Dave Sez

Coach K's Duke, Then And Now

This is another guest article from William Loeffler. Previously, he took a look at the most important game in ACC basketball history. This time he takes a look at Mike Krzyzewski's career at Duke.

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A Comparison Between the Duke Teams of pre-1996 and post-1996.

Dave has linked to an Al Featherston article that touches on a sociological aspect of Duke's success, that not only is overlooked, but that is actually often thought to be the reverse of the truth. Because Duke is such a prestigious school, with an elite student body, many of whom come from well-to-do backgrounds, people assume the same about Duke's white players and its coach.

As Featherston says, this is far from the truth. Mike Krzyzewski comes from a working-class background, out of the Polish neighborhoods of Chicago, with the accent to boot. Some of his players have been the children of NBAer's (or NFL'ers) like Dunleavy, Ferry, Collins or Hill, but many, such as Bilas and Laettner were tough-nosed kids who grew up far away from privilege.

During the first part of Krzyzewski's career, there seemed to be even a greater contrast between the Duke and Carolina teams. Dean Smith, the son of schoolteachers, had an efficient, aristocratic program that was fueled by Class A talent, but often was perceived to be playing without either joy or emotion.

From the very beginning, Mike Krzyzewski seemed unafraid to tweak the ACC powers to be, noting upon being hired and asked about competing with Smith, that the ACC had many fine coaches to contend with, rather than kissing the ring of the Carolina coach. His mannerisms on the sideline were certainly unusual for a conference located south of the Mason-Dixon. There had always been fiery coaches like Driesell and McGuire, but no one had ever seemed quite so indulgent in using the 7 words that you can't say on television, as K.

K was smart, tough and somewhat crude and so were his teams, in a good way, if you will. Particularly in K's pre-1992 teams, Duke was often an overachieving bunch of scrappers, talented yes but not incredibly so, but more driven to win, as opposed to the more elite, incredibly-talented Duke teams post-1996 which generally have stared down at opponents from the established hill of greatness.

In the 1980's Duke's defensive play was so intense and some said, physical, that many teams across the country simply seemed overwhelmed in the NCAA tournament, as they did not have the benefit of seeing Duke multiple times and preparing the way that teams in the ACC did.

Fred Barakat, the former ACC chief of officials, noted that there was a change in what was allowed on defense and felt that this change aided the ACC in winning titles in the 1990's and 2000's. They style change coordinated well with Duke's aggressive, in your face defense.

"When I came in, the ACC had the reputation that this league was a touch-foul call league," Barakat said. "There were so many whistles and so much free throw shooting that when they got out into intersectional play, that physical play ... that was a huge adjustment.
"I came in with the advantage-disadvantage concept. It had always been out there, but it became a major emphasis for us. I wanted to change the idea of rule-istic or legalistic - a strict interpretation of the rules - to a more realistic approach, spirit and intent, advantage-disadvantage. So contact, of what there is so much of, is not necessarily a foul unless the contact leads to an advantage.

"That's a whole new concept for our fans to buy. That first year or two, we were going booed off the court on no-calls. My job was to teach the referees how to suck on the whistle instead of blow on the whistle. That was a hard adjustment."

Carolina was the aristocratic team of these times, talent-laden and usually at the top of the league, but prone to either bad luck or lapses in the post-season, depending on your point of view. Carolina was ranked number one in the nation several different seasons and had two 14-0 seasons in the ACC, after their championship win against Georgetown in 1982, but were never able to make it back to the Final Four during the rest of the decade. Although excellent on both ends of the court, Carolina seemed somewhat lackadaisical on defense when compared to the snarling Blue Devils.

Duke, by contrast, probably only had one great talent-laden team during the 1980's, the team with Dawkins, Amaker, Bilas, Alarie and Henderson and that team fell just short in 1986, losing against Louisville in the championship game.

But in terms of coaching achievement, the final years of the 1980's were some of K's best work, in terms of beating expectations. For instance, the 1988, 1989, and 1990 Blue Devils all made the Final Four without finishing first in the ACC regular season standings and never receiving a number 1 seed. Indeed, Duke finished a somewhat mediocre 9-5 in conference(by their current standards) all three seasons and yet still made it to the Final Four all three years.

In 1991, Duke had added Grant Hill, perhaps their first truly great athlete, and managed to finish first in the conference, but got annihilated by UNC in the ACC tourney by 25 points. This cost Duke the number one seed, and yet, still managed to make it to the Final Four and win their first title, with the mediocre record (for a champion, only, of course) of 32-7.

That made it four straight Final Four's for Duke, and in none of these four seasons was Duke a number 1 seed in the NCAA tourney. In both 1989 and 1991, Carolina beat Duke in the ACC tournament final and Duke still went farther than Carolina in the post-season each year.

Often, it is difficult to extract the portion of "luck" from any team's or coach's performance, but Krzyzewski's performance as a coach from 1986-1991 seemed to lead the Blue Devils consistently to post-season success far greater than their regular season performance had implied. In 1992, Duke held serve.

In 1994, Duke again surprised. Although the Blue Devils had finished first in the regular season by one game over UNC, UNC was defending champ and had added Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse and Jeff McInnis to its stable, and appeared to be ready for a repeat in Charlotte after winning the ACC tourney, garnering the number 1 seed.

Duke got a number 2 seed and to the chagrin of many North Carolinians, Duke ended up playing Arkansas in the title game in Charlotte, coming within a whisker of winning a game, they seemed to have in hand.

Since 1997, Krzyzewski's performance has lagged in the other direction, with Duke almost always receiving number 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament, in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006, and yet making only 3 Final Fours and winning only 1 NCAA tourney during those years.

Was Krzyzewski a better coach early in his career, with those scrappy blue collar teams that helped elevate the Duke program to parity with UNC and Kentucky, or was he simply the recipient of a few more good bounces during those years?

It is hard to deny than he would later suffer some excruciatingly close defeats in championship games to Arkansas in 1994, and to UConn in 1999 by his 37-1 Blue Devils--arguably his best team ever. Then there were the NCAA losses to Kentucky, Indiana and UConn in games in which he had big leads and to Michigan State and Louisiana State, in games in which Duke lost to clearly weaker teams.

Was it just bad luck or did Krzyzewski have a coaching style most well suited to working with underdogs? Certainly, his third title team, while talented, did less well in the ACC than had the prior 3 Duke teams and struggled mightily to defeat Maryland in both the ACC title game and the Final Four. Coming back from more than 20 points in the Semi-finals, and then fighting past Arizona for the title, the 2001 team seem to have more of the blue-collar ethic that Duke had been known for in the past.

And so my answer to the question as to whether K has had more bad luck at the end of his career, or whether he was an even better coach early on, is maybe a little bit of both. Like anyone, K might have been hungrier when he was starting out, but if Laettner had not hit two sensational last second shots in 1990 and 1992, Duke would have been to two fewer Final Fours and would have won one fewer championship.

Looking at this year, Krzyzewski might have a chance to return to his roots. The 2007 Blue Devils are a gritty, defensive-oriented team, that can really clamp down on the opposition when they are playing their game. While the Blue Devils lost several games to ACC teams more acclimated to their schemes, Duke had excellent success against teams from outside the ACC, stifling the number one rated offensive team in the country, Georgetown, as well as Indiana, another top offensive team. Duke seemed to have the greatest trouble with teams that excelled on the defensive end, losing all four games against Maryland and UNC, two teams which are its equal on defense.

Neither VCU nor Pittsburgh is an especially impressive defensive team. If Duke can deal with any possible internal issues it might have, the Blue Devils might be poised to surprise and go deeper in the tournament than many of their naysayers believe.