The most memorable moments from Coach K's career

Gene Banks placed his name in the history of the UNC-Duke rivalry with his putback with 19 seconds remaining to give unranked Duke a 66-65 victory over the No. 11 Tar Heels. Banks began his senior night dressed in a tuxedo and tossing roses into the Cameron crowd. He ended regulation with a jumper at the buzzer to send the game into overtime and ended the game with his OT putback. This was a huge win for Krzyzewski in his first season at Duke. 

The 1982-1983 Duke Blue Devils weren't very good. They would finish the season 3-11 in ACC play and 11-17 overall. Their final game was their only game in the ACC tournament ... a 43-point loss to No. 2 Virginia and their big man, Ralph Sampson. In his first three seasons in Durham, Coach K was 38-47 overall and 13-29 in ACC play. He hadn't reached an NCAA tournament, while his Triangle rivals North Carolina and NC State had won the 1982 and 1983 national championships, respectively. 

In what may be the one game you can point to as the moment Mike Krzyzewski had his Duke program on the track to big things, the Blue Devils' ACC tournament win over North Carolina in 1984 was a huge deal. Led by Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins, the Tar Heels were a national championship favorite and their 14-0 ACC record was five games better than anyone else in the conference.  Duke squeaked by Georgia Tech, 67-63, in overtime to reach the ACC semifinals in a showdown with Carolina.

Duke was confident they could win. They lost to the Heels by five at Carmeron and took them to two overtimes before losing in the regular season finale in Chapel Hill. The Devils held down Perkins and forced Jordan into a bad shooting day to eek out a 77-75 victory. The win locked in an NCAA tournament berth, even though they'd lose to Len Bias and Maryland the following day. 

The 1986 season is really the year where Krzyzewski's Duke career truly arrived. While building up the program in his first five years with key, establishing wins, the 1985-1986 season vaulted them as a legitimate power in and outside the ACC. Duke was led by Johnny Dawkins, Tommy Amaker, Mark Alarie, Jay Bilas, Danny Ferry and David Henderson

The Blue Devils finished the ACC slate by beating North Carolina and winning their first regular season championship since 1965-1966. 

Mike Krzyzewski reached his first Final Four at Duke in his sixth season, cruising through the East Region as the top seed. Once in Dallas, the Blue Devils held on to a four point win over Larry Brown's Kansas Jayhawks and setting up a title game showdown with the Louisville Cardinals.

Louisville would win the game, but it would not be the last we'd hear from Duke. The 1986 run would be their first of six Final Fours in seven years for the Blue Devils and the first of five national championship game appearances from 1986 to 1994. Krzyzewski's legendary career in the NCAA tournament was just getting started. 

The 1990 NCAA tournament championship is one of the most well known games despite it not being very good. Two programs who had recently come close but unable to seal the deal, UNLV and Duke faced each other in the high altitude of Denver's McNichols Arena with someone finally winning their first ring.

The Runnin' Rebels held true to their name, jumping all over Duke and building a sizable lead. When it was over, UNLV had won, 103-73, still the largest margin of victory in championship game history. Krzyzewski was hearing the chatter that he couldn't win the big one and freshman Bobby Hurley was mocked by opposing fans for having, well, gastrointestinal issues during the game. Hurley even admitted he dreamed of sharks after the game, a nod to UNLV's head coach Jerry "Tark the Shark" Tarkanian. 

No one gave Duke much of a chance to beat undefeated UNLV in the 1991 national semifinal. UNLV was the heavy favorite in this game (everyone remembers what happened in the previous year's title meeting) and to become the first school to repeat as national champs since Wooden's 1973 UCLA Bruins.

None of that would happen. Duke was physical with UNLV and didn't allow for the Runnin' Rebels to run up and down on them. Greg Anthony's foul problems didn't help matters and Duke's slower pace seemed to frustrate the "running" Rebs. Christian Laettner's free throws gave the Blue Devils the lead and Anderson Hunt's three missed the mark for Duke to pull off one of the biggest upsets in tournament history. 

