The Legends Club

by John Feinstein

  Just as Odom was beginning to wonder if he had bad information, Duncan walked up and sat down next to him. He explained the politics of the courts: older guys played first. Word had gotten around that a big-shot American college coach was in town, so everyone who had ever picked up a basketball was there that day.

  “If I insisted on playing the first game because you’re here to see me, they’d give me a bad team so I’d lose in the first game and not play for the next hour,” he said. “If I wait my turn, I can pick my own team and you’ll get to see me a lot.”

  Odom was instantly impressed with the savvy, smarts, and maturity of this sixteen-year-old kid. When Duncan got on the court, he was more impressed. Duncan was also being recruited by Providence—Coach Rick Barnes had also been tipped off about him—and probably would have gone there if not for the fact that Providence didn’t have a scholarship to offer in the fall of his senior year of high school. Wake Forest did—and the rest became history.

  Duncan was only seventeen when he enrolled at Wake, meaning he was now a nineteen-year-old junior. But he didn’t play or act like a teenager. The Deacons were clearly the ACC team with the best chance to reach the Final Four in 1996—which would be played in the New Jersey Meadowlands and would be the last Final Four played in a basketball arena.

  Wake was the odds-on favorite in the league in large part because of Duncan’s presence but also because Duke and North Carolina were question marks. Duke was trying to bounce back from Krzyzewski’s absence and the bad recruiting decisions that had been made prior to his illness. The Tar Heels had lost Stackhouse and Wallace, and even though they still had talent, they also had continuing issues within the team. Jeff McInnis was talented but a headache. Vince Carter was hugely talented but immature.

  Midway through that season, when someone asked Smith how he liked his two heralded freshmen, his answer was quick and instinctive: “Jamison is a joy to coach.” He didn’t mention Carter.

  Carolina was actually 11–2 after Jamison scored just before the buzzer to beat Maryland—at Maryland—88–86 in early January. But nothing was easy from that point on. In fact, by the time Carolina and Duke met in the regular season finale in Cameron, the Blue Devils had rallied from their 0–4 conference start to a record of 8–7. UNC was 9–6, meaning a Duke win would leave the two teams tied for third place behind Wake Forest and Georgia Tech—which was having a resurgent season led by freshman point guard Stephon Marbury.

  The game was chippy from the beginning. Both teams and coaches were uptight. No one at Carolina was happy that the team had gone 8–7 since the win at Maryland. That sort of thing just didn’t happen in Chapel Hill. Duke and Krzyzewski were relieved that the Blue Devils had won four in a row and had played well enough to have clinched an NCAA Tournament bid—unofficially—but the losing streak against the Tar Heels had reached six after a last-second loss in Chapel Hill a month earlier. That was the longest losing streak for Duke against Carolina since the six-game streak that had started in the dark days of 1982 and ended in the 1984 ACC Tournament hugfest.

  McInnis had become the target of the Duke students, who had heard all sorts of stories and rumors about him and, of course, chose to believe them. They had two chants for him, one involving his personal life and the other far more direct: “Asshole,” they chanted repeatedly. “Asshole.” The fact that McInnis kept repeatedly hitting important shots—he finished the game with twenty-five points—no doubt upped their anger and their angst.

  Late in the game, with the Tar Heels in control, Duke walk-on Jay Heaps—a star soccer player—body-checked McInnis into the scorer’s table while trying to foul him to stop the clock. McInnis reacted angrily and was hit with his second technical of the game—the first one had been for trash-talking after he had made a deep three-point shot—and was ejected. As he headed to the locker room, the “asshole” chants reached a climax.

  Smith was furious with the chant and with the personal digs directed at McInnis that had gone on during the game too. “I would think the faculty at Duke, the esteemed faculty at Duke, would be embarrassed by that,” he said. “I thought it was over the line.”

  Krzyzewski wasn’t apologetic. “I think the students recognized unsportsmanlike play,” he said, “and they reacted accordingly.”

  Krzyzewski wasn’t nearly as political in private. “They saw an asshole,” he said, “and they identified him as such accurately.”

