Duke Faces UNC in Coach K's Home Finale
It’s time. We’ve reached the end of the road.
From the time coach Mike Krzyzewski announced that this season would be his last, he’s tried to keep the team focused on the path directly in front of it, instead of what laid ahead. He went as far as to ban the words “final” and “last” from Duke’s vocabulary.
Time after time, he deflected questions about his feelings as the end neared. That happened even this week, when Coach K evoked images of his shot blocking center Mark Williams, swatting away questions about the UNC game.
“My total focus is on Pitt,” he said, speaking of the game Duke played on Tuesday night, after press time. “I don’t look at a week. I look at my next opponent. I’ve done that since I learned how to coach a few decades ago.”
“We’ve always evoked a lot of attention, maybe a little bit more now, but it’s something I’ve had the honor of dealing with for a good part of my career,” he said later. “Pitt’s the only thing on my mind right now.”
Krzyzewski finished off his shutdown of UCN talk with, “It doesn’t make any difference what happens afterwards. We want to beat Pitt and lock up the No. 1 seed (in the ACC). To me, that’s the biggest thing happening this week.”
But now, with Pitt in the books, there are no detours left. Last and final can reenter the lexicon. Krzyzewski’s time at Duke is down to one more regular season game—Saturday evening, at Cameron Indoor, against North Carolina.
It promises to be the hottest ticket in sports, with the cheapest available seats on the secondary market starting at $3,000. The average price is higher than most Super Bowls, NBA Finals and World Series tickets. A charity auction bidder before the season paid a million dollars for four seats.
In addition to being Coach K’s final game, it’s against the Tar Heels, which is always a hot ticket. Duke may have already wrapped up the regular season title by game time, while UNC is currently at No. 3 in the league. As they are wont to do, Duke students have been camping outside Cameron for more than a month, one last time pitching a tent in Krzyzewskiville before the area gets renamed Scheyerland.
Duke won by 20 in Chapel Hill last month. Before the game, in the tunnel leading to the court, Krzyzewski posed for a photo with Roy Williams, who retired after 18 years as UNC coach prior to this season. Also joining them were Hubert Davis, a former Tar Heel player and Williams assistant who replaced him on the bench, and Jon Scheyer, a former Blue Devil player and Krzyzewski assistant who will replace him when this season ends.
“It was great,” Coach K said of the photo. “I have the ultimate respect (for them). I’m friends with both Roy and Hubert. I have friendship and respect professionally for what they’ve done with the program and carrying on the tradition that’s been there since Coach (Frank) McGuire. Dean (Smith) cemented it. They’ve kept it going. It meant a lot to have that and to have Hubert and Jon in the picture, because they’ll be the ones carrying it forward for a number of years ahead of them.”
It was a private moment of reflection that eventually came out on social media, when the photo was posted. There was also one time this season when Coach K let his deflector shields down publicly, following his penultimate game at Cameron, a win over Florida State on Feb. 19. He had just returned to the bench after suffering a health scare against Wake Forest, and he took a moment to look down the road.
“We have Virginia coming up,” he started. “That’s all I’m thinking of. There’s plenty of time for that.”
Then he reversed course abruptly, giving one fleeting glimpse as to what he’s feeling.
“I know it will be emotional the last game here,” he said. “Some of these games have been a little bit emotional for me in one way and another. Even today with all the crowd, you want to savor that feeling because you’re only going to be able to walk out on that court one more time and have that feeling, but it makes me understand how lucky I’ve been to do it hundreds of times. Not a dozen… Like 600 times or… I don’t know how many games I’ve coached, but a lot. And how lucky I’ve been to have a moment like that to savor, but I’ve had those moments hundreds of times. It’s been a blessing to be the coach here and with this crowd and our culture. Lucky guy. I’ve been a very, very lucky guy.”
Your officials for today: Roger Ayers, Jamie Luckie, Raymie Styons
Lineups: Moore, Keels, Williams, Banchero, Griffin vs. Black, Love, Davis, Bacot, Manek
Video board showed Jerry Seinfeld, Ken Jeong in attendance. Also 110 current or former Duke players that played for Coach K (out of 208 total that played for him at Duke) are here. NBA Hall of Famer Dirk Notwitzki is also here, although he may be rooting for the Tar Heels & former teammate Hubert Davis
All the former players came onto the court to pose for a photo with Coach K. Here's the back of the photo...
Duke off kilter early on. Lots of bobbled passes and missed shots. Bacot is aggressive early, although he picked up a bad foul. UNC leads at the under 16, 11-4
Rough sequence for Puff Johnson. Bricked a three off the backboard, then fell down on defense, allowing a layup.
A Caleb Love shot attempt gets blocked out of bounds ... again, sending us to the under 12. Duke trails 15-14.
Flagrant 1 on Theo John gives UNC a boost. Heels lead 26-23 at the under 8. Puff Johnson picks up his third as we go to break, though.
Boom. Duke hits UNC with a 12-0 run, capped by a Griffin 3. 35-28 Duke with 4:17 to go in the first half. Time out UNC
Love hits a three for his first made shot of the game. Duke lead cut to 37-33 after just being in double digits. Time out Duke. 1:54 until half
RJ Davis for three at the buzzer to cut the Duke lead to 41-39.
UNC has no answer for Banchero. He's up to 17 points. Duke extends the lead to 50-44 early in the second half
Duke calls time out after UNC cuts the lead back to two points, 56-54, 11:40 left.
Boom! UNC goes 9-0 to lead 65-61 with 8:49 left
And a 6-0 run makes it 79-71. Danger zone for Duke right now
Moore for three. Duke calls time, down 79-74, 2:58 left.
Getting down to it now. UNC ball, up 82-76, 1:47 left
UNC up 86-76, final minute. Duke fouling. The Tar Heels are going to crash Coach K's going away party
That'll do it. Heels win 94-81