Duke's win over UNLV may be what's most remembered about their 1991 national championship run, but they still had to beat Kansas and their new-ish head coach Roy Williams in the title game. Williams, who would go to have quite a rivalry with Coach K about 12 years later, just beat his mentor Dean Smith and his alma mater North Carolina in the national semifinals and his upstart Jayhawks were ready to continue to keep Duke from winning its first title.

That didn't happen.

Duke jumped out to an early lead behind a well-balanced scoring attack (and a great 16-point effort off the bench by Bill McCaffery) to win Duke and Krzyzewski their first national championship. The title was a culmination of what Coach K had built at Duke despite playing in one of the ACC's great eras of basketball and shook the balance of power on Tobacco Road. 

We all know it. You cannot escape it. Every March we see images of Laettner's shot that ended one of college basketball's greatest games. Krzyzewski's Blue Devils were trying to be the first team since John Wooden's UCLA Bruins of the 1970s to repeat as champions, while Rick Pitino's upstart Kentucky Wildcats stood in their way in the NCAA tournament regional finals. A back-and-forth affair saw Kentucky holding a 103-102 lead with 2.1 seconds remaining in overtime. Grant Hill's pass. Laettner's dribble. The shot. Duke advances to the Final Four.

That's a rather simplistic description of one of the greatest games and biggest shots in basketball history but possibly the most well known moment of Coach K's career. The five championships almost take a back seat to this moment that, to many, defines Krzyzewski's legacy. 

In one of the more interesting cultural moments of 1990s college basketball, the Blue Devils beat Michigan's Fab Five in the national championship to become the first repeat champions since UCLA's seven year title streak ended in 1973. This would be the first of many lists that would put Krzyzewski and Wooden together.

The 1992 national championship team finished one of the best runs in college basketball since Wooden's UCLA dynasty. Duke went to six Final Fours in seven seasons (counting 1994, seven in nine years). They played in three straight national championship games (counting 1994, four title games in five years) and join the 2006-2007 Florida Gators as the only repeat champions since Wooden's run.  

For those who hate on Duke and Coach K, the 1994-1995 season is a go-to spot when getting in a debate. As you've seen, Duke was coming off a fantastic run where they had been to seven Final Fours in nine seasons, four national championship game appearances in five years and those back-to-back titles in 1991 and 1992. All the stars from those teams (Ferry, Laettner, Hurley, Grant Hill) had gone on to professional careers and the '94-'95 season was a transition year. It didn't help matters that Krzyzewski had surgery to fix a ruptured disk just before the season began.

The season got off to an okay start, as Duke went 9-3 with wins over ranked Michigan and Georgia Tech (the Tech game was considered a non-conference contest due to being played in the Rainbow Classic). After their official ACC opening loss to Clemson, Krzyzewski's back pain was too great that he decided to miss the rest of the season to heal up and part-time assistant coach Pete Gaudet took over. Gaudet was an assistant coach to Krzyzewski at Army ... eventually taking over that program when Coach K went to Duke ... and joined the Blue Devils in 1982.

The Clemson game began a six-game losing skid and Duke tumbled to a 4-15 record under Gaudet. The 13-18 season still holds the mark for the most losses in a season for Duke and the lone season in a 35-year stretch that the Blue Devils missed the NCAA tournament (they wouldn't miss again until 2021).

What makes Duke haters even more salty was Krzyzewski's actions after the season. Coach K petitioned to have the 19 games that Gaudet coach struck from his own record and attached to Gaudet (at the time, interim coaches records were added to the full-time coach's all-time mark). He was successful and the 4-15 record came off Krzyzewski's career tally. Gaudet, saddled with the 15 losses, wasn't retained following the season due to a class action law suit by assistant coaches that he was a part of (read more of that here).

Ask any Kentucky fan and they'll point to the 1992 showdown with Duke as one of the most heartbreaking moments of their lives. Six years later, the Wildcats got their revenge.

