You don’t have to be a fan of college basketball to appreciate what Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski did the other night in a tense NCAA Tournament game.
You don’t even have to be a fan of the man whom most people refer to as “Coach K” because of the difficulty of pronouncing, much less spelling, his Polish surname.
The two strategic decisions he made — one his own, the other he claimed was recommended by his players — typify what has made him the winningest college coach ever. They are lessons that can be applied to not just managing a sports team but anything that requires a collective effort.
With 14 minutes to go in a regional semifinal game Thursday against Texas Tech, Krzyzewski’s team, though favored, was down by two points. It felt as if it could have been worse. The team from Texas had outplayed Duke for a majority of the game’s first 26 minutes. It appeared that Krzyzewski, who is retiring at the end of this season, would experience the third and final low note of his last three weeks as a coach. The Blue Devils had previously lost badly in Krzyzewski’s final home game and again in the championship of his final conference tournament.
The best coaches are those who can make adjustments when things are not going for their team the way they had envisioned. It sometimes requires asking their players to do something that’s out of their comfort zone and the coach’s. It can be risky.
In this case, Krzyzewski’s risk was to switch from a man-to-man to zone defense, in which each defender is assigned an area of the court to cover rather than an individual opposing player. What’s significant about that is Duke rarely plays a zone defense, which is generally employed by teams who are either undersized or with lesser raw talent than their opponents. Those are conditions in which Duke, thanks to Krzyzewski’s recruiting prowess, has rarely found itself through most of his 40 years at the university in Durham, North Carolina.
It was later reported that Duke had played zone defense less than 5% of the time during the regular season this year, and the team didn’t really even practice it in the three days it had to get ready for Texas Tech. Going into the game, though, Krzyzewski obviously had the option in the back of his mind. One line on the scouting report noted that it might become necessary.
The defensive switch worked. It reduced the pounding that the more physical Texas Tech team was delivering, and it made it more difficult for the Red Raiders to work the ball inside.
But like most adjustments in sports, there are always counter-adjustments by the opponent. Texas Tech began to figure out how to attack the zone successfully and retook the lead. After a three-point field goal with less than 3 minutes left in the contest put Duke back up by one, Krzyzewski called a timeout.
What happened next may be more lore than truth. Krzyzewski said the players pleaded in unison to switch back to the man-to-man defense. Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde wrote, however, that from his courtside view, it “looked like a Krzyzewski decision after consultation with his staff. It stands to reason that’s why he called the timeout to begin with, to reconsider his defense with the zone starting to spring leaks. Perhaps he presented the option to the players and they affirmed it.”
I like Krzyzewski’s version better, even if a bit embellished.
It underscores what anybody who is any good at managing others knows. They are more likely to successfully carry out a plan if they feel some ownership in its formulation.
Here’s how Krzyzewski explained it:
“Whenever they can own something, they’re going to do it better than if we just run it. When they said that, I felt they’re going to own it. They’ll make it work, and that’s probably more important than strategy during that time.”
The 78-73 victory proved him and them right.
If Duke can beat Arkansas on Saturday, Krzyzewski will make his 13th Final Four appearance, breaking the tie he has held for the past seven years with John Wooden, the late UCLA legend.
The storybook ending would be for Duke to win it all, sending its 75-year-old coach off with a sixth national championship in his final game.
Even though that could happen, don’t expect it. Those late-season losses and close wins in two of the three NCAA Tournament games have exposed Duke’s vulnerabilities.
I’m conflicted. Most years I’ve rooted against Krzyzewski because he’s won so much and his teams seem to get preferential treatment from the referees. I have relished the few times Duke has been upset in the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
But I can’t help but admire someone who has proven that getting older does not mean you have to become set in your ways. Krzyzewski has been successful for four generations at the highest level of his profession because he has been willing to adapt to changing circumstances, sometimes with forethought, sometimes on the fly.
It’s a skill to emulate.
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