  The sniping between the two coaches continued that week in the lead-up to the ACC Tournament. Krzyzewski accused Smith of trying to put the focus on the Duke students to draw attention from his ongoing feud with Clemson coach Rick Barnes.

  That had started the previous year during the ACC Tournament. Barnes had come to Clemson after stints at George Mason and Providence. He had grown up in Hickory, North Carolina, and, like most kids growing up in the state, he was a huge fan of North Carolina and of Dean Smith.

  “But I wasn’t going to come in and be in awe of him,” Barnes said. “Clemson had always had an inferiority complex, especially when it came to North Carolina. I wanted people to know those days were over.”

  Barnes didn’t have the players to compete with Carolina in 1995. The Tigers were in the process of getting blown out by UNC in the first round of the ACC Tournament when Barnes noticed Smith pointing a finger and yelling at one of his players, Iker Iturbe. True to his word, Barnes walked in the direction of Smith, pointing at him and saying, “If you have a problem with one of my players, you talk to me about it.”

  Referees Frank Scagliotta and Rick Hartzell rushed in to calm Barnes. When Barnes told them why he was upset, they decided to defuse the confrontation as quickly as possible.

  “Usually the best thing to do in those situations is bring the coaches together, let them tell us what the problem is, and get it over with,” Scagliotta said years later. “As it turned out, in that situation, it was definitely not the best thing to do.”

  When Smith walked to midcourt, Barnes repeated what he had said about yelling at one of his players. “He’s trying to hurt my players,” Smith said. “You need to get him under control.”

  “You need to get you under control,” Barnes yelled back, pointing a finger and moving in Smith’s direction.

  “Why don’t you hit me, Rick?” Smith said. “Go ahead and hit me.”

  At that point, Hartzell and Scagliotta had to push the two men away from each other—both still yelling and pointing.

  After the game, Smith said he had simply been yelling “Iturbe” at Iturbe and said, “He’s a European player.”

  Much like with Danny May-har eleven years earlier, he was saying Iturbe was a dirty player.

  The angry words had continued throughout the following season, and, as luck would have it, Clemson and Carolina were paired again a year later in the ACC Tournament. This time, though, Clemson was a much tougher out. In fact, the consensus was that a Clemson win over Carolina would put the Tigers into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1990—the year of the buzzer-beating Sweet 16 loss to Connecticut.

  Much to Smith’s dismay, Clemson won the game, 75–73, on a last-second basket by Clemson’s Greg Buckner. It was the first time that Clemson had ever beaten North Carolina in the ACC Tournament, and it did get the Tigers into the NCAA Tournament, even after they lost to Wake Forest the next afternoon in the semifinals.

  Smith made a point of stopping in the Clemson locker room to congratulate the players. He made the trip down the hall in the Greensboro Coliseum for two reasons: he knew it was the gracious thing to do and he didn’t want to appear too upset by the loss.

  Carolina was sent to the East Regionals as a number-six seed. Duke went to the Southeast as a number-eight seed. North Carolina State, after finishing 15–16—in spite of a win in the Les Robinson game—went looking for a new coach. Wake Forest was the number-two seed in the Midwest, which was unfortunate because it meant it had to go through Kentucky, the number-one seed in that region and, by then, clearly the
best team in the country, to get to the Final Four.

  As it turned out, Duke’s season had really ended with the loss to Carolina in Cameron. With two minutes left, Chris Collins had hurt his foot. He hadn’t been able to play in the ACC Tournament, and Duke meekly lost to Maryland. The Blue Devils were a fragile team to begin with and Collins had been the glue all season.

  A week later, he played in Duke’s first-round game against Eastern Michigan but struggled all afternoon, finishing with 11 points. Even if Collins had been 100 percent, Duke probably would have lost to EMU, which was led by five-foot-five-inch Earl Boykins, a whirling, spinning, shooting dervish who would go on to a lengthy NBA career. Boykins scored 23 points and Eastern Michigan won easily, 75–60.

