ABOUT THIS BLOG

News, analysis, feature stories, random thoughts... if it's about college basketball, either in season or during the summer doldrums, you'll find it in Beyond the Arc.

Mike Miller

Mike Miller has been NBCSports.com's college basketball editor since 2003. It's a position he relishes; no wonder considering he transferred to Kansas to watch Paul Pierce play. Most of his favorite sports memories involve college hoops, usually during March, when every waking moment is spent thinking about March Madness.



Coach K already in midseason form

Posted: Thursday, November 06, 2008 2:43 PM
Filed Under: , ,

Mike Krzyzewski became one of college basketball’s coaching legends by being smart, aggressive and direct in his demands.

But there are times when the Duke coach is a little too turbo.

The Devils crushed Lenior-Rhyne in their final exhibition game Wednesday, 95-42. Coach K was pleased with his team’s effort. Not so much with the crowd’s.

From the Raleigh News & Observer:

"We played well, but there was something a little bit missing," Krzyzewski said. "The same thing with the crowd. We should remind all our Duke fans that we start our season on Monday and every game counts, and if you're not going to come, let us know and we'll sell the seats.

"We should not have an empty seat in Cameron,” he continued. "That's the way it is. I know I can sell them. I'll go sell them. If you're not coming, I'll go sell them."

He wasn’t kidding. There wasn’t any humor in his voice (check out the audio here).


Ellen Ozier/Reuters
Mike Krzyzewski has coached at Duke since 1980.

Maybe Krzyzewski never came down from his hectic summer of coaching Team USA. Maybe he’s worried his team – which is ranked No. 8 in AP’s preseason poll and returns nearly every important player from last season’s 28-6 team – is going to struggle to start the season.

Or maybe he’s a jerk. Criticizing fans for not attending an exhibition game? Give it a rest. Taking the time to watch Duke beat down a D-II school shouldn’t be high on anyone’s list of priorities.

There’s no denying Krzyzewski’s place among the all-time coaching greats. The man has his sights on 1,000 career wins, has won 3 NCAA titles, been to 10 Final Fours and has built Duke into perhaps the nation’s most prestigious program. He’s beloved by millions of Duke fans, but loathed by even more non-Duke fans. Such is the price of success.

But success doesn’t mean ripping your team’s fans. Especially when you know those fans will still be among college basketball’s most devoted supporters.

MAIN PAGE

Email this EMAIL THIS

Comments

What a jerk...
More reason for top recruits to choose KU.  In Allen Fieldhouse you will play in front of a packed house, even if it is just late night in the phog.  Rock Chalk
Hey Coach! Get over yourself.  Duke, and you, have the luxury of just about hand picking any high super star you want.  Your team should win the National Championship every year.  How dare you call out "Your Sixth Man".  Your fans give you an unbelievable advantage.  They are the most loyal and loudest fans in the country.  Who wants to see your powerhouse kick the living daylights out of a team that should not be on the same court as Duke.  In fact, what ever happened to sportsmanship.  Its a disgrace to drub such an underdog by so many points.  You're the one who should be called out.
We can handle it and deserve it.  Although your reference is from a non-Durham newspaper, his point needed to be made in Durham as well.  We get spoiled.
Wow. This has got to be the most classless writer in all sports.  Coach K is a great man. Part of his greatness is that he just does not think so negatively about people.  And he would never resort to calling someone names and making personal insults towards them.  If you have this attitude, it says more about you than the the person to whom you direct your hatred.  
Great coach.  But he has also perenially been the top whiner in the game.  If there was a whining HOF, he would be the charter member!
Rock chalk, brother... go KU.

I love coach K (even tho I've feared his teams, he's a class act, better than that overrated fool down the road from him), and I seriously doubt he's "loathed by even more" at Duke.  Maybe he was just having a moment and couldn't think of anything else to say.  Maybe he was tired from all that olympic stuff.  Bad hair day.  So he kicked at his dog one time... the dog still gets fed with nationally ranked teams.  Get over it.  Be glad you're not getting spanked like UNC does.
I love that somehow UNC manages to get dragged into the discussion even though its an article about their rival.  KU fans just need to move on.  Just because "that fool down the road" left for greener pastures and did here what he never did for you, doesn't mean you need to drag some reference to him no matter what the topic is.  And the fact that you would say he has less class than K is just ridiculous...shows how much knowledge of college basketball you really have.  Enjoy your championship and keep talking, it just shows how ignorant you really are.
Whoopsy - I re-read that part up there - he's not loathed "at" Duke - just by other teams around the country.  I get it now - my bad.  

I still like him.  My Dad used to yell at us boys for stuff that didn't mean very much.  Crooked lines when we cut the grass, trash cans not lined up, having a dirty car, etc.  He was strict and demanded alot.  Even if he didn't have much to bitch about, he'd find something.  His philosophy was 'ask for a alot and you might get enough'.  He doesn't let his team get sloppy and he won't let his fans get sloppy - nothing wrong with that, Dad...

