Year of the Rat

After the heart-pounding college basketball action of the weekend, I can finally let out a breath and say “I’m glad that’s over.” Not the NCAA tournament, mind you, but the Year of the Rat.

You may recall that the Chinese culture names each year according to one of twelve animals. The Chinese year that spans over 2004-2005 is supposed to be the Year of the Monkey, but in the basketball universe, 2004-2005 was the Year of the Rat, meaning the rodent-resembling Mike Krzyzewski of Duke.

The Year of the Rat began well before the basketball season, when Coach K played a very public game of footsie with the Los Angeles Lakers regarding their vacant head coaching position. Television stations in North Carolina led their newscasts for four or five nights with the “will he or won’t he” hype usually reserved for celebrity murder trials. Newspaper and broadcast pundits all over the country chewed up column inches and air time proclaiming Coach K to be the anointed master of college basketball and predicted flood, fires, and famines - as well as the demise of the game - if he left for the NBA. Never mind that Phog Allen, Adolph Rupp, Henry Iba, John Wooden, and even Dean Smith had moved on, yet the basketball world survived.

The “intensely private” and “deeply committed” coach took the better part of a week for “soul searching” and finally ended the high drama with – get this – a letter from a Duke fan begging him not to go. All that was missing was for that fan to be a young boy in a hospital bed somewhere, so Mike could have his picture made with the lad, tousling the boy’s hair and proclaiming that he would go out and hit a home run for him that day at the ballpark… Sorry, I got sidetracked with my overdone sports clichés there.

SI.com writer Phil Taylor noted how this whole situation could be a great recruiting ploy, as well as allowing him to sweeten his already amazing deal with Duke. Taylor said that dragging it out kept Coach K “in the headlines for the entire weekend, with each speculative story raising his profile even more, not to mention his public speaking fees and his endorsement possibilities... Stretching things out was a great career move. All in all, Coach K played this situation out as masterfully as any game he's ever coached. “. So as a result, Krzyzewski was promoted from “one of the game’s top coaches” to King of All He Surveys by not taking a job offer. Smooth move, Mike!

Then it came time for the actual season. The ACC was set to be awesome in 2004-2005, with Wake Forest and North Carolina loaded to the gills and all the key parts back for 2004 national finalist Georgia Tech. Duke, on the other hand, was to be stung by the defections of Luol Deng and Shaun Livingston to the NBA. (Interesting sidebar: Shaun Livingston is the most important Duke player to have never actually put on a Duke uniform. Almost any article about Duke’s season laments the loss of both Deng and Livingston, despite the fact Livingston never came to Duke). Given how stacked the top 3 were, Duke was picked to finish fourth in the first-ever 11-team ACC, despite returning three starters and three top reserves. Some pundits proffered that Duke was picked too low, but most observed how it would be a “down year” for Duke, or at least a rebuilding year.

Such low expectations generated a Herb Sendek-esque non-conference schedule for Duke. The Devils played only two ranked teams in non-conference play (and one of those was in the ACC-Big 10 Challenge). They did not play a true road game until January 13. Duke rolled to a 15-0 record against its softest schedule in 10 years. How could this be, asked the Krzyzewski admirers? This is supposed to be a down year! Well, with 14 of your first 17 games against teams who would not make the NCAA tournament, it is easy to build a little confidence and momentum.

Somewhere in this 15-0 start emerged this notion that this might, in fact, be Coach K’s best coaching job ever! I mean, before he’s just been loaded with talent and has just had to roll the balls out, but this year the genius, the King of All He Surveys, has actually had to coach! Egad! While some injuries took their toll, mainly on the underachieving Shavlik Randolph, two schools of thought began to emerge – 1) Duke isn’t very deep; and 2) Duke isn’t really all that talented in the first place.

Both of these ideas should have been an affront to the players on Duke’s roster. After all, Duke only had five McDonald’s All-Americans (Dockery, Ewing, Randolph, Redick, and Nelson), an honorable mention Mickey D’s (Melchionni), as well as Shelden Williams, who was an EA Sports All-American (Interesting sidebar: Duke’s media guide lists Williams as a “consensus high school All-American” – how are you consensus if you are not on the McDonald’s team?) By my count, that’s six high school All-Americans and an honorable mention. What other team could go that deep in A-A’s? Not even North Carolina or Wake Forest. And besides – since the Laettner/Grant Hill teams, when has Duke ever been more than seven deep? When every game is on TV and you get a timeout for two minutes after every four minutes of game time, how deep do you need to be?

As for the “lack of talent”, well, the results have to speak for themselves. J.J. Redick was ACC player of the year and a first team All-American. Shelden Williams was ACC defensive player of the year and third-team All-American. DeMarcus Nelson was named to the ACC all-rookie team. Not bad for a bunch of no-talents.

