For the first time in the history of their storied rivalry, college basketball titans Duke and North Carolina will clash in the NCAA tournament’s Final Four. Adding to the stakes: the spectacle of the final stand for Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, the NCAA’s winningest coach, who has led the Blue Devils since 1980. The 75-year-old is retiring after more than four decades as a college coach, a tenure that is second only to Jim Boeheim’s 46 years as head coach for the Syracuse Orange.
During his 42 seasons in Durham, “Coach K” has rewritten college basketball’s history books, recording the most wins, most NCAA tournament wins and most Final Four appearances of all-time while transforming Duke into perhaps the country’s preeminent college basketball powerhouse. Were he to cut down the nets on Monday night, it would mean a sixth national championship, more than 30 years after his first triumph in 1991.
His retirement comes just one season after that of another coaching legend, North Carolina’s Roy Williams, who stepped down last off-season, potentially signaling a curtain call for the old guard of coaching icons who have dominated the sport over the past four decades.
Here’s a look at the faceoff—and the legacy—by the numbers.
5: The number of times Coach K has led Duke to a national championship, with wins during the NCAA’s March Madness tournaments in 1991, 1992, 2001, 2010 and 2015.
10: The NCAA record for championship wins, which belongs to UCLA’s John Wooden, who coached UCLA from 1948 to 1975.
13: The number of times Coach K has led a team to the Final Four, the most in NCAA history by a single coach. UNC has made the trip 14 times during the same span under four different coaches.
36: The record for the most March Madness trips by one coach, held by Coach K.
101: The number of NCAA tournament wins for a Coach K team, also an NCAA record. (Wooden’s dominance at UCLA came when the tournament was a much smaller affair.)
1,202: The total number of career wins for Coach K, including 73 during his five-year tenure as the head coach of Army.
1,569: The total number of games coached by Krzyzewski, 1,437 of those at Duke.
79%: Coach K’s win percentage at Duke, versus 77% for his entire career.
51%: His win rate against UNC, with his record standing at 50 wins and 47 losses. The two programs have split 11 national championships between them, ten of those during the Coach K years.
$87 million: Coach K’s earnings between 2001 and 2020, according to tax returns obtained by Sportico, likely putting his career earnings above $100 million, making him the highest-paid coach in NCAA history.
$9.7 million: His widely reported compensation for this final season.
$2.25 million: The salary for North Carolina’s first-year head coach Hubert Davis, including half a million in bonuses he has accumulated during the team’s Final Four run.
$15 million: The high end of a salary range reportedly offered to Krzyzewski in 2010 by then-New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, which he turned down.
$12 million: Phil Jackson’s salary to coach the Los Angeles Lakers in 2010. NBA stalwart Gregg Popovich made around $11 million in 2019, according to ESPN reports.
$308: The cheapest ticket price on Ticketmaster for Saturday’s Final Four matchup on secondary markets, as of the time of this writing.
$66,000: The top end of the pricing for seats close to the court. According to Ticket Club, prices rose more than 50% after UNC defeated St. Peter’s on Sunday to set up Saturday’s marquee matchup.
$155: The amount of money someone would win on a $100 bet for Duke to win the national championship. The Blue Devils have the lowest odds of any of the four teams remaining, and are clear -190 favorites for their game against North Carolina.
$770 million: The average yearly payout from CBS and Turner to the NCAA for the rights to broadcast the NCAA tournament. An eight-year extension agreed to in 2016 will increase the annual fee to $1.1 billion starting in 2025.
$457,143: The amount Duke and UNC would each collect from this year’s tournament runs, assuming a $6.4 million bonus from the NCAA is split equally among the 14 schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The NCAA pays each of its conferences represented this year $338,887 per tournament game appearance, with the payments recurring for the next six seasons.