Hey - he's willing to get up and sell tickets.  Boom.
A couple of weeks ago I tried to attend an exhibition/scrimmage game.  The scalpers were asking for over $300/ticket for an exhibition.  If K wants people to show up he needs to get the ticket distribution under control.  There are always people willing to go, just not at that high a price.
Thanks for setting me straight, Mike.  And no - you can't really mention Duke without coughing up a UNC furball along the way.  It's a storied rivalry - one of the greatest.  I'm sure you have much more basketball savvy than I do.  I'm also sure this ignorant hillbilly can whip you in a game of one-on-one any day (unless of course you happen to be Mike "Jordan" Chapel Hill - in which case I take it all back).

That being said - you're right - I need to get over it.  And I am, every time we roll you guys.  The fool couldn't do it here, and he won't do it there again either without buying some of Matt Doherty's recruited kids first.  He's a great coach with someone elses team.  You're an overwhelming number one preseason seed.  You have you're baby blue colored galsses on.  Be ready to have a great year, get to the great 8 or final 4 just blowing people away... and then stop short.  Just a heads up.  And if he should start denying rumors dadgummit that he's being courted elsewhere - that this is his home and he's not leaving dadgummit - start looking to see if you can steal Coach K.  He might be available.  Some people loathe him, but I think (savvy wink) he's a great coach.
Reyn,
I agreed with the article. I thought  K
was over top with those comments. When I read
it I felt the same way as the article and I am
a Duke fan.
millions of duke fans?  Millions?  Are you kidding yourself or me?  Where are all these millions of duke fans?  They sure aren't in that high school sized gym apparently.  Get over your love fest with this sleazy coach and program.  And I can name other programs who are more deserving of the "most prestigious program" claim that you recklessly place on Duke too.  
Slow news day and Mike Killer needs to feel he has done something for "the fans" by ripping into one of Amnerica's great coaches. Coach K knows the formula for a winning program, and a part of a winning program is a full, loud, committed "house". He teaches on the practice court and in the Fuqua School of Business that complacency is the root of failure. The writer totally missed the point, probably because, in sports journalism, complacency is a requirement for the job. in kou.
Hey,less fans should not be such a big deal especially in preseason. Rupp Areana was only about 95% capacity for both of its preseason games and Billy tried to hold the score intact and show the lesser team some respect, In Ky we dont go to see the other team or the coaches. We go see the Wildcats. Tickets here are not purchased they are inherited so quit whinning Mikeeee If you wanted to coach in front of a full house all of the time you should have chozen UK a few years back.
This writer is obviously another hater.while he pretends to aknowlege this great mans super achievements he also rips him at the same time. Coach k demands the best from his players and the fans as well he should. Ive been to many games at cameron and if i though there were empty seats even to a exhibition i would go to it too and support the best damn basketball team in the country. All you haters, including this writer can kiss my ass.
Duke can't fill up Cameron with its punky 9300 seating capacity, located in a good-sized metro area of 479k? KU's Allen Field House in Lawrence holds 16300 and is in a metro area of 113k, yet we even fill it for events like "late night in the phog", and we had over 80k show up for the parade after we won the NC this spring. How lame (or how spoiled) you guys are!
Don't worry Coach K... After Kentucly lost another no-name today (VMI)...all those Cat fans can make the trip to Duke and cheer for a winner !
This "reporter" (and I use the term extremely loosely) doesn't have a clue.  He clearly isn't a Duke fan nor does he live in the area - so he doesn't understand what was driving Coach K's comments.  

Every game at Duke is a sell-out, and tickets are extremely difficult to get because the people who purchase regular season tickets don't turn them in if they can't attend.  So, you're regular Joe Blow Duke fan can't call the ticket office or Duke Athletics on any given day and get tickets to games --- even against the dinky teams.

Since Cameron is so small, there are limited opportunities for Duke fans to attend games.  And most Duke fans can't afford the thousands of dollars it takes just to get on the waiting list to buy tickets.  So, seats are at a premium.

Coach K understands this.  The idiot writing this article does not.  When people snap up the tickets and then don't show up and don't turn in the tickets for resale, this means that a lot of Duke fans who would've/could've purchased the tickets were left empty-handed.  

That's why Coach was upset.  It's not that no one wanted to see Duke beat up on a less-talented team (as many people on here seem to think).  It's that he knew that Duke would have NO problem selling the tickets and filling up the seats if people would have released them for resale to the general public thus allowing more fans to have the pleasure of attending a Duke game and being a part of the game environment.

If you ask most any sports fan in the Triangle area if they would be interested in attending a game at Cameron, regardless of whether they're a Duke fan or not, 90% of them will jump at the chance because of the atmosphere.  That's the reality here in Durham from someone "on the ground" who understands what it's really like here.  People want to attend the games.  They just need access to the tickets.



SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

More Beyond the Arc

Recent Posts:


Archives:


Categories:

Syndicate This Site

Add Beyond the Arc to your news reader:
live.com xml
myyahoo msn
bloglines newsgator
google