In another NCAA tournament meeting with a Final Four berth on the line, the top-seeded Blue Devils looked as if they were going to get the better of Kentucky yet again. Duke, led by Roshown McLeod, Trajan Langdon, Elton Brand, Chris Carrawell and Shane Battier (the latter three would all win ACC Player of the Year awards) held a 17-point lead over UK with less than 10 minutes remaining in the game. The Wildcats would go on a 16-1 run to pull within a bucket. Scott Padgett's three-pointer with 40 seconds left gave Kentucky a lead they wouldn't relinquish. Kentucky would move on to the Final Four and eventually won the national championship. 

January 27, 2001 may be the biggest moment in the Duke-Maryland rivalry. The Blue Devils fancied themselves as a title contender (more on that in a bit) while the Terrapins have thrust into an ACC power and a championship contender as well. The Terps were about to make a huge statement by taking a ten-point lead over No. 2 Duke with 54 seconds left in regulation. The Blue Devils, led by Jay Williams, went on a 10-0 run to send the game into overtime. Once there, Duke held on for a 98-96 victory and one of the most improbable comebacks in college hoops history.

Maryland and Duke would meet four times in the 2000-2001 season with Duke winning three of the match-ups. 

The 2001 Blue Devils were loaded. The team was led by All-Americans Shane Battier and Jay Williams and boasted future NBA players Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy Jr., Chris Duhon and Dahntay Jones. Following the same path as their last title run in 1992, Duke played in Greensboro, Philadelphia and Minneapolis en route to winning their third national championship. It wasn't easy, as Duke had to comeback from a 22-point deficit to Maryland (oh, those Terps) in the Final Four and then beat an Arizona Wildcats team led by Gilbert Arenas, Richard Jefferson, Loren Woods, Jason Gardner and Luke Walton.

Krzyzewski's third title matched his mentor, Bobby Knight.

One of the more controversial moments in Mike Krzyzewski's career actually came off the court. In the mid-2000s, his ads for American Express were criticized for being an unfair recruiting tool as he was speaking more about his basketball goals for "you" than the actual card:

“I look at myself as a leader who happens to coach basketball. When they get out into the workplace, they're armed with not just a jump shot or a dribble. I want you armed for life. I want you to develop as a player. I want you to develop as a student, and I want you to develop as a human being,”

It rubbed many coaches and administrators the wrong way as these commercials were in heavy rotation during the NCAA tournament where top high school kids and their parents were part of the audience. 

While the 2005-2006 Tar Heels were technically were defending national champs, they had lost virtually everyone from that roster and were rebuilding with a fine crop of freshmen, led by Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green. The No. 1 Blue Devils were the championship favorites in 2006, led by the ACC's all-time leading scorer J.J. Redick and defensive force Sheldon Williams. The season finale between the two rivals happened to be Redick's and Williams' senior night at a raucous Cameron Indoor Stadium.

The Baby Heels didn't wilt in front of the Cameron Crazies, building a late lead that Duke nearly erased. But a key three by Hansbrough and hitting free throws down the stretch and sealing an 83-76 win. Duke would be upset in the Sweet 16 by LSU (North Carolina were beaten by George Mason in the second round). Hansbrough and Green would win all four of their trips to Cameron during their career, with the former taking Redick's place as the conference's leading scorer. 

Duke's first round loss to VCU was a stunning end to not just the 2006-2007 season but to one of Krzyzewski's best runs. The loss ended Duke's run of nine straight Sweet 16s -- with three Final Fours mixed in -- and Duke's earliest tournament exit since 1996. It was also a very un-Duke-like game as the Blue Devils gave up a lead late, missed key free throws and their last second shot attempt was far off the mark. VCU's Eric Maynor hit a game winning jumper with 1.8 seconds remaining to shock Duke and give their haters plenty of ammunition. 

