Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Coach K will soon be the all-time wins leader. Do you care?

spt-110322-coachk.standard

They got Nolan, they got Kyle, and they got that precocious freshman named Kyrie.

Yes, at full-strength, the Duke Blue Devils may be the favorite of this NCAA Tournament game, over both a well-rounded Ohio State and Kansas crew. So given the strengths of the latest edition of the Blue Devils why are we minimizing, or just not talking about, the fact that Coach K is just three victories away from passing his mentor, Bob Knight, as the all-time wins leader? I mean, Knight is the man who turned the West Point grad from student into the most venerable and visible coach in the game, so this accomplishment is a pretty big deal, no?

I think I know why people don’t really care. I think it’s because a lot of people aren’t really fans of Duke.

Duke Puke; Duck Fuke; JJ Redick is Not a Heterosexual!!!

Sure the all-time wins distinction was sort of bestowed on Krzyzewski back in 2001 when he won his 600th game at the young age of 55, leading a program that had no reason to even suggest it wasn’t winning at least 30 games a year going forward. Since then, the Blue Devils have captured two national championships, won a bevy of games and infuriated even more Americans, all while holding a firm grasp on being the most prominent program in college basketball.

The actual eclipse of Knight’s 902 victories as a Division I basketball coach won’t propel Coach K to another echelon of elite coaches. Instead, he will just continue to sit amongst nobody. He’s already the most established dude in the game. And win #903, which could come in Houston, Texas on April 2nd, putting Duke just one victory from a second consecutive national championship, doesn’t really change anything. It’s just an inevitable benchmark he’ll soon cross.

That alone irks the haters; the fact that he can become the all-time wins leader in college basketball and not change the perception held amongst the general public. It means he’s already above this whole pending wins record. It means it’s just another notch on the old belt, and it means he’s probably going to retire with, like, 1,200 victories. Nobody is going to touch that for a good while.

So while you look for additional ways to hate the Duke Blue Devils on this upcoming Regionals Weekend, just know that there’s a pretty good chance the Blue Devils will win the West, Coach K will tie his old friend for that all-time wins record, and subsequently pass him en route to his fifth National Championship.

I can hear the hate from here, but Coach K can’t even see you.

Nick Fasulo is the manager of Searching for Billy Edelin. Follow him on Twitter @billyedelin.