NCAA Final Four: Coach K's career ends as UNC beats Duke to reach title game
Caleb Love of the North Carolina Tar Heels shoots a layup past Trevor Keels of the Duke Blue Devils in the first half of the game during the 2022 Tournament Final Four at Caesars Superdome on Saturday in New Orleans. Credit: Getty Images/Jamie Squire
NEW ORLEANS — For the 48th time in 47 years of unparalleled coaching, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski took the slow walk to midcourt and shook the hand of the North Carolina coach who beat him.
After that, he found his wife, Mickie, and they made the slow, sad walk, hand-in-hand, off the Superdome floor.
Saturday night’s 81-77 setback in the national semifinals marked Coach K’s last loss, and one of his toughest.
And thanks to the Tar Heels — those gosh-darn Tar Heels — the 75-year-old coach will have plenty of time to get over it. “I’m sure at some time, I’ll deal with this in my own way,” he said.
Krzyzewski’s remarkable career came to a sudden close after Caleb Love made a key three-pointer and three late free throws to lift the Tar Heels.
This was the 258th, most consequential and maybe the very best meeting between these teams, whose arenas are separated by a scant 11 miles.
The eighth-seeded Tar Heels (29-9), of all teams, pinned the 368th and final loss on Krzyzewski. His lifetime record against North Carolina fell to 50-48, and Carolina fans will treasure Nos. 47 and 48 forever.
This one came exactly four weeks after the Tar Heels ruined the going-away party in Coach K’s final home game at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
That loss hurt. This one stopped the coach’s last-gasp, storybook run one win away from a title game and a chance at his sixth championship.
Krzyzewski said he had a locker room full of crying players when it was over. “It’s not about me,” he insisted. “Especially right now. I’ve said my entire career that I wanted my seasons to end where my team was either crying tears of joy or tears of sorrow. Because then you knew that they gave everything.”
They gave everything all the way through the nip-and-tuck stretch run that Duke played without a timeout.
When the final buzzer of his career blared, Krzyzewski shook the hand of Carolina’s rookie coach, Hubert Davis. Instead of Krzyzewski going for his sixth title on Monday, Carolina will try to win its seventh. It will be Hubert Davis, Love (28 points) and R.J. Davis (18) going against Kansas, which beat Villanova, 81-65.
“Dwelling on the two wins against Duke doesn’t help us against Kansas,” Hubert Davis said.
The game featured 18 lead changes and 12 ties. At about the two-minute mark, the teams traded three straight threes. Wendell Moore Jr.’s three with 1:19 left gave Duke a 74-73 lead, the last of Krzyzewski’s career.
R.J. Davis came back with two free throws, and after Duke’s Mark Williams missed a pair from the line, Carolina worked the ball around the perimeter.
Tar Heels guard Leaky Black set a pick — make that threw a block — on Trevor Keels to free up Love, who drained a three for a four-point lead.
After it was over, Hubert Davis was crying again, much as he did last weekend when North Carolina punched its ticket to its record 21st Final Four.
“I felt like over the last two or three years, North Carolina wasn’t relevant,“ he said. “North Carolina should never be irrelevant. It should be front and center with the spotlight on them.”
Freshman Paolo Banchero led the Blue Devils with 20 points and Keels, also a freshman, had 19.
One team’s agony is another team’s joy. The happy team has more work to do.
“All I’m thinking about are these players,’’ Davis said of his own squad. “Coach K is unbelievable. That team is the best team so far that we have played. And we just happened to make more plays tonight.”
