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Don’t overlook this four-part interview with Coach K

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One of my favorite blog features from this season – and one I intend on continuing through the summer and making year-round – was the blogger spotlight. It wasn’t just that I was helping to promote college hoops blogs I enjoy, but because of the Q&A format.

It lets the reader see how the question was phrased and doesn’t parse or interpret the answer for a particular story angle or column. Maybe that’s one reason why I enjoyed this four-part series ACC Sports Journal did recently with Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Most interviews with Coach K are worth reading, but this one was notable because it (mostly) stayed away from Xs and Os and focused on issues like the state of the ACC, how he’d handle it if former Duke assistants became ACC coaches, and more. You can read the interviews here, here, here and here.

Some excerpts.

On if college basketball needs a czar
I do believe that if (former NCAA president) Myles Brand was still alive — not knocking (NCAA president Mark) Emmert, he just took over — but Myles recognized the importance of men’s basketball. He was kind of moving in that direction.

We need a group under the NCAA umbrella who’s headed by somebody who’s answerable to the NCAA that can make decisions about our sport without going through a whole committee process and things like that. Whether it be rules, judgments on things. Stay current. The system, the game has moved — and the people playing it, technology — has moved beyond the process, way beyond the bureaucratic process of being able to run it.

On the ACC playing Sunday night games
If you played like a Sunday afternoon game (that would be OK), but Sunday night is just a down period for anybody, and especially for these kids. They lose a whole weekend, and then they go into the next week without having a little bit of a break.

If he cares whether a former Duke player or assistant takes an ACC job
I try to put myself in their shoes. If I played at Duke, I don’t know if I could coach against Duke. It’s more so that. Now I would just tell them, before you do it, understand that. Just understand that.

But if somebody came, then somebody came. I’d just be, to me, at a better school. And if I’m recruiting against him, remember, there’s a reason why he came to Duke. It would be tough. I wouldn’t want to do it. That’s how I would tell whoever (it was), being that it’s their decision.

You also can follow me on Twitter @MikeMillerNBC.