I rarely watch a game, any game, in its entirety, especially one that starts at 9:30 p.m., but I watched all of the Duke-Kentucky game Tuesday night and was glad I did.
At beginning of Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s 40th and final season in Durham, the Blue Devils surprised Coach John Calipari’s oldest and most experienced team, 79-71, in Madison Square Garden.
It was in that very building that I first encountered the kid who was to become universally known as “Coach K.” The year was 1969 and Sports Illustrated had assigned me to cover the National Invitation Tournament, still a big deal in those days. The team that finished fourth was Army, coached by a brash youngster named Bob Knight and led by Krzyzewski, who was a point guard before there was such a thing.
Billy Reed is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award twice. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades and is perhaps one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby. His book “Last of a BReed” is available on Amazon. After five years of active duty, Mike joined Knight’s staff at Indiana. That’s where I got to know him. He left after a year to take the job at Army and did well enough to get hired by Duke in 1981. And so began a career in which he has won more games and championships than anybody this side of the great UCLA coach John Wooden.
I will not dwell here on the Christian Laettner buzzer-beater in 1992, except that some idiot Big Blue fans still believe their team was robbed instead of giving Laettner credit for making a sensational play. These fans hate Duke with a passion that defies all reason and logic. But that’s the Big Blue base for you.
It was easy for me to pull for Duke Tuesday night, and it wasn’t because my older daughter and son-in-law graduated from there in 1994 (my younger daughter graduated from UK two years later). It was because I have as much contempt for Calipari as I do respect for Coach K.
Based on his track record, I think Calipari will do anything to win. He got hired by Mitch Barnhart, the A.D who also gave UK fans Billy Clyde Gillespie. Right away Calipari invented the “one-and-done’ concept where five-star recruits spend a season showcasing their talent before moving on to the NBA draft.
In other words, forget about such nuisances as academics and graduation rates. Leave that to Duke, Vanderbilt, the Ivy League schools and a few others. Universities exist to sponsor athletic programs, right?
I’ve always admired Mike because, as a Polish-American Catholic kid, he was blue-collar to the core. Nobody ever gave him anything. He earned the chances he got from Knight through hard work, determination, and intelligence.
Last season Duke finished at 13-11 and UK 9-25, so both teams did a lot of retooling during the off season. Calipari brought in an influx of transfers, most notably Oscar Tshiebwe, who had 17 points and 19 rebounds. But Krzyzewski went the other way, bringing in three blue-chip freshmen for his final team.
Two of them, Paolo Banchero and Trevor Keels, were the best players on the floor in their first college starts, the 6-foot-4 Keels scoring 25 points and the 6-10 Ranchero adding 22 points and seven rebounds. Whenever Ranchero had to leave the game with cramps, Keels picked up the slack.
From what I saw Tuesday night, I expect both teams to be in the national title games. I stopped believing in fairy tales years ago, but wouldn’t it be heart-warming if Duke were to win the title for Coach K in his final season?
I missed seeing the UK/Duke game, but I liked your column. It certainly would be fitting for Duke to win the title for Coach K in his last season.