Coach Mike Krzyzewski: The GOAT

Accolades

5 NCAA National Championships: 1991, 1992, 2001, 2010, 2015

12 NCAA Final Fours: 1986, 1988-1992, 1994,1999, 2001, 2004, 2010, 2015

12 ACC regular-season titles: 1986, 1991,1992, 1994, 1997-2001, 2004, 2006, 2010

15 ACC Tournament titles: 1986, 1988, 1992, 1999-2003, 2005, 2006, 2009-2011, 2017, 2019

No coach today can come close to these numbers, no coach today can touch this kind of success. Coach Krzyzewski has five NCAA Titles. Five. That’s really the only stat that makes Coach Krzyzewski the GOAT. The only coach to win more NCAA Titles was John Wooden at UCLA, but that was a long time ago.

Running a Tight Ship

It’s much more difficult to win one now. Coach Krzyzewski runs a tight ship at Duke. Nothing shady can be associated with Duke basketball. Absolutely zero NCAA violations under Krzyzewski’s watch. Besides one DWI arrest last November, Duke players are rarely seen in the light of bad news. Coach Krzyzewski always recruited players with high character.

The fact that Coach Krzyzewski has run such a clean program all these years is another reason he’s the GOAT. It’s not all of the All-Americans, and it’s not all the guys that he put in the NBA. It’s that the success Coach Krzyzewski has achieved was done the right way. So much success that in 2005, the Los Angeles Lakers offered Coach Krzyzewski the head coaching job but he turned it down and stayed at Duke.

Maybe the reason Coach Krzyzewski is so disciplined about everything is because he played college basketball for Coach Bob Knight at West Point. Bob Knight was big on man-to-man defense and discipline, so is Coach Krzyzewski. West Point is a military school, this may have influenced Coach Krzyzewski to coach the US Olympic men’s basketball team. Winning three gold medals. (2008, 2012, 2016)

All Class

In 1994 when Arkansas played Duke for the NCAA title, I wasn’t rooting for Duke. Arkansas beat Duke 76-72 to win the ’94 NCAA championship. What I was really impressed with was how classy Coach Krzyzewski was after Duke lost. Coach Krzyzewski was all class and showed much respect for Coach Nolan Richardson and the Razorback players after the game. I personally gained a ton of respect for Coach Krzyzewski when the Hogs won that night. Coach Krzyzewski is the best college coach there ever was, and he’s all class.

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