Yesterday in the NCAA semifinals, Duke played North Carolina. In the final stages of the game, North Carolina defender Caleb Love hit a crucial three-pointer to widen the point difference to four points. With this three-pointer, North Carolina defeated Duke to reach the Finals, and Duke had to stop there.
Of course, more significant than this semi-final, this is the last game of Duke's legendary coach K at Duke. A month ago, the old K said goodbye at Duke's home stadium, and it was also North Carolina who became a spoiler.
Within a month, Duke lost to North Carolina for the second time, and coach K ultimately failed to end his 42-year legendary coaching career with a championship.
Caleb-Lefour's name Old K Coach is no stranger, Tatum's father in high school was Lefour's coach, Tatum himself once recruited Lefour to Duke, and the old K coach also threw an olive branch, but in the end Lefu chose Duke's nemesis North Carolina.
Coach K has coached countless NBA stars in his 42-year coaching career, and of course missed many players. Now he missed the Lefour himself to give him the last defeat of his coaching career, 42 years ago, coach K missed the greatest basketball player of all time.
In 1980, Mike Shaszewski, a descendant of Poland, began to become the head coach of the Duke University men's basketball team. In the same year, he recruited Jordan to play at Duke, but Jordan refused and joined Duke's sworn enemy, the University of North Carolina.
This infuriated the young coach, Old K, but a month before coaching Duke's first game, Old K wrote a letter to Jordan blessing Him, in which Old K said:
"I'm sorry to hear that you're no longer interested in getting to know Duke, but I want you to know that my players and I want you all the best in your college career."
In Jordan's college career, he defeated Duke, coached by old K many times; and 42 years later, coach K's last game, he also lost to a defender who had failed to recruit North Carolina, which is not a cycle of fate.
But although he did not end his legendary career with a championship, coach K has long since become one of the greatest coaches in the history of American college basketball. He was the first thousand-win coach in college men's basketball, with 1,202 career wins and a 76 percent win rate.
Under his coaching, Duke won a total of 5 NCAA championships and reached the final four 13 times. Old K won the national best coach 12 times. In 42 years, Duke has failed to make it to the Crazy Three Tournament only five times.
Of those five, the first three occurred during old K's first three years in charge of Duke. At that time, most of the players in the team were still retained by the previous coach, and the winning percentage of Duke in the second season even fell below 50%.
The fourth time occurred in the 94-95 season, after leading the team to a 9-3 loss, coach K was forced to leave due to back surgery. The last time was last season, it was affected by the epidemic. In 42 seasons, 37 times into the championship, 13 times to win the division championship, 5 times to win the national championship, this is the legend of the old K coach.
Of course, the old K coach is well known because he is the manager of the men's basketball team at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. At that time, the skinny old K coach was surrounded by a large group of NBA stars that we were familiar with, and the big guys began to wonder what this coach was.
What kind of coach can get kobe and james at the same time, two super giants, and have not been to college, completely unfamiliar with the set of college basketball, the old K coach has his way.
In August 2008, in the second half of the warm-up game between the United States and Australia, Bryant made several random shots, which was contrary to the standards set by the American men's basketball team. After the game, James approached Coach K and hoped that Old K would handle the matter well.
The next day, Old K went straight to Bryant, showed him his shooting options and very directly said, "These shots suck, we have to move the ball more." Bryant then apologized sincerely: "I see, coach. Don't worry about that, I'm sorry about it. ”
After the defeats of the 2002 World Championships, the 2004 Olympic Games and the 2006 World Championships, the old K coach began to reflect and began to give players more independent choices.
After the formation of the Dream Team in 2008, coach K went to the locker room for the first time and said: "You are not a college player, I don't have any rules to say, you set the rules." ”
Kidd said to "start with defense", old K wrote "start from defense" on the whiteboard, James said "don't make excuses", and old K wrote "don't make excuses" on the whiteboard. Rules and regulations were written on the whiteboard, and in 2008 Beijing became a place of shame for the American Dream Team.
The old K coach also knows that he can't treat these NBA players with the same set of college, and when he is coaching in college, the kind-looking old K coach has a personal nickname, "tyrant".
Tatum once shared one of his best stories with Coach K, in a game against Virginia, Tatum was very poor in the first half and only took two points, and the shot was always lost, and Coach K was very angry about it.
In the half-time dressing room, Coach K took off the suit he was wearing and threw it directly at the feet of Tatum, who said he would never forget the scene. Coach K yelled at Tatum, "You little soft egg from St. Louis!" ”
Tatum is a native of St. Louis and is so proud of it that he will never allow anyone to insult his hometown. Coach Old K, of course, also knew Tatum's point and deliberately angered Tatum. So Tatum scored 28 points in the second half and left without leaving a smile.
Another story is equally brilliant, in 2017, after Duke's home defeat, everyone including Tatum was notified by text message to the old K's house, and coach K missed some games due to back injury surgery.
Coach K, after seeing Tatum, began to scold again: "You just want to go to the NBA, so get out of here!" The next day, everyone in the locker room had a garbage bag in front of their cabinets, the assistant teacher told them to pack up their things and leave, and Tatum was messing around in the wind with the garbage bag.
Coach K was very fond of Tatum as a disciple when the Celts called to ask Old K about Tatum's story. Old K said: "He was coached very strictly by me at the time, and he was eager to be coached strictly, and that's still the case, which is why he was one of the top players in the league and an All-Star starter. ”
Coach K has been coaching for too long, and when he first coached Duke, college basketball didn't even have an offensive time frame and three-point line. Spanning four decades of coaching, he has gained the respect and love of almost every disciple.
On March 5, the home farewell game of K's coaching career, a total of 96 former Duke players came to the scene. The venue was packed, and the highest ticket price even reached $79,988. Also came Adam Xiaohua, a Duke '84 graduate who went through the toughest times of coach K.
The farewells lined up in two rows, the old K coach walked slowly through the middle, and the 42-year glorious road was under the feet and in the heart of every Duke student.