SAN FRANCISCO - He swears he can't remember records or scores, but he can't forget an ending. The destructive ones, the happy ones and everyone who falls somewhere in between. This one, however - the last one - is finished from the beginning.
It has taken on the spirit of ritual. Each game begins in the same way, with Duke's players on the court, followed by the assistant coach, and finally, Mike Krzyzewski. He walks out of the locker room a little limp these days, looking like a man who has left something behind but no longer has time to find it. He's a 75-year-old king at the end of a royal procession, half a minute or so behind the young heiress assistant John Shearer.
Krzyzewski has made this walk 1,569 times as a head coach, of them an astonishing 1,437 in the 42 years as Duke's head coach. For the past two weeks, he has left every locker room knowing that this might be the last time. Every game, every practice is likely to be wildly important or just another day, and after beating Arkansas on Saturday night, Krzyzewski's long goodbye earned itself another week. Either Saturday or the following Monday in New Orleans, where the Blue Devils will play in the Final Four for the 13th and final time in Krzyzewski's career, there will be a practice final and a walk-in final. Saturday or Monday, and the difference between those 48 hours is immeasurable.
He swears he doesn't want it to be about her, but has no hope. Next week in college basketball, like the last nine months in college basketball, will be about him. His players ensured that with a 78–69 victory over the Razorbacks in the West Regional Finals, and when the interrogation became inevitable—a player poised to win for the coach—he interrupted with a tone that could pierce the skin.
"We've already been two champions," Krzyzewski said. "He's got everything done. Let's talk about him. He's won a regular-season championship and now has a regional. He did that. He did it for us. Here's about doing it for the old man." I've had enough. We're not going to do it until we all own it. We all have this moment together."
This came a day after a reporter suggested that he had never noticed the slackness that Coach Kay displayed in the first two weeks of the tournament. “I am not a loose man, but…” he said, and everyone only laughed at the suggestion that he had the ability to prolong the most liberal definition of loose for more than a self-deprecating pinch. From the outside, it always seems like this: joy far exceeds anger.
He is one of the oldest in the old school and the advocate of a brand of consignment that has slowly decreased in popularity over the decades. Regiment, demanding, at times serious. A lot will be left with him when he leaves - some of it is worth keeping, some not. He succumbed to changes in the game, taking full advantage of an evolved system with full murmurs.
Even their celebration has been kept silent. When Trevor Kielce hit a last-second 3 and gave Duke a 12-point halftime lead over Arkansas, Krzyzewski allowed himself two loud hand claps as he walked across the court. This euphoria – as if someone was blowing dust off their palms – is about a celebration that is allowed within a strict diet of bigotry.
He will be remembered for the winning record, which currently sits at 1,202, and five - perhaps six - for the national title, but the lasting image will be of a man standing on the sidelines, his face a sob of agony as He cups his hands around her mouth and shouts for his team to rest.
Duke's running through this tournament has been an extended exercise of connecting the past with the present. In the final minutes against Texas Tech, Krzyzewski called for his team to slap the defense on the floor as a callback to the days of Quinn Snyder and Sant Vojo. It drew a huge cheer from people engaged in that sort of thing. Calling all ghosts, it seems, and you can say it worked. Or, at least, you could say there's no evidence he didn't.
2:42 p.m. On Wednesday, the day Duke defeated the Red Raiders to advance to the Elite Eight, several Duke student managers set up the gear needed for Coach Kay's final practice as Duke's head coach. shouted on the court in the chase center.
He didn't know at the time, but after 42 years, 12 -- now 13 -- Final Four and five national championships, decades of All-American and first-round NBA draft picks and nearly-infinite hours in the gym, this weekend saw him playing. Will provide five or six more opportunities to assess the geometry and strength of their players and try to devise a plan to take them one step further to where they all want to be.
Practice folder in hand, whistle on a loop around his neck, he walks onto the court at exactly 2:45, as practice begins at exactly 2:45. He walked with a slight lameness, his face—at rest just minutes before a news conference—as his feet hit the hardwood. Jaw frozen, mouth pricked. His brows fell down to darken his eyes, making it look like someone was looking for something important.
