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MINNEAPOLIS— The calm, collected, stoic mien that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski never allows to change disintegrated in an instant.
He jumped into the air. He pumped his fists. He group-hugged his assistants. He jumped some more.
As the final seconds of Monday night’s national championship game melted away and Duke’s 82-72 victory over Arizona was secure, the real Coach K stood up and partied like his 18-year-old players.
“We see that all the time,”sophomore Casey Sanders said. “When you’re on TV, there’s a certain way you have to act when you’re in front of the public. I think tonight you got a little bit of what it’s like to be in that circle.
“He came up to me and I said, ‘I’ve never seen you jump that high!’ He started laughing and said, ‘I’ve still got it!’ ”
What Krzyzewski still has is more important than his vertical leap. He proved without a doubt Monday that he maintains a healthy dose of enthusiasm for coaching college kids, despite the fact he’s been doing it for 26 seasons.
“At the end of each year, there’s always a part of me that wants the year to be over,”Krzyzewski admitted. “I can tell you tonight, even though we won the national championship, I wish I could coach these kids longer. I’m not tired, just because they keep giving. I’m so very lucky.”
Don’t forget — he’s good, too. In winning his third national championship, Krzyzewski joined John Wooden, Adolph Rupp and Bobby Knight as the only coaches to win more than two national titles.
“That’s the best gift I could send him away with,”senior Shane Battier said. “You win one title, you’re a great coach. You win two, you’re a legend. You win three, you’re even higher than that. I don’t know what that’s called, but that’s what Coach is. I’m glad I could separate him from the pack with the third title.”
This championship seemed different from the first two in the 1991 and 1992 seasons. At the end of those games, Krzyzewski appeared calm and collected, walking impassively across the floor to congratulate the opposing coaches and players, then joining his team.
But at the Metrodome, Krzyzewski’s antics started before the final buzzer even sounded. When he realized the Wildcats weren’t going to foul to stretch out the ending, he began celebrating.
Assistant coaches Johnny Dawkins, Chris Collins and Steve Wojciechowski were closest in line.
“He’s usually so poised on the sideline,”Dawkins said. “To see the excitement and the joy in his face, it’s hard to put into words.”
As happy as Krzyzewski was for his players, he was equally glad for his coaches to finally get their rings.
Dawkins lost in the 1986 title game to Louisville. Collins started on the team that fell to Arkansas in the 1994 final, and Wojo was the point guard present for Kentucky’s stunning comeback in the 1998 regionals.
“That’s the kind of man he is,”Dawkins said. “It was our first time going and succeeding in it. He was very happy for us.”
Many have called Krzyzewski’s run to the Final Four this season the best coaching job he’s ever done.
His squad was expected to do a great deal of damage in the postseason before starting center Carlos Boozer broke a bone in his foot before the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.
The night of Boozer’s injury, Duke lost to Maryland. The doom-and-gloom story of the Blue Devils’ demise spread overnight, and an uncertain group of players gathered for practice the next morning.
“The turning point was when we lost to Maryland, Carlos had gone out and we all showed up for practice the next morning at 6 a.m. kind of groggy-eyed,”sophomore guard Mike Dunleavy said. “Coach walked in gleaming with confidence. He promised us that we’d go to the Final Four and win a national championship if we’d just follow him and listen to what he said.
“Looking back on it, it’s amazing that he’d say something like that and it’d come true.”
His players didn’t even think to question a man with 606 career victories. They played different lineups, accepted new roles, met exciting challenges. Because of that, they won 10 straight games to finish the season.
“They’ve given me their hearts, their minds. They’ve been so good,” Krzyzewski said. “I’ve thoroughly loved coaching these kids.They’re just a beautiful group of guys.”
That’s why, when they reached their sport’s pinnacle Monday night, Krzyzewski held nothing back.
His players loved it.
“You don’t know how different people are going to react,”point guard Jason Williams said. “To see him go crazy like a little kid, it makes you feel really good inside.”
Added Boozer: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like that. It was great to see a 54-year-old with that kind of emotion. He wants it just as bad as we want it.”
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Sportswriter Steve Hanf covered Duke in the NCAA Tournament.
Talk turns to next year for Duke
By Steve Hanf
MINNEAPOLIS— It comes with the territory.
Fans were still filing out of the Metrodome on Monday night when the newly crowned national champions were asked the inevitable.
What about next year?
“I’m living in this moment right now,”Duke sophomore Jason Williams said. “When next year comes and we step back on the court with Coach K, I’ll worry about it then.
“Hopefully my hand will be down to the floor because my ring’ll be weighing it down,”he added with a laugh, drooping his arm under the imagined weight of the 2001 championship ring.
Facing the question so soon after the 82-72 victory over Arizona is a tribute to just how good the Blue Devils were this year and how good head coach Mike Krzyzewski expects them to be next season.
Granted, the absence of all-world senior Shane Battier will leave a huge void, but the only other graduation loss is Nate James, whose minutes plummeted late in the year as he shifted to a reserve role.
Williams already dispelled the notion that he would leap to the NBA before his junior season. As a sophomore, he set the Duke single-season scoring record of 841 points, breaking Dick Groat’s former mark and made the college game look ridiculously easy at times.
Freshman Chris Duhon started the final 10 games of the season and it was no coincidence that the Blue Devils went 10-0. The quick guard averaged just 7.1 points a game, but stole 24 passes and enjoyed an incredible assist-to-turnover ratio of 39 to 20.
He knows what will be expected of next year’s likely preseason No. 1 team.
“We’ve got to carry on this tradition,” Duhon said. “Next year’s going to be even more of a challenge.”
In the low post, sophomore Carlos Boozer proved how much of a force he could be. After returning from a broken bone in his foot, he scored 31 points and grabbed 16 rebounds in the Final Four while limiting the offensive games of Maryland’s Lonny Baxter and Arizona’s Loren Woods.
“This weekend he was a huge boost because he was 100 percent, or close to that,”Battier said. “He gave us an inside presence that we couldn’t have won without. He’s going to use this tournament as a springboard and be one of the dominant players next year.”
Mike Dunleavy, who starred with 21 points against the Wildcats, will fill out the front line along with more experienced reserves Casey Sanders, Reggie Love and Matt Christensen. Sophomore forward Nick Horvath will be back from injury. And 6-foot-5 guard Dahntay Jones, Williams’ friend who transferred from Rutgers, will be eligible to shore up the guard positions along with incoming freshman Daniel Ewing, latest in a long line of Blue Devil McDonald’s All-Americans.
The 2001-02 Blue Devils will try to win the first back-to-back national championships since the 1991-92 Duke team pulled off the feat. Only five schools have accomplished the task.
“Hey, this feels good,”Dunleavy said of the postgame celebration. “I’d like to have this feeling one or two more times. This will be a big off-season for us and we’ll have a title to defend next fall.”
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Steve Hanf