Coach K on realignment: 'Afraid of what's going on with the conferences'

By Brian Murphy and Pat Welter, WRAL

Former Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski is no longer walking the sidelines in the ACC, but the five-time national champion is concerned about what radical conference realignment is doing to college athletics.

"I'm afraid of what's going on with all the conferences," Krzyzewski told WRAL on Wednesday night. "I wish all the conferences would play together and act as one in what's good for college sports and not just what's good for the specific conference that you're in."

Krzyzewski, who coached Duke for 42 seasons and retired after the 2021-22 season, was inducted into the Natonal Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame on Wednesday night during a ceremony in his hometown of Chicago.

Former Duke star Johnny Dawkins, a key player early in Krzyzewski's tenure, was inducted alongside his former coach. So, too, was former North Carolina star Tyler Hansbrough.

A slew of schools have changed leagues for the 2023-24 academic year, including four schools (BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston) joining the Big 12.

Next year, there will be seismic changes across the college sports landscape. Oklahoma and Texas are joining the SEC. USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon are joining the Big Ten. Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are joining the Big 12.

The last eight of those schools are in the Pac-12, which may not exist moving forward. The ACC is considering adding Pac-12 remnants Stanford and Cal (along with SMU), while Oregon State and Washington State may have to move to the Mountain West or American Athletic Conference.

The idea of western expansion for the ACC is not universally supported.

The Big Ten and SEC have secured huge television rights agreements, leading to a separation between the two leagues' financial outlook compared to the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12. That's led to the biggest brand-name schools leaving the Big 12 and Pac-12 and created instability in the ACC, where Florida State, in particular, has agitated for more money while threatening to leave the conference.

The ACC schools are bound by a grants of rights agreement that runs through 2036, though some schools are looking at ways to get out of that deal.

"College athletics is changing every day, and some of it's good, but I'm not so sure that all of it's good," said former UNC men's basketball coach Roy Williams, who was in Chicago for the inductions. "People like change. Sometimes change is good. Sometimes change is not good. I feel for the coaches. I feel for the families that like to make commitments and stick with the commitments. It's a different world out there."

Williams won three national titles at UNC, his alma mater. He coached the Tar Heels from 2003 to 2021 after spending 15 seasons at Kansas.