Holliday: Coach K pays tribute to Coach Keatts after milestone victory

By Bob Holliday, WRALSportsFan columnist

Durham, N.C. — Unless Duke and NC State meet in the postseason, Saturday’s 88-73 Duke win marked the final time Mike Krzyzewski will lead his Blue Devils against the Wolfpack red.

Krzyzewski has won 58 games against NC State, utterly dominating his Triangle rival from 1992 through 2017. Two coaches accounted for the majority of Krzyzewski’s 25 losses to the Wolfpack: Jim Valvano and Kevin Keatts.

The first Krzyzewski Duke team to take the court against NC State actually played the Wolfpack in the old Big Four Tournament in December of 1980. Valvano, Krzyzewski’s rival from their days at Iona and West Point, came south at the same time as the new Duke coach. Valvano’s first NC State team whipped Duke 74-60.

Coach V won eight of the first eleven against Coach K. Mickie Krzyzewski told me in the mid-eighties that “Mike just can’t beat Jimmy. And it’s really bugging him.”

Duke’s famed “Class of ‘86” gave Krzyzewski his first sweep of the Wolfpack. Still, when NC State forced Valvano to resign in 1990, the beloved Wolfpack coach had won 14 of 23 meetings against the Blue Devils coach.

Following Valvano’s departure, Duke losses to State became quite rare. Over a 25-year period, Duke, with Krzyzewski on the bench, went 44-8 against four different NC State coaches.

Enter Kevin Keatts. Coach KK beat Coach K in their very first meeting, taking down a top 10 Duke team 96-85 at PNC Arena. Keatts’ Wolfpack upset another top 10 Duke team at PNC in 2020 in a blowout, 88-66.

Duke’s win Saturday gives Krzyzewski a 4-2 edge in games coached against Keatts, but since the Valvano era, no other NC State coach has come close to prevailing one-third of the time against the winningest coach in the history of men’s college basketball.

Krzyzewski has taken notice: “I’m a huge fan of Kevin’s and a good friend. I think he is one of the best coaches and classiest guys in college basketball. His team plays that way.”

Coach K noted that NC State has lost many close games this season and could easily by 5-2 in the ACC instead of 2-5. Saturday’s 15 point deficit was the Wolfpack’s biggest of the season, yet the game was played on even terms in the backcourt. Duke’s margin of victory came from the front court, as Paolo Banchero scored 21 points and centers Mark Williams and Theo John combined for 29 points 13 rebounds and 9 blocked shots. State of course, continues to not have Manny Bates, out for the season with a separated shoulder. So Duke dominated inside - scoring 58 points in the paint, even though Bates’ replacement Ebenezer Dowuona played arguably his best game, with 10 points and 9 rebounds.

Keatts clearly relishes these meetings with Krzyzewski, almost sounding as if he doesn’t want them to end. “I keep waiting for him to say ‘April Fools and I don’t want to give it up’” Keatts said after Saturday’s loss. “When you have great players and you’ve done a great job you can say ‘I don’t know if I’m ready to give this up right now.”

Krzyzewski and Keatts grew up 25 years apart; but although they come from different coaching generations they share some traits when it comes to team building.

Player relationships: “Guys love him,” Krzyzewski said of Keatts. “His players play hard. Indeed Keatts’ teams press full court for 40 minutes. Coach KK does, however, believe in rewards. Road victories are celebrated with a stop for ice cream prior to the trip back to Raleigh. The Wolfpack has yet to stop for ice cream in Durham. In fact the last NC State coach to win in Cameron with Coach K on the bench was his friend Coach V in 1988.

Keatts has paid attention to the way Krzyzewski relates to his teams at Duke. “He’s done a great job recruiting,” Keatts said, “but more than coaching, I think he has been more of a father figure to a lot of guys that obviously at the time didn’t realize they were getting that.”

Krzyzewski’s mentoring extends to leadership, something he has learned a great deal about since his days at West Point. The Duke coach gives veteran players leadership responsibilities; earlier in his career he counseled some who wanted to leave early for the NBA to return one more season at Duke so they could have the “it’s his team” experience.

About a decade ago, Krzyzewski began recruiting some “one-and-done” players, along with those who will stay for three or four years. Even though there’s not nearly as much time for leadership training among those who are fast tracking to the NBA, Coach K looks to build relationships with every player.

Recruiting: From his earliest days, Krzyzewski sought the best players in America. It was a struggle early on. But since recruiting Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, Jay Bilas, and David Henderson in 1982, K has consistently brought blue chippers to Durham, his reach expanding and extending to all parts of the country over time. The current group of freshmen, Paolo Banchero, A.J. Griffin, and Trevor Keels has the potential to become his best yet.

Keatts’ approach to recruiting differs somewhat; certainly it did in the beginning. During his many years coaching at Hargrave Military Academy, Coach KK had to remake his roster every year. Keatts has said more than once in his early days at NC State, I’m comfortable with roster turnover.” His first three seasons at State saw Keatts bring in a number of transfers-and that was before the creation of the NCAA’s transfer portal. Keatts brought in players like Braxton Beverly, C.J. Bryce, DJ Funderburk, Devon Daniels, and Thomas Allen.

