Mike Krzyzewski Was Needlessly Rude to Duke Student Reporter

If the movie Grumpy Old Men had a reboot, Mike Krzyzewski would be on top of the perspective cast list. The 73-year-old coach isn't as funny Walter Matthau or Jack Lemmon, but he does have the needlessly-cantankerous personality thing down at this point.

After Duke lost its third straight game to fall to 5-5 on the season, this loss to Louisville 70-65, Krzyzewski was asked a very basic question by a Duke student reporter on a reporter pool Zoom call: What is the next step forward for the team?

Instead of answering the question, however, Krzyzewski seemed to take offense to it. First, in a prickly way, he said he just wanted to evaluate this game and pointed out that, woe is him, they just finished playing! Then, for whatever reason, he tried to make a comparison to the student taking a final exam and how he would feel if someone asked him to think about what comes next right after the exam. The analogy fell flat and Krzyzewski came out looking like an old man shaking his fist at the neighbor who is walking in front of his house.

First of all, Krzyzewski blowing off the student's question as if it didn't have merit is ridiculous. This young man is doing his job, asking a very basic question to understand what Duke needs to do to improve. For whatever reason, Krzyzewski went on the defensive, saying he only wanted to think of this game, which is odd because basically every coach in the world will tell you when a game is done, it's better to move on and focus on the next one.

As for the final exam comment, actually, from my recollection, much like a game when a test is done, you move on. Sure, you might dwell on that one question you knew that you got wrong like an hour after the test is done, but in the immediate aftermath it's time to blow off some steam. Unless you have an exam the next day, in which case it's time to move on and focus on the next one. Either way, Coach K's correlation was off.

Coach K has been snappy with the media after losses in the past, but calling out a student reporter on a Zoom call in front of other media members when the student reporter did nothing wrong is one step too far. His players might have signed up for lessons from Coach K, but this reporter certainly did not. Especially when said lesson was inaccurate from the beginning.