  It was the first time Krzyzewski had lost a first-round NCAA Tournament game. In 1984 and 1985, his team had received byes into the second round before losing, and from 1986 to 1994 they had at least reached the Sweet 16 on eight occasions and had lost once—in 1993—in the second round.

  Even so, Krzyzewski felt good about the season. He had known it would be a transition year and that his team would not be nearly as talented as the seven he had taken to the Final Four. Help was on the way in the form of what he believed was a solid recruiting class.

  “Just as 1987 was important because we proved that what we’d accomplished in 1986 wasn’t a fluke, 1996 was important because we made the [NCAA] tournament and I felt comfortable and I felt healthy. I believed we were going to be good again soon. Eastern Michigan was just better than us—simple as that. As soon as we got home from that game I was ready to go. I wasn’t tired. I wanted to keep working. I was excited about what I knew we were going to be again.”

  Dean Smith was tired when his season ended three days and one round later than Krzyzewski’s had. The Tar Heels had easily won their first-round game against the University of New Orleans. That set up a game against Texas Tech, very much a nonbasketball school, but a team that was having a once-in-a-lifetime season under Coach James Dickey.

  In the last season of the Southwest Conference, the Red Raiders had won both the regular season title and the conference tournament. They had finished 28–1, which had earned them the third seed in the East. Carolina was no match for them, losing 92–73. A subsequent NCAA investigation into the athletic program would lead to both of Texas Tech’s NCAA Tournament wins that season being “vacated”—meaning that, technically, they never happened.

  That didn’t change the fact that Carolina had lost—and lost badly—in the second round of the tournament. It was only the second time in sixteen seasons that the Tar Heels had failed to reach the Sweet 16, but the last two months of the season left Smith feeling drained. His team had gone from 11–2 to 21–11, meaning it had limped to a 10–9 record from early January to mid-March.

  It wasn’t a happy team—in part because of the losing—but there was a chicken-and-egg component to that. McInnis was an issue, and there was bickering in the locker room, something Smith truly hated. The game in Cameron—although a win—left him feeling angry and exhausted, as did the ongoing feud with Rick Barnes. A first-round loss in the ACC Tournament followed by a second-round loss in the NCAA Tournament left him with a decidedly bad taste in his mouth walking out of the locker room in the Richmond Coliseum after the loss to Texas Tech.

  “If I had been making a decision about whether I wanted to coach the next season at that moment,” he said the following fall, “I wouldn’t have come back.”

  It was the first time in thirty-five years he had felt that way. He had always vowed to never decide to retire right after the end of a season. “No matter what, you’re tired even after a great season,” he said. “The thought of just being able to play golf and take life a little bit easier can be very appealing at that moment. But I’d never seriously thought about quitting—until 1996.

  “I knew I needed to get some rest and see how I felt in October. I had always said that I would know it was time to quit when October came around and I wasn’t excited about the start of practice.”

  When October came, Smith was ready to coach again. He had a nagging thought as he watched his team go through its preseason routine: Am I here because I want to be or because I didn’t want my last coaching memory to be the Texas Tech game?

  The truth, he knew, was that he wasn’t sure. He decided to see where the season took him and then try to figure out the answer.

  33

  North Carolina State hired Herb Sendek to replace Les Robinson as coach in the spring of 1996. Sendek was the anti–Jim Valvano, a very serious and studious young man who had worked for Rick Pitino at both Providence and Kentucky before going on to have a good deal of success at Miami of Ohio, winning sixty-three games his last three seasons. A first-round victory over Arizona in the 1995 NCAA Tournament had gotten Sendek on the national radar and—a year later—to N.C. State.

  At thirty-three he was a hot young coach. He was also the same age as Krzyzewski had been when he had gotten the Duke job and three years older than Smith had been when he had been promoted to the head coach’s job at North Carolina. Now he was being asked to compete with both of them. Given that the two of them had combined to win four national championships and reach seventeen Final Fours, the task had to be daunting.

  Smith and Krzyzewski weren’t that concerned with Sendek or N.C. State at the moment. They weren’t even all that concerned with each other. Each was worried about his own team.