But this year for the first time, the bulk of State’s roster is made up of players Keatts recruited as freshmen: Jerricole Hellems, Dereon Seabron, Cam Hayes, Ebenezer Dowuona, and the injured Bates. Keatts’ current freshman class ranked 25th in the country when signed. Terquavion Smith is already one of the Wolfpack’s top three players. Ernest Ross played well in State’s wins at Virginia Tech and Louisville, though he was out for the Duke game. Breon Pass played almost 11 minutes in the Duke game, scoring five points with two assists.

Keatts for next season has already secured commitments from Arizona big man Shawn Phillips and Bull City Prep point guard L.J. Thomas, one of the top ranked players in North Carolina. So Keatts, like Krzyzewski in the early years of building the program at Duke, has begun to focus more on bringing in top freshmen, though of course he’ll still take an occasional transfer like this year’s addition Casey Morsell.

Coaching staff: In recent years, Krzyzewski has filled his staff exclusively with his former players. The current staff is composed of Jon Scheyer, Chris Carrawell, Nolan Smith, and Amile Jefferson, all of whom played for Coach K at Duke. This group of coaches will be on its own next season when Krzyzewski steps down, so he has delegated more responsibility for game preparation and recruiting. Scheyer, the head coach in waiting, already has a 2-0 record, filling in for Krzyzewski last season in a win at Boston College, and then last week in an impressive 76-64 triumph at Wake Forest when the current head coach was battling a virus.

Kevin Keatts’ staff, though not as high profile, has certainly helped the head coach create stability in the NC State program. James Johnson, Keatts’ former teammate at Ferrum College, was the first hire in 2017. Johnson has been a head coach—for two seasons at Virginia Tech. Assistant coach Roy Roberson is now in his fourth season on Keatts’ staff. The only relative newcomer is Mike Summey. Summey, an NC State grad, replaced Takayo Siddle two years ago. Siddle had been with Keatts since their days at UNC-Wilmington.

Philosophy: In his early days at Duke, Krzyzewski favored structure, often using the motion offense he had learned under Bob Knight at Indiana. But Krzyzewski began to evolve in the late '80s, starting with the recruitment of Danny Ferry, a 6’10 forward with perimeter skills. Ferry, perhaps college basketball’s original stretch four, set the ACC single game scoring record of 58 points one night at Miami. Not wanting to restrict player roles and movement, Coach K refrained from using the traditional 1-2-3-4-5 numbering system many coaches employ to assign positions to players. “We get great players and they play,” Krzyzewski once said, in describing his philosophy of flexibility.

Krzyzewski through the years has shown a great willingness to adapt his offense to the skill set of each new team, as opposed to trying to make new recruits fit an established system. He of course has extensive experience coaching NBA stars in International competition. He has incorporated things he learned winning those Olympic gold medals into his season-by-season approach at Duke. For example, using mobile big men on the perimeter, as well as inside; also clearing space in the lane so Duke’s guards can attack the basket to drive for a layup or drive and kick to a three-point shooter. Last week’s game against NC State brings another good example of innovation. Duke used four guards in the last two minutes, with Banchero as a 6’10 point center. NC State had cut Duke’s lead to nine, but the new Duke lineup closed out the game scoring the final six points.

Defensively, Krzyzewski has also evolved. He prefers playing a tight half court man to man with helpside principles. However Coach K has shown a willingness in recent years to use some zone to hide defensive weaknesses or slow down a red hot opponent. That’s something Krzyzewski would never have done in the '80s or '90s.

Keatts takes a somewhat more structured approach. His system employs four guards and one big man as the base offense. Coach KK likes this alignment because it creates more open space in the half court; also because it makes the team quicker defensively. The NC State coach will occasionally use two bigs at the same time in spot situations—as he did last season in four or five minute stretches with Bates and DJ Funderburk. Due to Bates’ injury, Keatts is quite unlikely to play two bigs at once this season.

Defensively, Keatts’ teams press full court, in an effort to push the tempo and force turnovers. Keatts’ priorities are to aggressively defend the three point line, shoot more threes than the opponent, and win the turnover battle. He believes if NC State does those three things the Wolfpack will win. I would note that this year’s team also excels at attacking the basket and also at getting offensive rebounds.

Media: For Mike Krzyzewski’s first 15 years he was very accessible. For example, anytime Duke reached the Final Four, he would interrupt his dinner the Friday night before to join Tom Suiter for a live interview during our WRAL pre-tournament special. Following his medical sabbatical for back surgery in 1995, Coach K changed his priorities, making himself less available to the media so that he would have more time to spend on things like the development of the Emily Krzyzewski Center and fundraising for Duke Hospital. While Krzyzewski does far fewer between game interviews and press conferences now than he did in the '80s and early '90s, he does spend time with the media after every game. He answers questions thoroughly and with great candor, occasionally injecting a bit of humor.

Keatts also employs humor in his post-game media press conferences. The NC State coach uses his natural warmth to good effect, especially when explaining the nuances of his basketball philosophy.

The future: Krzyzewski has already announced he’ll retire when this Duke season ends. He orchestrated the school’s order of succession, naming Scheyer the head coach in waiting, and maintaining the current staff. With an eye toward the future, Krzyzewski was heartened by how well the Blue Devils played at Wake Forest while he convalesced.

Krzyzewski also believes NC State, the ACC, and college basketball, are in good hands going forward with Kevin Keatts. Coaches K and KK have served together on various committees in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

“He’s going to be one of the leaders in college basketball,” Krzyzewski predicts. “He understands what’s good for the game. I can’t tell you how much I think of him.”