Still, as Duke avoided the bloodbath that was the ACC regular season, the media chorus began to ring even louder that this was Coach’s K’s finest coaching job ever. Preseason media darling Georgia Tech suffered a truly crippling injury to B.J. Elder, and people expecting a breakout year from NC State had to suffer through numerous injuries, especially to Tony Bethel. Despite the fact both of these teams recovered to make the NCAA tournament, neither Paul Hewitt nor Herb Sendek were regaled for their “finest coaching jobs ever”. Meanwhile, over in Durham, there were six high school All-Americans who apparently couldn’t win a game of “horse” without the genius of Mike Krzyzewski.

At the beginning of March, the chorus grew louder that this was the best ever for Coach K. His hearty bunch of overachievers had, in fact registered wins over UNC and Wake, but had finished in 3rd place, two games behind Wake and three behind Carolina. That means the man in the midst of his career-defining coaching masterpiece had improved his team’s finish exactly one place over its preseason prediction. Fortunately, smarter heads prevailed and Seth Greenberg, who led Virginia Tech from an 11th-place preseason pick to 4th, won coach of the year honors.

This still did not silence the Krzyzewski crusaders. Duke’s march through the ACC Tournament confirmed it for his loyalists (meaning almost all of the media): this was his greatest coaching job ever. He had taken this ragamuffin band of six high school All-Americans, three returning starters, the ACC player of the year and the ACC defensive player of the year, and won the ACC Tournament by beating the #11 seed, the #6 seed, and the #5 seed – and all of whom Duke had beaten in the regular season. This in no way demeans the accomplishment; it’s just that it may have seemed more impressive had Duke beaten Wake and UNC to do it.

Not to be left out of “K Fever”, the NCAA rewarded Duke – the number 3 finisher in the ACC – with a number one seed for the tournament, ahead of Big XII regular season and tournament champ Oklahoma State, SEC regular season champ (and upset loser in the conference finals) Kentucky, and oh yeah – Wake Forest, the team that finished a full two games ahead of them in the ACC regular season and played without their star player in the ACC tourney.

Despite the predictions of some pundits that Duke was a very vulnerable #1 seed, K crusaders marched in lockstep as if reading from a “Cameron Crazies” cheer sheet: “This is Mike Krzyzewski’s best coaching job ever.” And UNC fans were taken to task for cheering against the Blue Devils when both teams were playing in Charlotte. “Can’t you see, Carolina fans, that this is K’s best coaching job ever? Don’t hate!” was a common cry on sports talk radio.

Plus, in passing Dean Smith’s all-time NCAA tournament wins record, some were ready to anoint him the “best tournament coach of all-time”, even ahead of John Wooden. I’m sorry, but Wooden was the Wizard of Westwood for a reason – 10 titles in 12 tries. No one, not even a guy doing his best coaching job ever, gets that title.

But the most maddening (or sickening) thing to happen during the tournament was being showered with Coach K ads every other timeout during the tournament. It wasn’t enough to see Krzyzewski’s ubiquitous face smiling from behind the wheel of a Chevy SSR, but I think it was the self-aggrandizing American Express ads that sent me over the top. Some on sports talk radio thought that those ads were equivalent to a recruiting video, but they disgust me because they present him in a light that I perceive to be phony; I could write another whole epistle about that (Interesting sidebar: the picture in the commercial of guys in graduation garb was the class of ’86, Mark Alarie, Johnny Dawkins, and Jay Bilas. Wonder where the picture is of Elton Brand, Will Avery, and Corey Maggette in their caps and gowns? Again, another epistle.)

Nevertheless, the little miracle that was the 2005 Duke team found one last hill it could not climb, in the person of the now-Final Four-bound Michigan State Spartans. All good things must come to an end, and so does the curtain fall on Mike Krzyzewski’s best coaching job since… well, last year (the Duke Basketball Report declared the 2004 team to be Coach K’s best coaching job ever, but have since decided this year is even greater).

The Year of the Rat closes with Mike Krzyzewski having sweetened his Duke contract; having been anointed the premier college coach in the country; having developed the greatest recruiting line ever (“Son, I turned down coaching Kobe and the Lakers so I could stay at Duke and coach kids like you.”); having boosted his retirement fund though all his endorsements; having a ready-made recruiting video done for him (just show the AMEX ads); and having done the most remarkable coaching job in a remarkable career. All in all (to borrow a Sinatra line), it was a very good year.

But the Chinese New Year rang in on February 9th. The calendar says it is the Year of the Rooster, but all those wearing light blue hope that on April 4th, it will become the Year of the Ram.