Coach K: "You’re Not Ordained to Win or Lose"
With No. 1 Kentucky losing to Evansville early in the week and Georgia State putting a first-half scare in Duke, Mike Krzyzewski discussed upsets in college basketball.
“Human nature,” he said. “There’s nobody who is supposed to win. Nobody is supposed to win or supposed to lose. You’re not ordained to win or lose. That’s why it’s called competition, and people who compete and work hard turn out to be winners, and people who don’t turn out to be the team that the winners beat.”
One thing that can lead to upset losses is a lack of intensity, which Coach K saw in his team early on Friday.
“They didn’t approach the game with the intensity that they needed to,” Krzyzewski said. “I’m not saying they weren’t ready. They weren’t ready at the level they needed to play that team at, and that team saw it. I’ve told my team this a number of times, ‘In the past couple of games, coaches have come in here and said how hard Duke plays, Boy, they’d like to see how Coach K does it, and those are great compliments, and that is our calling card. If you show up and don’t play hard, that gives a lot of confidence to the other team – ‘ Oh, they’re not who we thought they were.’ That’s human nature too. So if we don’t come out and match or exceed that effort, we’re giving our opponent momentum right from the start. And I thought that was evident right away, because we weren’t strong with the ball. And, not that they weren’t confident, their confidence grew.”
