GREENVILLE, S.C. — Mike Krzyzewski turned away from the court and faced his grandchildren, some of them crying, some of them cheering, all of them celebrating in their own way a surreal night for a 75-year-old man. Basketball made Krzyzewski, a Chicago street kid, rich and famous beyond his wildest dreams, y🌜et the 1,200 victories could never match his family’s 1,200 reactions to them.
So that’s why in the end Sunday evening, he looked like a little boy who had just won a game with a buzzer-beating shot. In the end, basketball is basketball, and family is family. The grandkids were right behind the Duke bench, and in the final seconds of Duke’s 85-76 victory over Michigan State, Krzyzewski was waving an𝓰d clapping at them, basking in their glow.
“Wow, I mean, God bless,” he said. “It’s so good, so good. Twelve hun🎶dred is great, but that scene was even better.”
Krzyzewski would compare this second-round NCAA Tournament game to some of his memorable Final Four g🍌ames for good reason: He sure as hell confronted his basketball mortality, stared it right in the eye. He looked like a nervous wreck on the sideline because his iconic career was a few minutes away from running smack into its obituary.
Michigan State held a five-point lead with five minutes to go, mak💯ing for a tense and manic fight to the finish. That’s when Coach K’s young players saved him and extended his 47-year head-coaching career for at least one more night, sending him on his 26th trip to the Sweet 16 and a meeting with Texas Tech in San Francisco.
Jeremy Roach finished on some of the strongest drives Krzyzewski had ever seen from a Duke player, and drained a huge 3-pointer to give his team a four-point cushion with 1:18 to play. Mark Williams made like the sturdiest of⛦ redwoods in the lane. Paolo Banchero, who scored a game-high 19 points, played like a top-three NBA draft pick on both sides of the ball, and Trevor Keels, an uninspiring perimeter shooter, willed a 3 into the basket. The Blue Devils powered through the older Spartans, beating them at their own physical game.
“I love these kids,” Krzyzewski sa🌱id. “They’re becoming men🌳.”
Yes, this was the kind of manhood challenge Tom Izzo’s teams are known for, and 🐻Duke passed. This was not the same Krzyzewski team that face-planted in the loss to North Carolina in Coach K’s last home game, or that got handled by Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament final. After a week of spirited practices that emphasized a renewed commitment to defense, the Blue Devils suddenly look like a team capable of sending out Krzyzewski with a sixth national title, the way UCLA sent out John Wooden with his 10th in 1975.
“We were so good in the last part of the game,” C♒oach K said. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of them. … I’m 75. To have moments like that, you’ve got to be kidding me. Really, how damn lucky can you be?”
When it was over, Krzyzewski hugged his longtime adversary, Izzo, who denied Duke’s Zion Williamson-RJ Barrett team a trip to the Final Four three years ago. Krzyzewski will finish his career with a 13-3 overall ꩵrecord against Izzo, and swore again he doesn’t want a trophy or a banner for it. The Michigan State coach failed to retire the Duke coach at 1,199 victories more than a decade after he failed to stop the Duke coach from breaking Bob Knight’s all-time victories record in Madison Square Garden.
“Maybe the NCAA decides I’m the sacrificiඣal lamb or something,” Izzo joked the other day.
During warm-ups, he sat near the Duke layup line waiting for Krzyzewski to appear as a show of respect. When Coach K emerged from the tunnel, the two embraced and engag𝓀ed in some small talk before Izzo headed to the other side of the floor to start preparing for their latest titanic clash.
“Before the game,” the losing coach would say later, “there wasn’t a lot of reminiscing. 💮It was just, I think, mutual appreciation. It was short and sweet, and that’s the way it should be.”
The question before this game — before almost every Duke game this year — was♏ whether the Blue Devils could sh🍌oulder the weight of Krzyzewski’s farewell tour.
“Every game we play as been Coach’s last something,” was the way Wendell Moore Jr. had put it. Except🀅 the Blue Devils responded to this “last something” like they hadn’t before. They played older than their birthdates, finally, and attacked the closing minutes with the ferocity that Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill did in the Nineties. That’s how they delivered Krzyzewski his 26th and final trip to the Sweet 16.
“I’m proud of the fact that we’ve been there for four decades, that we’re at least knocking on the door,” Krzyzewski said. “Five 🦩times the door let us completely in.”
Duke just a𒅌nnounced to America on Sunday evening that a sixth time is most definitely in play. The Blue Devils do not fear Coach K’s farewell tour anymore, which means the rest of the NCAA Tournament field should start fearing them.
