I’m sort of surprised by the news. I guess I imagined him coaching until he was prodded out the door like Bobby Bowden or worse case scenario, Joe Paterno. Good for him. At age 75, enjoy the last years of your life.
I’ve seen some speculation he’s doing this because of the new frontier coming in college athletics, the combination of more liberal transfer rules and NIL. I don’t buy that. He transformed his roster building through the years, going from not having early entry candidates as late as 1999, to accepting that and to one-and-dones more recently. Given Duke and his stature, neither of those things would remotely hurt Duke. Is it possible he doesn’t want to deal with another change as drastic as what is coming? Sure, but he’s 75. Sometimes, it’s just time.
Here’s how I see his career in my mind. I split it into 4-sections.
1- Building the Program (1980-1994): We all know the story by now. Struggled early but gets the Dawkins class and begins a stretch of making every Final 4 between 1986 and 1994 except in ‘87 and ‘93. That’s still wild in my mind and so underapprecited. Sustained, stacked success like that was the closest thing the sport had outside UCLA under John Wooden and this was in the modern era of the sport (64+ tournament).
This was also the era where Duke went from being just another program to joining the likes of the New York Yankees as a truly hated entity. This wasn’t and isn’t a bad thing. You don’t become truly hated in sports unless you win a lot or cheat a lot, often they go hand-in-hand as we know.
I’ve thought about this through the years as to why they became so hated. They were truly an underdog against UNLV in 1991. They may not have been Buster Douglas but they were also still viewed as a team that was pretty good but never good enough, sort of like Dean Smith and UNC before 1982. The UNC comparisons for K at Duke are quite large. I think we loved UNLV because they were anti-establishment and that Duke team represented the establishment which wasn’t fair because quite frankly, they had some basketball dirtbags on that team. Coach K’s connection to Bobby Knight didn’t help either.
The same dynamic would repeat itself against the Fab Five in ‘92. The end of this era was the title game in ‘94 against Arkansas. The last vestiges of the ‘92 title game would be gone and the sport was transitioning to a different type of student athlete. The sport had also established itself into the sports hierarchy with the explosion of available games on TV due to ESPN. I’d bet at this time, this was the closest K ever came to making a jump to the NBA.
2- The Reboot (1995-2004): As we know, the ‘95 Duke team would miss the NCAA Tournament and Coach K sat out the year with a back. It wasn’t a good look. Weak team and a coach “quitting” when the going got tough. Lest we forget, Duke failed to make it out of the first weekend in ‘96 and ‘97. The ‘96 team was pretty average, finishing 8-8 in the ACC. They were 4-7 heading into February that year.
‘98 looked promising but they lost a heartbreaker in the Elite 8 to the eventual champ, Kentucky Wildcats in one of the best tournament games ever. I can make an argument his ‘99 team was his best ever and only a loss in another Classic, this time the title game against UConn sullied that remarkable season.
The 2000 team really represented how hard the tournament is and how random it can be. It also represents the remarkable run from ‘86-‘94. That 2000 team was good enough to beat Michigan State. Florida made 7 of 15 from 3 while Duke went 3 of 19. Ballgame. Of course, they’d win it all a year later.
Unlike the original run, this one only produced one title. An unlikely loss to Indiana in 2002 and a loss to eventual champ UConn again in the ‘04 Final 4 closed the door. This era was also marked by the first early entries under Coach K. It was big news when a chunk of that ‘99 team turned pro. Nonetheless, he figured out a way to win.
3- The Transition (2005-2010): Duke once again had the most hated player in the nation in this era in JJ Redick and a lot less March success until the unlikely title in 2010. This time also marked the change of the NBA draft rule that ushered in the one-and-dones. It also coincided with Roy Williams establishing himself at UNC as a worthy heir to Dean Smith.
Duke had a number of foils before this in the ACC. The aforementioned Dean Smith, Jim Valvano and NC State to a certain extent and some very good Wake Forest and Maryland teams. None of them matched the winning and success of Roy Williams. In a lot of ways, Williams run at UNC was similar to Coach K’s early run at Duke, just without the stumbles early.
While Duke didn’t fall off the map, they certainly were second fiddle to UNC until 2010. Carolina fell off a cliff after their 2009 title and Duke retook the league. Despite this, Duke would never once be number 1 in the nation until after the tournament. This was a year where Kansas and Kentucky were heavy favorites heading into the tournament. Duke’s best win that year prior to the tournament? It’s pretty bleak. I think when we look back at all his titles and championships, this may have been the favorite of them all for me besides 2015.
Part 4- Embrace Change (2011-present): Beginning with Kyrie Irving in 2011, Coach K radically changed his roster building and fully embraced the one-and-done model, for better or worse. While it produced a title in 2015 (This is another one I don’t think we fully appreciate), it was also a pretty fallow when it came to accomplishments.
Duke hasn’t won an ACC regular season title since 2010. Maybe this says more about conference regular season titles (It does for a variety of reasons for another day). They’ve only made one Final 4 but do have 4 Elite 8 trips. Coach K was also heavily involved with Team USA, helping right that ship.
In the end, it’s a remarkable career that has spanned a sport that as he has shown, is ever evolving. Evolving with it isn’t easy.
Many will cheer his departure without appreciating the successes and will mock many things about him. That’s a shame but winners have that burden. Did I find some of his late career complaints cringeworthy? Absolutely, but a person at his level for that long will put themselves in those positions.
Those arguing he’s running from something should probably look back like I did. Like Roy Williams earlier this year, it’s ok to walk away after decades of success whatever the reason. Chances are, they’ve already proven themselves more than capable of success regardless the parameters of the sport. The hate is just that, hate. It’s the winners burden.
