Coach K: How Can You Have an Opening Statement For Duke-Carolina?
When Mike Krzyzewski met with the media in the days leading up to Duke’s rivalry game against North Carolina, he passed on the chance to start his remarks with an opening statement, going straight to reporters’ questions.
“I don’t have … how can you have an opening statement for Duke Carolina?” he said. “Duke Carolina is the opening statement.”
The game will be held in an empty Cameron Indoor Stadium, which is a vast difference from the normally wild, raucous environment that greets the visiting Tar Heels.
“I’m not sure we ever will get used to it because it’s so different,” Coach K said. “Again, it’s that way for everybody, but it’s going to be weird. I’ve coached in over 90 Duke-North Carolina games and the ones in Cameron – how lucky have I been to be able to walk out of my locker room and you come in and boom – the buzz, the energy that you get from a crowd like that is amazing. What has to happen is we have to get a certain level of energy without that. That’s another goal that you have as a leader during this time is to get that energy up. It’ll never be as up as it is with that crowd. It’s impossible.”
Krzyzewski has coached nearly 100 Duke-Carolina games, but he has trouble pinpointing a signature moment.
“When you’re asking me, I try to think of them, but it’s really the craving of the next one that you’re thinking about more so than what happened,” he said. “I do know that our social media put out something this week about Nolan (Smith’s) senior year, so I got to see that moment where we came back and he had his best game ever in Cameron. Individual stuff like that where a kid hits a shot or we make a stop, some unusual play, a stop at the end of a game where Wojo (Steve Wojciechowski) is slapping the floor and we got the stop. It’s not necessarily a shot – it’s one play. There’s defensive and offensive plays when you start thinking about it and say ‘Wow, it was nice to be in that moment.’”
