that.”





Ticket prices skyrocketed. Visitors who didn’t have tickets showed up anyway.
ESPN descended upon campus with an army of staff. The undergrad Krzyzewskiville
tents were down before then and tickets distributed, but the grad students
pitched tents all the way around the concourse at Wallace Wade Stadium, Duke’s
football venue.



Chris Keane/Sports Illustrated

There was a festival atmosphere on campus Thursday and Friday, as Duke hit
spring break. With classes over, students lugged all manner of alcohol to their
tents and partied in anticipation of Saturday.

One of the grad student line monitors was 62-year-old Nhan Vo, who works as an
IT consultant at Duke. He was a Vietnamese refugee who left his home country in
1979. He said he walked through the Cambodian jungle for 13 days with no
possessions to get to Thailand, then asked the Catholic Church for help being
relocated to America. He landed in Oklahoma, then wound up at Duke.

With his ponytail tucked beneath a Duke hat, he’ll talk for as long as anyone
will listen about the basketball program. He’s been around it for decades and
swears that he’s learned which plays Krzyzewski is calling by his hand gestures.
“I know who is going to screen, who is going to cut, who is going to dunk,” Nhan
said.





He’s attended national championship games. His daughter went to school at Duke
and became a Cameron Crazie. But despite all the investment, the idea of being
sad that Coach K is retiring is a foreign one to Nhan.



“What the hell do you want from a person?” He asked. “Let him enjoy what he can
do. He might do something even better next.”

While Nhan and the Duke students prepared for a celebration, the Tar Heels were
preparing for a basketball game. This was by far their best performance of the
season, and the Blue Devils weren’t able to match their intensity and execution.
Duke took leads in each half but couldn’t sustain them, and Carolina’s run in
the final 5 1/2 minutes was 21–10.

“We’ve been in a penthouse the last few days, with room service and people
saying nice things,” Krzyzewski said. “We didn’t play hungry. … It’s tough to
find somebody who is hungry all the time. There are only so many Kobe Bryants in
the world. You can’t always beat human nature.”

Krzyzewski blamed himself for putting his team through just one hard practice
leading up to the game instead of two. “That’s a leadership choice,” he said.





The next leadership choice is moving forward to the time when Krzyzewski has
often been at his best: tournament basketball. Duke will have the No. 1 seed for
the ACC tourney, and likely will be no worse than a No. 2 seed in the NCAA
tournament that will follow.



The focus now can be solely on trying to win every remaining game. Krzyzewski
has a maximum of nine remaining in his career, and even with this loss he has a
team that could extend this season all the way to the final game.

“We’ve got a chance,” he said. “We’ve got a chance next week and we’ll have a
chance the following week. When it’s done, I’ll walk away and say we did a good
job.”

More Coach K Coverage:

 * SI Staff: The Best of Sports Illustrated’s Coach K Coverage
 * Coach K’s Special Relationship With Cameron Indoor Reaches Its End
 * Coach K, the Team Builder
 * There Will Never Be Another Like Coach K



Tags
analytics_tags:
News And Analysis
By
Pat Forde
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * 





YOU MAY LIKE

Fantasy


DAVANTE ADAMS, CHRIS GODWIN LEAD A TERRIFIC CLASS OF WR FREE AGENTS

A number of talented receivers are available in free agency and their landing
spots could shift their fantasy value.

By Michael Fabiano
Betting


ACC TOURNAMENT BETTING PREVIEW: DUKE A HEAVY FAVORITE

Duke is the heavy betting favorite at SI Sportsbook to win the ACC tournament,
but third-seeded North Carolina offers value.

By Frankie Taddeo
Extra Mustard


MLB FANS UNHAPPY WITH POTENTIAL BAN OF DEFENSIVE SHIFT

Major League Baseball wants to ban the shift, and the MLBPA appears to be open
to the ban.

By Mike McDaniel

College Basketball


SOUTH CAROLINA RETAINS NO. 1 SPOT FOLLOWING SEC TITLE GAME LOSS

The Gamecocks were upset by Kentucky in the SEC tournament final.

By Associated Press
Betting


NCAA MEN'S COLLEGE BASKETBALL BIG EAST TOURNAMENT BETTING PREVIEW

The Villanova Wildcats have the early edge among a crowded race for the Big East
conference title.

By Jennifer Piacenti
Soccer


MBAPPÉ HURT IN PSG TRAINING, STATUS VS. REAL MADRID UNCLEAR

PSG may not have the services of its star forward in the second leg of the
Champions League last 16.

By Associated Press
College Basketball


FORDE MINUTES: PREDICTING THE CONFERENCE TOURNAMENTS

Breaking down every remaining men’s league that will award an NCAA auto-bid this
week.

By Pat Forde
NFL


BROWNS USE FRANCHISE TAG ON TIGHT END DAVID NJOKU

Cleveland is keeping a key pass-catcher in the fold.

By Nick Selbe
Loading…
MORE
 * Privacy Policy
 * Reviews
 * Terms of Use
 * Advertise with Us
 * Customer Service
 * SI Pressroom

© 2022 ABG-SI LLC. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is a registered trademark of ABG-SI LLC.
All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use
and Privacy Policy


CLOSE
CLOSE
CLOSE
CLOSE