Yeah, coaching a team that has LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade to an Olympic gold medal may not seem like a great coaching job, but Mike Krzyzewski's work as head coach of the United States men's basketball team was one of the most important parts of his career. He helped stabilize the program, which had suffered some embarrassing losses in the previous two major international competitions. Despite being a college coach, he had the gravitas and the NBA players respect.

The "Redeem Team" faced different obstacles on the world stage than the "Dream Team" did 16 years earlier. The rest of the world fielded extremely talented teams that were formed from the impact the Dream Team had on international basketball. The U.S. team wasn't the only roster that featured NBA players with some nations -- like Spain -- boasting several All-Stars. As we saw in the 2020 Tokyo Games, it isn't a slam dunk for these NBA stars to coast to a gold medal.  Coach K would go 75-1 as head coach of the national team. 

Duke's dominance was questioned during the late 2000s. After their 2001 national championship, the Blue Devils would only get beyond the Sweet 16 just once over the next eight seasons. Add to the pain, hated rival North Carolina had resurrected their program under Roy Williams and had won two titles in a five-year period.

The 2010 team wasn't filled with can't-miss stars but was extremely deep and very experienced. Led by seniors Jon Scheyer, Lance Thomas and Brian Zoubek, and juniors Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler the Blue Devils cruised through the regular season, won a tough ACC tournament, and dominated their way to the NCAA championship game. Once there, they face the ultimate Cinderella in Butler where one of the most competitive championship games went down. The two teams traded blows as Duke just couldn't shake the Bulldogs. Up 60-59 with three seconds left, Zoubek hit one of two free throws to push the lead to two. Butler's Gordon Hayward heaved a half-court shot that narrowly missed the mark, giving Mike Krzyzewski and the Blue Devils their third national championship. 

With a win over Michigan State on November 15th, 2011, Mike Krzyzewski became the winningest coach in Division I history. The win would be his 903rd, which passed Bobby Knight.

He'd pass the 1,000 win mark in 2015 and has since put a sizable distance between he and the rest of the field. He entered his final season nearly 200 wins ahead of Jim Boeheim, who would likely need to coach another decade to reach Krzyzewski. 

Lehigh, led by future NBA star C.J. McCollum, shocked college basketball by knocking out 2nd-seeded Duke, 75-70, in their first round battle in Greensboro. McCollum poured in 30 points as the Mountain Hawks became the sixth 15-seed to topple a 2-seed in the tournament. The atmosphere was surreal as North Carolina Tar Heels fans (who were in attendance for their team's game against Vermont in the Greensboro pod) took to becoming Lehigh fans ... even borrowing Lehigh signs ... to root against their rivals and their star Austin Rivers.  The freshman Rivers chose Duke in a bitter recruiting battle, and had hit a buzzer beater to defeat the Heels in the Dean Dome earlier in the season. 

The 2014 Blue Devils were led by highly touted freshman Jabari Parker, but it was another one-and-done that stunned Durham that season -- a loss to 14th seeded Mercer in the NCAA tournament's Round of 64. This is the second time in three years that Duke lost in their first tournament game (and third time in eight seasons) which was a departure for a team that routinely went to Sweet 16s and Final Fours. What made this one even more shocking is that the game was played in Duke's backyard of Raleigh, North Carolina and Mercer was making its first tournament appearance in nearly 30 years. Mercer used a late 20-5 run by abusing an uncharacteristically bad Duke defense to salt away the win. 

Four years after becoming Division I college basketball's all-time winningest coach, Coach K reached the 1,000-win plateau at the Mecca of hoops. A 77-68 win over St. John's at Madison Square Garden gave Krzyzewski his 1,000th victory.

In the 2010s, Krzyzewski embraced the one-and-done culture and began recruiting the top players and nailing down the top recruiting classes. He landed the top freshman class in 2014-2015 (Jahlil Okafor, Tyus Jones, Justise Winslow, Grayson Allen) which joined senior Quinn Cook and juniors Amile Jefferson and Marshall Plumlee to form a team that sat near the top of the rankings all year long. Still, with Duke's recent tournament embarrassments still fresh in their critics' minds, the Blue Devils needed to prove themselves in March.