  Wake Forest was still the odds-on favorite to be the best team in the ACC since Tim Duncan had again turned down the chance to make NBA millions and had come back for his senior year. Rick Barnes had turned Clemson completely around in two years, and the Tigers were a top-ten preseason pick nationally and generally considered the second-best team in the ACC. Third? Perhaps Maryland, perhaps North Carolina. Duke, Virginia, and Florida State were next in a very strong league. Only Georgia Tech—which had lost Stephon Marbury to the NBA draft not long after he had declared himself “one hundred percent certain” to stay at Tech for his sophomore season—and N.C. State were not considered serious NCAA Tournament contenders.

  The season didn’t start especially well for either Duke or North Carolina.

  The Blue Devils played in the preseason NIT for the third time, an event that brought back fond memories for Krzyzewski. Duke had won the event in 1985, the first year it had been played, and had gone on from there to Krzyzewski’s first Final Four. Five years later, the Blue Devils had finished third—losing to Arkansas in the semifinals. That season had culminated with Krzyzewski—and Duke’s—first national title.

  The memories this time weren’t so fond. Duke beat St. Joseph’s and Vanderbilt at home to reach the semifinals in Madison Square Garden. The Blue Devils then beat Tulsa in the semifinals, meaning they would face Indiana in the championship game on the night after Thanksgiving.

  The teams had played in Alaska a year earlier, and Krzyzewski and Bob Knight had been barely civil to each other, the memories of 1992 in Minneapolis still lingering. Krzyzewski decided this time would be different. If Knight wanted him to play the respectful pupil he would do just that—at least until the game started.

  And so, as the clock wound down toward tip-off, Krzyzewski walked to the Indiana bench and shook hands with all of Knight’s assistants. As always, Knight had stayed in his locker room until the last possible moment. Finally, with about a minute on the clock before the starting lineups were to be introduced, Knight came walking toward the floor, the famous horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas at his side.

  This was typical of Knight. He can’t stand to be alone, so he almost always has someone hanging out with him in the locker room prior to a game. On this night, the designated walk-around guy was Lukas.

  Krzyzewski was standing next to the Indiana bench, waiting for his mentor.

  “I wanted to be the one to reach out,” he said later. “That’s why I was going to him, to his bench. All I was going to say was, ‘Coach, let’s have a great ga
me. I’m glad to be competing with you again because I hope you know how much respect I have for you.”

  He never got the chance. As Knight approached the bench, he saw Krzyzewski waiting for him. He turned his back on him and began telling Lukas some kind of story. Krzyzewski waited. The buzzer sounded for the players to clear the court and the lineups to be introduced. Krzyzewski gave up and walked back to his bench.

  The game was at least as aggravating. Indiana pulled away late to win, 85–69. The loss hurt. Knight’s behavior hurt more.

  “That’s the period on the end of the sentence,” Krzyzewski said afterward. “I tried. It’s been almost five years. Enough. I’m done.”

  The next two months were a roller coaster. There was an irritating come-from-ahead loss at home to Michigan, followed by a gratifying win at Villanova—which was ranked number four in the country at the time. There was a come-from-behind win in the conference opener at Georgia Tech, followed two days later by a near miss, an overtime loss at Clemson when the Tigers were ranked number five nationally. Then there was another loss to Wake Forest—which was ranked number two nationally—the ninth straight time the Deacons had beaten Duke since 1993.

  But the loss that nearly put Krzyzewski over the edge came at Maryland on Super Bowl Sunday. The Terrapins were also a very good team, ranked number seven in the polls at the time. (The ACC would have five teams ranked in the top ten at various times during the season.) Losing to them in College Park, especially in a taut game that wasn’t decided until Steve Wojciechowski missed a jumper that would have tied it in the final seconds, was hardly any reason to feel ashamed or down.

  Krzyzewski wasn’t ashamed and he wasn’t down. He was furious. The next morning he lit into his assistant coaches, who he thought—correctly—believed that a 15–5 record (3–3 in the conference) at that point in the season was acceptable.