Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski played against UK when he was at Army and lost. (Duke Athletics Photo)
Kentucky will officially open its basketball season Tuesday in New York against Duke and coach Mike Krzyzewski, a man who once played against UK Radio Network analyst Mike Pratt. Kentucky beat Army 80-65 early in the 1968-69 season when Krzyzewski was a senior and Pratt a junior playing for coach Adolph Rupp.
“Army had a very good team (20-5) and they came to our Christmas tournament,” Pratt said. “I have talked to K (Krzyzewski) about it briefly a few times.
“It’s going to be cool to start the season with that game even though it will probably be 9:30 or later when it starts and it won’t get over until midnight. But it is always fun in Madison Square Garden and certainly will be going against K this time.”
That’s because this is Krzyzewski’s final season. He has been at Duke since 1980 and has won five national championships and been to 12 Final Fours.
“This will be the opening of his farewell tour,” Pratt said. “Who knows? He might get a few favorable calls but in all seriousness, he has had some kind of coaching career and it is kind of neat that the first game of his final season is against Kentucky.”
6 Responses
I honestly believe that most of BBN believed the hiring of Calipari was going to go that way for Kentucky. So much talent and possible championships squandered on his "players first" philosophy. I don’t see the cockiness in Calipari this year, but I also don’t see a team ready to play Duke tomorrow night either, but who knows? The Titans totally dominated the Rams without Henry, so strange things can happen. Vrabel is doing a much better job getting his team ready to play since the Jets debacle. It may well be that we need a similar type of embarrassment to get Coach and the team focused for play in December.
Calipari has been in position to win several more titles. Teams just could not close the deal
Should have won one of the games against UCONN games miss free throws and the other is the Wisconsin game had Cal play the right players down the stretch instead the Harrison boys. Just my opinion
He’s already had the embarrassment, if doesn’t deliver this year I’m afraid there will be a for sale sign on his front yard come spring.
Calipari has made it clear, the players come first, which means the program and the fans are somewhere down the list.
The program must be first priority for the head coach of this program. It has not been.
If his players first approach delivers championship caliber play and championships along the way, so be it with his philosophy, but it hasn’t, and it is heading in the wrong direction for it to give any reason to hope that it will in the future.
It is time for him to go.
I thought the coach works for the School, not the other way around?