GREENSBORO
For Mike Krzyzewski, the emotion of winning No.880 came at the beginning rather than the end.
“The crowd amazed me,” Krzyzewski said, his eyes turning misty. “When I walked out, I saw it was a full house, and so many Duke fans. I did take a moment to reflect back when I first got to North Carolina and there weren’t a lot of Duke shirts.”
The Greensboro Coliseum crowd of 22,178 — called a sellout despite clusters of empty seats — broke UNC Greensboro’s attendance record, but Duke shirts dominated the color scheme Wednesday night. The top-ranked Blue Devils controlled the game from the tip and shot 72 percent in the second half while mashing the winless Spartans 108-62.
In his relentless climb up history’s ladder, Krzyzewski could have broken the second-place tie with North Carolina’s Dean Smith without breaking a sweat. But that isn’t his nature.
Late in the first half, soon after Ryan Kelly had missed another jumper and right after Josh Hairston had dribbled into a senseless turnover with a 43-22 lead, Krzyzewski jumped off the bench and screamed: “Run the play.” Then he spun and yelled at the seated reserves, including Kelly: “You big guys, all you’re doing is shooting the (bloody) ball.”
The episode elicited knowing grins from the nearby Duke entourage, foremost among them Krzyzewski’s wife, Mickie, and prompted a chuckle from the occasional well-placed detractor.
The visual leader of that contingent sat in the front row directly across from Krzyzewski holding an inventive sign consisting of Coach Smith’s oversized picture with a large slit suitable for a moving tongue. In essence, the poster amounted to Smith sticking his tongue out at his former rival.
Right before halftime, security guards took the poster away, acting on instructions from the Coliseum’s director, Matt Brown.
“I thought it was more offensive to Dean Smith than to Coach K,” Brown said after the game. “It was offensive. There was no First Amendment issue. It’s a call, and it’s my call.”
For his part, Krzyzewski liked calling the Greensboro Coliseum home once again. His teams are 39-9 in the building, with five of his 12 ACC Tournament championships.
Some Duke fans reveled in passing Smith, who was 24-14 in head-to-head matches against Krzyzewski’s teams. Smith leads in ACC Tournament trophies 13-12 and first-place finishes 17-12. They both coached Olympics gold medalists, but Krzyzewski now has more overall wins and NCAA titles (4-2). One sign with Smith’s photo read: “I wanna be like Mike.”
Krzyzewski again took a different tone. He thanked Smith for sending him a congratulatory message and for setting high standards. “I thought he did it in a way that served as an example for everyone else,” Krzyzewski said. “We’ve tried to do it in many similar ways but tried to be our own people, too.”
The countdown will resume in two months. Krzyzewski needs 23 more victories to top his Army coach, Bobby Knight, “the greatest coach.” Despite point guard Kyrie Irving’s injury, that’s a reasonable goal this season with 20 more games guaranteed and 28 more possible.
“Coach, I think, should probably still be at Indiana, and if he was there he’d have probably 1,100 wins,” Krzyzewski said, alluding to Knight’s losing clash with the school president that led to a late-career stop at Texas Tech.
But those are all ifs. The record book lists Knight at 902, Krzyzewski at 880.
“I talk to Coach Knight about once a week, but we don’t talk about number of wins,” Krzyzewski said. “We talk about, first of all, whatever he’s shooting at that time, wherever he’s hunting. ‘What did you shoot today?’ And hopefully it’s not somebody; it’s some thing. After he gives me a ceremonious laugh, he’ll tell me about where he’s gone or ‘the damn pheasants aren’t doing the right thing’ or the wild turkeys or whatever. He’s asked me to go hunting a few times. I said: ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m not going hunting. There’s no way. I’m from the city.’”
The 63-year-old son of Chicago will settle for hunting down a few more wins, or a lot more.
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