Not many foresaw it, but the way Mike Krzyzewski’s career ended Saturday was the way it was always supposed to end — the only acceptable alternate to the storybook finish he was carving out.
If Duke couldn’t win a title in Coach K’s final game, the only other fitting ending was for him to lose to North Carolina. And the basketball gods delivered big time with Duke-UNC in the Final Four, a national semifinal that was more than improbable.
As it turned out, UNC’s first win over K this season was the lift it needed to chart this path. Had Duke just taken care of the Tar Heels as 11.5-point favorites in Krzyzewki’s final game at Cameron Indoor, North Carolina maybe doesn’t make it this far. Instead, Duke lit the fuse to a bomb that blew up in its own hand. This time as 4.5-point favorites, the Blue Devils were upset by the Tar Heels to send Coach K home for good.
After how they looked in previous rounds, many of us were riding Duke’s moneyline to the end — 60% of bettors at Tipico Sportsbook picked Duke to beat UNC. But maybe we should’ve seen this coming. It’s a poetic, even if bitter ending to a legendary career. No one had better perspective on how it ended than the man himself.
"These kids made my last time in the arena an amazing one."
Coach K on his Duke team this season #MFinalFour pic.twitter.com/Ecs5p1pQaL
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 3, 2022
“I’ll be fine,” Krzyzewski said after the game. “I’ve been blessed to be in the arena. And when you’re in the arena, you’re either going to come out feeling great or you’re going to feel agony, but you always will feel great about being in the arena. And I’m sure that’s the thing, when I look back, that I’ll miss. I won’t be in the arena anymore. But, damn, I was in the arena for a long time. And these kids made my last time in the arena an amazing one.”
In 42 years as Duke’s head coach, Krzyzewski has a 1,129-308 record, 13 ACC regular-season titles, 15 ACC tourney titles, 36 NCAA tourney trips, 101 tourney wins, 13 Final Fours and five national titles. He’s widely regarded as one of, if not the greatest coach ever. And through it all, UNC has been there to make sure none of it went unchallenged.
The Tar Heels’ win pulled them to an even 50-50 against Duke in the Coach K-era (Krzyzewski didn’t coach two losses in 1994-95). They also have the same number of titles since he took over in 1980. And just when it looked like he might break that tie, they forced the first NCAA tournament meeting between these teams and sent him into retirement a game early.
If any team was going to send Coach K off into retirement, it was always going to be them.