Their greatness took a back seat to Kentucky, who were attempting to become the first undefeated champion since Indiana in 1976. The Wildcats' dream would end in the national semifinal to Wisconsin and national Player of the Year Frank Kaminsky. The Badgers would face the Blue Devils (who blew out Michigan State in the other semifinal) in the title game where they would make a second half comeback behind freshman Okafor and Allen. Duke would beat Wisconsin, 68-63, to win Coach K's fifth national championship. Krzyzewski trails only John Wooden in national championship wins. 

At the end of Oregon's 82-68 win over Duke in the Sweet 16 of the 2016 NCAA tournament, Ducks' guard Dillon Brooks hit a three and celebrated -- both his shot and the win. At the post-game press conference, Brooks told reporters that Mike Krzyzewski stopped him and told him he was too good a player to be showing off at the end. During his presser, Coach K snapped at a reporter and denied saying that.

Video of the post-game handshake line showed Krzyzewski did stop Brooks and say, "you're too good of a player to do that." Brooks immediately apologized to the coach, which Krzyzewski responded, "you're too good of a player."

Coach K then released a statement acknowledging his comments and that he apologized to Oregon head coach Dana Altman, saying it wasn't his place to talk to another team's player in that way. 

One of Mike Krzyzewski's most criticized decisions was how he handled star guard Grayson Allen following a series of tripping incidents during games. Early in the 2016-2017 season, Allen tripped Elon's Steven Santa Ana during a game (which came after obvious tripping incidents against Louisville and Florida State) and fans and media demanded he be reprimanded. Coach K seemed ready to punish Allen by suspending him indefinitely, which made many to believe Duke would be without their controversial star for several games. In Duke's first game of the suspension, the Blue Devils were waxed at Virginia Tech ... giving the Blue Devils just their second loss of the season.

Allen was reinstated for their next game against Georgia Tech.

The one-game "indefinite suspension" was mocked for being far too lenient for habitual acts of dirty play and convenient that it was lifted after a loss. The suspension also coincided with Krzyzewki's leave of absence due to mid-season back surgery (Duke haters love to point to K's timing of back pain in relation to the Blue Devils' on court issues).  

How you view the Zion Williamson era at Duke depends on if you are a Blue Devils fan or a hater. Zion Williamson, along with R.J. Barrett, Cam Reddish and Tre Jones, formed one of the top freshman classes in history and one that became its own storyline throughout the season. Duke fans enjoyed the top-billing the team received all season long and the ESPN+ Earn Everything documentary covering the team's preparations for the start of the season. Haters cringed as Zion Williamson became the face of the sport for the season -- even when he was out of the lineup due to an injury suffered after he blew up his shoe in the opening seconds against North Carolina.

Williamson would return for the ACC tournament and get revenge on UNC in the semifinals before roughing up Florida State in the championship game. The NCAA tournament seemed like the Duke Invitational with each of their games becoming must-see TV. They needed a Barrett put-back of a missed free throw to beat UCF in the second round and then held on as Virginia Tech missed a close shot to tie their Sweet 16 battle. Michigan State would eek out a 68-67 win in the East Regional final to keep this super team from reaching the Final Four.

Duke haters loved that this anointed team fell far short of their lofty expectations, while Duke fans cherish having one of the biggest stars to come through college basketball in decades lift their brand to the front of the line.   

The entire sports world was struggling to function as the world was dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, and college basketball was one of the worst hit. On December 8, 2020, Duke lost handily to Illinois in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge and went on a rant in the post-game press conference. He felt the season needed a pause as the student-athletes were having to deal with a lot just to get these games in. Part of his comments:

“Basically, it was more of a mentality of, ‘Get as many games in as possible.’ And I think I would just like, just for the safety, the mental health and physical health of our players and staff, for there… like, to assess where we’re at. You know, in our country today, you have 2000 deaths a day. You know, you have 200,000 cases, a million and a half last week. You have people saying that the next six weeks are going to be the worst. To me, it’s already pretty bad. And on the other side of it there are these vaccines that are coming out, that people say that by the end of the month, 20 million vaccine shots will be given, especially to our health care, to the people who need it. And by the end of January or February, another 100 million. Well, should we not reassess that? You know, just see what would be best?”

