DURHAM, N.C. — Leonard Hamilton got a hug. Mike Krzyzewski had kind words for Florida State’s Wyatt Wilkes and, later down the line, for all of the Seminoles’ many injured stars. Then he turned to his left and started walking across the floor, head down as he crossed the free-throw lane.
Six hundred and forty-four times before he had made some variation of that walk across the Cameron floor, after wins and losses, certainly far more of the former than the latter, and this was, inexorably and unavoidably, the last.
The end has arrived, the final finalities of Krzyzewski’s 42 years at Duke, and after the next game he coaches at Cameron there will be no walk back to the locker room. There will be speeches and honorifics and a grand encomium at the distant end of a record-breaking career. Saturday was the last home game he’ll coach at Duke that felt anything close to normal and routine.
Krzyzewski knew it, too. He has so assiduously avoided any hint of sentimentality this season but there was no way to dodge it Saturday. It was like a gentle slap across the face, awakening but not painfully so, a reality that could not be ignored.
“Look, it’ll be emotional, the last game here,” Krzyzewski said. “Some of these games have been a little bit emotional for me, in one way and then another. Even today, with all the crowd and whatever, you want to savor that feeling because you’re only going to be able to walk out on that court one more time and have that feeling.
“But it makes me understand how lucky I’ve been to do it hundreds of times. Not a dozen. Six hundred. I don’t know how many games I’ve coached. But I’ve had these moments hundreds of times. It’s been a blessing to be the coach here, with this crowd and with this culture. I’m a lucky guy. I’ve been a very, very lucky guy.”
Krzyzewski hadn’t even gotten to make that walk in Duke’s last home game, bailing out at halftime for IV fluids, exhausted. (“It doesn’t perk as quickly,” he said.) But after taking care of an undermanned Florida State team, 88-70, with his grandson taking and making Duke’s final shot, all that was left was that walk, three road games and North Carolina in two weeks.
All this time, the pressure has been building, the weight of expectations as the end approaches. After Tuesday’s narrow win over Wake Forest, Paolo Banchero even mentioned finishing first in the ACC standings, not a priority that’s often been acknowledged at Duke, where the ACC championship and NCAA Tournament have always been the ultimate goal. But that’s the kind of season this is, where everything matters and there’s no space to breathe. Saturday’s victory moved Duke into sole possession of that position with four games to go.
Nowhere is that more true than in Cameron, where the Blue Devils appear almost stifled at times compared to their generally free and easy play on the road. Duke has won its past five road games by nine or more — and the games at Notre Dame, North Carolina and Clemson are as tough as the ACC has to offer on the road this season — but it had played three straight close home games going into Saturday.
And Saturday even started out that way, with Florida State apparently unable to miss despite missing five starters and Banchero and Mark Williams in first-half foul trouble. Duke finally pulled away late in the first half, locking down on defense and running its lead to 24 — not that double-digit leads have been lock-tight in Cameron this year. Another symptom.
The crowd could feel the moment, too. It was as engaged as it has been for a non-UNC game in some time, every bit of the undergrad and grad sections packed to the corners, almost like a warm-up for two weeks from now. Krzyzewski noticed it and acknowledged it, not merely clapping toward the fans as he exited the floor, but even stepping into the maelstrom for high fives and hugs as he started to disappear from view.
“What a crowd,” Krzyzewski said. “A tremendous crowd. We had a great Cameron day.”
Even if you couldn’t tell from all of that — and you can — the steady procession of luminaries finding their way back to Cameron to pay their respects would give it away. There have been some rarely heard names at recent games, but the number continues to increase.
Billy King, Danny Ferry, Cherokee Parks, Mike Dunleavy, Matthew Hurt, Ricky Price, Shavlik Randolph, Shelden Williams and Josh Hairston were among those making the pilgrimage Saturday, although Tre and Tyus Jones got bigger cheers than any of them.
One can only imagine the guest list for March 5.
Duke has three road games to play before returning home for the Konclusion, each with its own sentimental value. At Virginia, where Tony Bennett is as close to anyone the ACC has who can be thrown the torch to hold high. At Syracuse, against Jim Boeheim, the man who taught Krzyzewski the 2-3 zone. And at Pittsburgh, where Jeff Capel was once thought to be heir to this throne.
And then, two weeks from now, the end. It’s hard to imagine the pressure to perform in that game, so much so that Brooklyn and Greenville, S.C., and wherever Duke goes next — the NCAA top-16 preview Saturday had Duke headed west to California, where Krzyzewski has never won an NCAA tournament game — may seem like an August jaunt to the Bahamas compared to the North Carolina game.
There will be no quiet walk across the floor on that day, win or lose. This was the last time things will be the way they’ve been for four decades. The end has arrived, and this was the beginning of it.
