“Maybe you can attack a sunset,” he said. And he came down a Superdome tunnel with a smile on his face and a smile on Mickie’s as North Carolina closed out their bid for a sixth national title, just as he had closed his bid for a proper farewell at his last home. game in Duke. Krzyzewski saw his players crying in the locker room on Saturday night and actually called it “a beautiful spectacle”. Beautiful because these tears proved how much he cared for his children and how hard they had competed. These incredibly young Blue Devils made him a precious gift. Gathered early in the year, they delivered those remarkable five minutes at the end of the game against Michigan State in their second game in the NCAA Tournament and sent Coach K on this crazy ride. He was never going to break John Wooden’s record of 10 national titles, of course, but those guys pushed him beyond Wooden on that 13th trip to the Final Four and Krzyzewski was never able to repay them in full. When that 81-77 North Carolina victory was over and I was frozen in life, I asked my 75-year-old grandfather if the Michigan Rally that started it all would be his lasting memory in the tournament after the pain subsided. Eventually he started talking like the old warriors do. Mike Krzyzewski leaves a press conference with his wife Mickie after Duke’s 81-77 loss to Final Four in North Carolina. “Maybe you can attack a sunset,” Coach K joked to reporters.AP “I have the blessing of being in the arena,” Krzyzewski said. “And when you are in the arena, you will either go out wonderfully or you will feel anxious. But you will always feel great when you are in the arena. And I’m sure I will miss that when I look back. But hell, I was in the arena for a long time. And these guys made my last time in the arena amazing “. Amen to that. Krzyzewski watched Duke’s last vain possession from his chair in the elevated court, with his arms crossed on his chest. As he was bleeding from his watch for the last few seconds, he got up and walked officially to the Carolina bench to congratulate the winners, who greeted him politely. Hubert Davis’s Tar Heels managed to party on the pitch as if it were New Year. Dude, every one of them’s right now. And yes, that’s the decent thing to do, and it should end there. In his third game as Blue Devils coach, securing the Tar Heels victory, Dean Smith made the mistake of walking to the Duke bench for a handshake, while he needed two more pointless free throws. Coach K rejected the handshake. “The damn game is not over yet, Dean,” he barked. At the Carolina bench, Assistant Roy Williams initially thought that an ACC rookie should not behave like that to a legend before proceeding with further evaluation. “This is a competitive guy,” Williams said of Krzyzewski at the time. “It’s right to its own standards. And he was right, the game was not over. “ All games are over now for Coach K, his 42-year career at Duke finally closed at the Superdome, which opened the same year (1975) that Krzyzewski began his career in the Army. Occasionally on Saturday night, coach K jumped out of his chair, punched him and urged his team furiously, to no avail. Mark Williams missed two crucial free throws late, followed by a three-pointer by Caleb Love which was the dagger. In a rivalry defined by hatred, Love was the difference, finishing with 28 points. Mike Krzyzewski Getty Images Now the Blue Devils have to deal with these consequences of losing one of the biggest games in the history of the sport to their neighbors. Honestly, Krzyzewski and his legacy will be fine. His five national titles equate to the total won by Roy Williams (3) and Smith (2). He also retires with a personal record of 50-48 victories against the Tar Heels, and a total of 1,202 wins – including 101 in the NCAA tournament – that no man will ever match. But he will not return to the arena and this will hurt more than anything else. Krzyzewski ran his first basketball program at the age of 12 when his Chicago elementary school, St. Helen, refused to give him the team he wanted to play in a CYO championship. Young Mike instead organized a team that took over everyone who came to other neighborhoods. “Parents are not involved,” he said. His winning percentage was better than most. Sixty-three years later, it’s all over. There are no other conversations to say. There are no other calling games. There are no other games to win. There are no other teams to lead. His career began seven months after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and ended five weeks after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He started on an old, dusty farm near the West Point River and finished at the Superdome in New Orleans. What an incredible journey this was. The best he has ever done, Krzyzewski definitely loved his latest team of players. “It was fine for me to train,” he said. Late Saturday night, Coach K knew when it was time to say goodbye. He loaded himself into this golf cart and slowly disappeared into a tunnel. All good West Point men know how to go about it.
