Well the big milestone is finally here. There have been ESPN specials, and editorial specials, and lots and lots of special shots of the Krzyzewski Family. To get the record in Cameron would have been great. But it’s nice that Duke was able to hang on against Mich St and get the record for Coach K on a relatively slow Tuesday sports night where the significance of the moment could be appreciated.
Two thirds of the BvB trio (the 2/3 not living in England) got together with some friends to watch the game last night. It seems likely that the rest of the season watching this team will be filled with similar wild swings between fist pumping and blasphemy. Right now the offense is rough. Very Rough. Like wearing corduroys sliding down a water slide lined with sand paper rough. Thankfully the defense has still been solid. The team as a whole responded to what had to have been top of the coaching bullet points leading up the game: Pound the Defensive Glass! And thankfully my MIA man-crush, Andre Dawkins, was able to keep the Devlis in the game for the first half until the rest of the team decided to join the party. Duke played like a young team, surging out to a big lead and then frittering it away so slowly and consistently as to draw the largest amount of face-palming possible from the Duke faithful. But luckily Michigan State displayed it’s own offensively-challenged colors long enough that Duke held on.
It’s a proud day for Duke fans, for Duke players, for Coach K and his family. For someone as sucessful as Krzyzewski has been, there will always be people who will find reasons to not like him. But he is universally respected and admired. He has done it his way and the right way. For those of true blue ilk he is universally loved. So soak it up Blue Devil Nation. We’ll not see his like again. We can only hope we’ll be seeing him for a lot more wins to come. 1200 seems like a nice round number eh Coach K?