Mike Krzyzewski’s time as a college basketball coaching titan was cemented long ago. When you win five Men’s National Championships and qualify for 12 Final Fours, you’re practically synonymous with the sport. Krzyzewski is to the Duke (-3.5) men the way Geno Auriemma is to the Connecticut women, or even Lombardi is to the Green Bay Packers. He’s an unmitigated and virtually unchallenged icon.
Among his many accomplishments, perhaps the most impressive achievement of Krzyzewski’s college basketball coaching career was keeping pace with fellow blue blood, ACC rival North Carolina. Since taking over in 1980, the two men’s programs have sparred back and forth for the better part of four decades. And the venom between those was always genuine.
Be it Tar Heel fans letting the visiting Blue Devils have it in Chapel Hill, or vice versa in Durham: Packed, tense games defined this rivalry through almost all of Krzyzewski’s tenure. There was nothing like Duke-North Carolina. Nothing.