In his comments he even admits that the timing looked bad since Duke was coming off a loss and their 2-2 record was underwhelming. At that point, the Blue Devils had a game against Gardner-Webb postponed and against Elon canceled. Two days after the Illinois game, Krzyzewski announced that Duke would cancel its remaining non-conference games which drew groans from fans around the sport. While there was certainly a lot of merit to what he was saying, many didn't like the timing of these announcements and the appearance of him going away from what other programs were doing.

It didn't get much better for Duke. They saw highly touted freshman Jalen Johnson quit the team mid-season, the team sat at 7-8 record and Cameron Indoor Stadium was eerily quiet with no fans allowed at games. Despite finishing 10th in ACC play, the Blue Devils would beat Boston College and Louisville in the conference tournament before a COVID outbreak within the team caused them to forfeit their game against Florida State. Duke missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1995. 

Duke's 2021-2022 season was a victory lap of sorts for head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who was retiring after 42 seasons in Durham. Of course his final regular season game would be against his arch rival North Carolina at Cameron Indoor Stadium and the media (namely ESPN) was giddy over a Saturday filled with honoring Coach K and all he's meant to the university and college basketball as a whole. Nearly 100 former players and Krzyzewski's entire family attended the game. Big names like Jerry Seinfeld, Dirk Nowitzki and NBA commissioner Adam Silver were in attendance to take in a historic night. Ticket prices reached record levels.

North Carolina, who Duke slaughtered in their earlier meeting in Chapel Hill, was nothing more than the "heel" in the storybook ending to Krzyzewski's career. Hubert Davis was finishing up his first season as UNC's head coach -- one that saw the Heels sitting squarely on the NCAA tournament bubble when the day began. No one entertained the thought that Carolina could spoil this night for Blue Devils fans.

Except that's exactly what they did.

The Heels scored 55 second half points in a 94-81 victory over Duke in what has been debated as the biggest regular season win in program history. As Carolina began to pull away late in the game, the once-electric Cameron crowd was standing in stunned silence. What was meant to be a coronation turned into a horror show. A night that was about celebrating Duke basketball's most important figure suddenly saw their bitter rivals celebrating and dancing on the very floor that bears Coach K's name. The emotions were so raw that players and fans had words and Duke assistant coach Chris Carrawell refused to shake Hubert Davis' hand. Even Krzyzewski felt compelled to begin the post game ceremonies for him by telling the crowd to "be quiet" as he apologized for his team's play.

The regular season ending loss to North Carolina seemed to galvanize the Blue Devils. Duke went on a NCAA tournament run by beating Cal State Fullerton, Michigan State, Texas Tech and Arkansas to reach Mike Krzyzewski's record 13th Final Four and his first since 2015.

It looked like destiny, especially when their national semifinal matchup was with their long-time rival North Carolina. This was the first time these two schools met in the NCAA tournament, setting off massive storylines that filled the week leading up to the game. For Duke, there was the feeling of revenge for the Heels ruining Coach K's "senior night" in Cameron Indoor Stadium and the satisfaction of winning him a title in walk-off fashion. For North Carolina, it was the opportunity to beat Duke once again, this time ending Krzyzewski's career. Fans on both sides were both anxious and nervous about this ultimate battle.

The game didn't disappoint. The two went back and forth where, at times, it looked as if either team had a hold on the game. There were 12 ties and 18 lead changes with UNC's Caleb Love's three pointer with under 30 seconds remaining being the dagger that ended Duke's season and Krzyzewski's career.