Mike Krzyzewski is Retiring After the 2021-22 Season
Well, it’s official. Legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski has decided that he is retiring after what will be 42 years at Duke University following the conclusion of the 2021-22 college basketball season. The news was first reported by Stadium’s Jeff Goodman.
I was scrolling on Twitter when Goodman’s news broke and as a diehard Dukie, I nearly had a heart attack reading “Mike Krzyzewski” and “retiring” in the same paragraph. The silver lining to his retirement is that Krzyzewski will get the proper send-off he deserves. Love him or hate him, his greatness is unquestionable and he has transformed the Duke basketball program since his hiring in 1980.
His announcement is not a shock, however. There were rumblings on Duke Twitter and inside the college basketball world that this upcoming season in Durham would be Krzyzewski’s last, and he will become one of the old guard of college basketball coaches retiring the whistle. Roy Williams did it earlier this year, Krzyzewski will do it in less than 12 months, and some expect Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim to follow suit in the next few years.
Krzyzewski’s statistics speak for themselves. He is the all-time leader in wins at the men’s collegiate basketball level with 1,170 – 1,097 of those coming at Duke. He has won five national championships – with a shot at a final sixth this coming year. He has reached 12 Final Fours, won 15 ACC Tournament titles, 12 ACC regular-season titles, and won Naismith College Coach of the Year three times. His list of accolades goes on far too long to be entirely compiled in this piece.
One part of the Goodman tweet that may have been overlooked is that Duke associate head coach Jon Scheyer is believed to be the coach-in-waiting.
Earlier this week, I wrote a detailed report of who I think the candidates for the Duke job are and who is most likely to replace Krzyzewski the GOAT. Scheyer was top of my list.
It is a sad day in Durham and in the college basketball world now that the long expected retirement of Krzyzewski has been confirmed. As a Blue Devil fan, I cannot imagine a game in Cameron Indoor without him, but it will become a reality soon. Duke will have a massive hole to fill at the season’s end.
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