LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- If there was one coach in men’s college basketball who could dismiss internet insanity, I would nominate Michael William Krzyzewski of Duke.
I would not expect Krzyzewski to be asked about a “panic button,” in January.
Coach K was asked about a “panic button” after Duke lost a game earlier this week.
You know about the five NCAA championships Coach K has won. You know about the 12 Final Fours. You know about the record 1,162 victories.
Here is a Coach K stat you likely did not know. I didn’t until I researched it Friday afternoon:
Duke will play Louisville at 4 p.m. Saturday in the KFC Yum! Center dragging a two-game losing streak.
How unusual would a three -game losing streak for Team Krzyzewski? Duke has lost three straight one time since the 2007 season.
One three-game losing streak over the last 480 games by a combined 11 points to Clemson, Notre Dame and Syracuse in January 2016.
This Duke team lost at Virginia Tech by seven on Jan. 12 and by six to Pittsburgh last Tuesday.
During the same period, Louisville lost by six to Miami last Saturday and by 13 to Florida State on Tuesday. The Cards lost three straight in 2019, Chris Mack’s first season as head coach. They also did that in 2018 during David Padgett’s season as the interim coach.
At Duke, losing three in a row would be like saying Tyler Hansbrough was a better player than Christian Laettner. Not happening.
But after Duke trailed for more than 37 minutes at Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Duke slipped to 5-4. The Blue Devils were already unranked.
Get this: Joe Lunardi placed Duke five spots outside the 68-team field in the updated NCAA Tournament bracket he posted at ESPN.com on Friday. (Lunardi had Louisville an 8-seed.)
Even Coach K must hear a bit of the grumbling around his team. This is something he said after the Blue Devils lost at Pittsburgh:
“(My players) are 18, 19 and 20,” he said. “There should be no panic buttons on young people who have a chance to play at this level of college basketball.
"If there was a panic button, it would be for 73-year-old people who have coached for 46 years, and I don't have one.
“They got to get tougher. This is such a young team. It’s such a young team. It’s as young a team as we’ve had for just a long time. We can’t afford to be down. We have to respond.”
So there you go. Duke needs to respond, because the Blue Devils are trending to miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1995.
Remember that the Cardinals went into Cameron Indoor Stadium and handled Duke, 79-73, last season. Remember that after the game, Coach K was annoyed by the physicality of the game, calling it, “the prelim to the (UFC) fight tonight ... That was a brutal game. The most physical game we’ve been involved in ... in years. Really.”
Louisville needs to respond because the Cardinals lost to a Miami team they should have handled in Florida and then backed it up by sleep-walking to a 24-point deficit in the first half against Florida State.
Mack and U of L forward Quin Slazinski said U of L has worked on improving the team’s competitiveness and urgency at the beginning of games.
“I think our urgency and competitiveness in practice has been good,” Mack said. “Our execution at times hasn’t been great. We have to play with a ton of effort and energy and try to clean up those other things.”
Said Slazinski, “We have a really young team that just truthfully doesn't know — I’m not disregarding or talking down anyone on the team — it's just we haven't been here before. Just the new guys on the team.
“So we really don't know what it takes and there's no off games in the ACC. I mean every night is a big time matchup, with big-time players and, we learned that the hard way.
“But it's time to flip the page, and we have a historic coach coming in the building tomorrow, and it's time to go take care of Duke.”
And, perhaps, push the Blue Devils’ panic button.
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