Congratulations to coach K, who won his 800th game today coaching the Duke Blue Devils to a victory over the Wolfpack of N.C. State. It was a classic Duke game, in which Duke shot terribly, trailed almost the entire game, and then in gut check time, made the big plays and pulled it out with a 1 pt. victory.
Coach K. now becomes just the 6th mens college BB coach to hit 800 wins. The best part is that unlike 2 other members of that exclusive club, he hasn't had the recruiting, legal, and alcohol problems that plagued Eddie Sutton. He also had done it displaying class and integrity, clearly a sign that he didn't learn everything from his mentor, Bob Knight. (If you read my blog a few days ago, you know my feelings about "The General".
Here's the really exciting part for fans of coach K and Duke basketball (of which I am one, just in case you didn't get that. ) Coach K's record at Duke is 741-205. Let's remove this years record, since the year is incomplete, and his record is 716 and 202. That works out to an avg. win total of just over 26.5 per year. The current leader in wins in men's college BB is Bobby Knightmare, with 902. That means that Coach K's total win total, including his stint coaching Army, is 800- 264. Assuming he wins no more games this year, (unlikely, with 2 more games in the regular season, the A.C.C. tourney, and the NCAA tourney , it's likely he will pull at least 5 more wins this year, and that's conservative) he will easily surpass Knight with 4 more seasons, at which pt. he will only be 65. It is conceivable that he could win 1000 games. An even more promising scenario is to remove the 9-3 record from 94-95, when he succumbed to exhaustion and back surgery. That bumps his avg. wins per season to over 28, which with 5 more wins this year bringing him to 805 would have him starting his 4th season after this one with 889 wins, in need of only 14 to be the winningest coach ever. That's a half season!
Congrats again to Coach K, Duke Basketball, and winning one for the good guys.
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