‘It’s no one’s fault’: Coach K on Duke’s COVID-19 outbreak, missing March Madness
For just the second time in 38 years, the Duke Blue Devils are not part of the NCAA tournament.
When the games begin Thursday with the First Four and Friday with the first round, coach Mike Krzyzewski will not be leading his team in pursuit of a national championship.
That leaves the 74-year-old coach with mixed feelings.
“A little bit empty,” Krzyzewski said, “but still excited about March Madness.”
After going 13-11 before a positive COVID-19 test among one their players caused them to withdraw from the ACC tournament, the Blue Devils were not awarded an at-large berth by the selection committee.
Duke wasn’t interested in the NIT, with teams housed and games played in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott ended mask mandates and opened businesses without restrictions.
So that’s it. For the first time since 1995, Duke isn’t in the NCAA tournament. It’s only the second time since the 1983 NCAA tournament.
As it turned out, Duke wouldn’t have been able to play anyway as more positive tests have come from the program this week, as was first reported by ABC 11, the News & Observer’s newsgathering partner. The infections grew despite the players and coaches being quarantined, or in the case of the positive people, isolated, since last Thursday.
Speaking about the situation on his SiriusXM radio show “Basketball and Beyond with Coach K” on Tuesday, without revealing the additional positive cases, Krzyzewski expressed no anger or frustration with his team not being picked for the tournament.
“You have to earn your way in,” Krzyzewski said. “We didn’t do enough and then right there at the end, look there is no right time to get the virus.”
Instead, it makes him appreciate even more the five national championships and 12 Final Fours he’s coached Duke to in his 41 seasons, plus his three Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. national teams.
“It’s no one’s fault,” he said. “And I’m good. Look, I’ve been the luckiest guy in the world. Are you kidding? Forty-six years at West Point and Duke, 11 years with the U.S. team. We’ve won a lot. Part of appreciating your winning is losing or not making it. Whatever time (it is), toward the end of my career, it makes me appreciate it more.”
Krzyzewski does feel like his players have missed out on opportunities, not just this year but last year’s team as well. Duke was 25-6 when the pandemic’s onset caused the 2020 NCAA tournament’s cancellation.
“My heart goes out to my team,” he said. “I’ve had those times. They haven’t. They haven’t. This is two years. Last year, the guys who were on the team, we were 25-6 and would have been a top 4 seed at least and didn’t get a chance to play and now don’t get a chance to play again. I feel bad for them.”
This year’s team went 11-11 in the regular season and its No. 10 seed for the ACC tournament was the worst in program history. Wins over Boston College and Louisville in Greensboro weren’t enough, even though Krzyzewski called the 70-56 second-round win over Louisville on March 9 “one of our best games of the season.”
Set to play Florida State in the quarterfinals the following night, Duke’s players were instead quarantined in Durham.
“We are in quarantine and going through all the stuff,” Krzyzewski said. “We were not able to play and then, obviously, we were not picked to play.”
With 68 other teams in Indiana to play for the national championship, Krzyzewski finds himself a spectator from afar. He plans to enjoy it and hope the sport’s signature event is able to be played.
“Look, congratulations to all those teams that were picked,” Krzyzewski said. “This has been an amazing year. It’s still an amazing year for teams going through all this and what the NCAA and everyone has had to do to put on the tournament. Congratulations to them. Hopefully it goes smooth where nothing happens and a team can’t play.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 6:45 AM with the headline "‘It’s no one’s fault’: Coach K on Duke’s COVID-19 outbreak, missing March Madness."