By NICK SLOAN, KCKPreps.com
NJSloan212@gmail.com
One of the pet peeves for 99 percent of non-Duke college basketball fans out there is the love (and in some cases,
way too much love) the Duke Blue Devils and Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski receives from the sports press, led by Dick Vitale and ESPN.
The recent example of this was the saturation of coverage regarding Coach K's 904th victory, passing his mentor Bob Knight for the all-time lead among men's college basketball coaches.
While the fans have some good arguments at times and while Vitale's excessive love for Duke can be tiring, most of it is well deserved.
There's a very compelling argument that Coach K is the greatest head coach in the history of American sports.
Better than legendary Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi. Better than legendary New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel. Better than the great Phil Jackson of the NBA and Scotty Bowman of the NHL.
Why is the love given towards Duke warranted?
Let's start with a handful of good reasons:
1. Krzyzewski runs a class program. In my exhaustive online research, precisely one former Krzyzewski player has been arrested since 1998. I don't have time to go back all the way to when Krzyzewski began coaching at Duke, but I have to imagine the amount of arrests are probably under five. Even though they annoyed us college basketball fans, anyone with a brain can admit that Duke's players are solid human beings first. Shane Battier was a class act. Jason Williams was a very classy individual while playing at Duke. Same for Kyle Singler, Grant Hill and all Blue Devil players not named J.J. Reddick and Christian Laettner. To compare that Kansas under Bill Self, the program Duke is competing against in the Maui Classic title game Wednesday night, at least seven Jayhawks have been arrested since 2007. No coach runs a classier college basketball program with perhaps the exception of North Carolina Tar Heels head coach Roy Williams. The fact all of the former great Krzyzewski players were on hand to see him break the record speaks volumes.
2. Duke is one of the great success stories. Private schools with considerably lower enrollment and higher academic standards are not supposed to win four national titles in basketball since 1990 or make 11 Final Fours since 1986. There's no JUCO transfers at Duke. There are no players who "barely qualify" to get into Duke. It's not UCLA, where standards were lower during the John Wooden era. It's not even North Carolina, who's enrollment squishes Duke. Duke's academic standards do not allow Krzyzewski to recruit just anyone.
3. Duke's style of play. This reason why to respect Duke is very under-appreciated, but here goes. It's not about individualism at Duke. Trophies outside of the national title do not matter at Duke. Since my time watching college basketball, I cannot recall anytime I have referred to a Duke player as selfish. Not even the great ones like Battier or Elton Brand. They also play great man-to-man defense that requires great understanding of team defense. They hustle. While the "patting down the floor" thing annoys me, it symbolizes the hard-work Krzyzewski and his staff espouses.
4. Krzyzewski does not let the inmates run the asylum. Duke does not have inmates, but you get the picture. It is very hard for me to imagine a player bossing around Coach K. It's hard for me to imagine Krzyzewski being disrespected continually by a player or two. Krzyzewski also comes off as a coach who puts academics first. Very rarely you hear about Duke players not qualifying. The portion about "letting the inmates run the asylum" is probably the item a lot of high school coaches need to learn first before they can truly become a great head coach rather than just an empty suit.
5. Krzyzewski saved Team USA basketball. This one is purely a selfish reason, but I don't care. The United States men's basketball team - one that was filled with NBA players - was getting embarrassed in international play before Coach K took it over. Since Krzyzewski took it over, Team USA is winning again. They won the world championships. They won a gold medal in Beijing.
While it may be tough for the Kansas Jayhawks fans who read this site to stomach Duke, those are five reasons why they deserve a lot of the respect dished out to them.
Krzyzewski is not my personal favorite (that title belongs to Kentucky's John Calipari), but even Duke haters can appreciate what he's done for the game of basketball.