It's what they all miss the most: control. This is the time when only the privileged see, and only he manages to have those invisible moments that determine what will ultimately be brought to light. This is when it is game, and only game.
His players ran through a staccato shooting drill, shots were rolling in from corners and wings, and Krzyzewski stood under the basket, watching what could be a millionth time. Players made fun of each other's abilities and laughed and celebrated, while Krzyzewski remained adamant, his expression unchanged, and sometimes cut the leverage with instruction. "Ready shot," barked when someone took too long to gather. "Shot ready."
The former Army officer's practice is crisp and organized, all sharp angles and functional movement, as it has been since he first put a whistle around his neck at West Point at age 28. Coaches can only control so much, which is why many of them micromanage all controllers, knowing that once a game starts it can be impossible to rein in.
Control what you can control is usually a partial surrender, a way of explaining how you find peace with things that are beyond your realm. Sometimes, however, it means inventing things to counteract the times when control is impossible. Micromanaging the controllables is a way to counteract what happens when the game starts and nothing can be done, which may begin to explain why he keeps two rosaries in his pocket during games .
Three players, Paolo Banchero, Wendell Moore Jr. and Mark Williams, spoke for the Duke team on the podium on Wednesday afternoon. The conversation, of course, wound its way around Coach Kay's retirement: what it means for him, for him, the world at large, and how much inspiration it provides.
He was allowed to reply this time. (The coach wasn't there.) They looked at each other blankly, with the teenager's heavy gaze asked to speak in class. Two looked at one and one looked at two, their eyes begging each other to take on the subject which they have been doing for a long time but are not knowing. In the end, it fell to Banchero, who said all the right things, including, "All season we've been dealing with it. It's been the coach's last thing in every game." But then they added something that was lost in the coronation and conversation: they wanted to win it for themselves as well.
"I mean, it's not all that we're inspired by, obviously," he said. "We come out and we know this could be our last game as a group."
Krzyzewski's fortune – and his legacy – was formed by young men like these: strong, talented, on his way to something better. From Grant Hill to Alton Brand to Kyrie Irving to Zion Williamson to AJ Griffin, they sit in some version of the same formation, their coaches to their right, in front of hundreds of journalists trying to make their talents for them. Sitting with the intention of chronicling the potential. vision.
Given the circumstances, this group has heard it more than anyone else.
For as long as anyone can remember, it's told specifically of him: he leans forward in his chair on the bench, reaches down and pulls his socks through his pant legs. He usually does so while doing something else, either shouting the line for a substitute or barking up the kind of slang that has made him the leading professor of lip-reading in America.
The West Regional Final's first sock pull came just two minutes into the game, when Stanley Umude flipped over a lap to give Arkansas a 4-2 lead. For the most part, though, the socks got a break; The outcome was only sporadically in doubt. (Close games are hell at the seam.) As the clock ran out, Krzyzewski was still calling plays and setting the terms of the engagement. The first indication that it was anything more than a January game against Wake Forest came in the last minute, when he stood on the sidelines and stretched out his arms in a twitch of excitement. He brought Moore out of the game, who was clearly a favorite, and hugged him before reaching the bench. His career's 1,202nd win was certain, as well as his record 13th Final Four.
He acknowledged that this one is different, possibly better, but he wouldn't go that far, and no one was brave enough to ask. But how could it not be better? A national title with this team, which features two freshmen, two sophomores and one junior starts, will show the world that you can win whatever era you throw at it. As much as he laments the changes, one-and-dones, and transfers in the game, it will mean something to go on as an old man with a net around his neck that can evolve and adapt. could. There was a slight hoarseness in his voice after the game, and when he ended a statement by saying, "Let's go to New Orleans."
He had completed all the prescribed rituals: he diligently walked the line to shake hands to greet and console the Arkansas players; He dutifully but reluctantly withheld the trophy to conquer the region, ensuring that Moore would join him; And he climbed the ladder to cut off the last strand of the net, foolishly pretending to sink it before completing the task.
Then he went, and kissed his wife, and they walked hand in hand towards the tunnel. He looked tired and exhausted, but at the same time as happy as he is likely to get. He morphed into a man who could take another week - at most - of it. And somehow, inside that same tired, drained look, you might discover something else: a man who's about to get the hell out of it a second time.