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NEW ORLEANS — It has been 42 years since Mike Krzyzewski, known universally now as Coach K, showed up at Duke as The New Kid on Dean Smith’s block, and slowly but surely where there was smoke on Tobacco Road there was fire.
And now, on Saturday night, the college basketball gods decided to save the best for last of an enduring Armageddon that has never raged in a Final Four semifinal that will send either Duke or North Carolina to the NCAA championship game against Kansas or Villanova on Monday night in an arena where Michael Jordan won Dean Smith’s first title 20 years ago.
An historic blue-blooded fan-fueled feud that is such unprecedented compelling theater no one will be surprised if the Monday night championship game turns out to be somewhat of an anticlimax.
“It’s the best rivalry in sports, period,” North Carolina guard Caleb Love said Friday. “This game will go down in history as one of the best games ever. I can’t wait for tomorrow.”
North Carolina rookie coach Hubert Davis would be the slam dunk sentimental favorite in his rookie season if Coach K weren’t the 75-year-old larger-than-life living legend and the John Wooden of his generation, looking to ride off into the sunset with his sixth national championship.
And considering the evolution of the game — the wild Wild West recruitment, the advent of the one-and-dones, the expansion of the tournament field, the more exhaustive and draining survive and advance format — here’s one vote for Coach K as college basketball’s GOAT.
Gene “Tinkerbell” Banks was a senior when he played for the rookie Coach K in 1980.
Matt Doherty played against the rookie Coach K as a North Carolina freshman and later coached against him.
“When you have a chance to go out like this, it’s the most amazing thing,” Banks told The Post. “I know John Wooden went out of his last game very well, but this game here will cement it as far as the Carolina-Duke rivalry.
“The world’s going to be watching this.
“They know about the backdrop, they know about the history. For him to win this game, it will really put a cement on his legacy.”
Banks had lost the national championship game to Kentucky in 1978 under then-coach Bill Foster and was a senior when Coach K, a Bobby Knight West Point disciple, was hired. “I never heard of him,” Banks recalled.
A week later Coach K had Banks and fellow freshman Kenny Dennard in his office. “The first word that came out of his mouth was, ‘I’m not Bobby Knight,’ ” Banks said.
Then Coach K tried to break the ice. “He was talking about there are lines you don’t cross when you’re doing manhood and doing things like that,” Banks said. “In the next breath he goes, ‘And you two guys have crossed on it, pissed on it, crapped on it and so forth.’ But it was funny because he was making a joke.”
But in a Feb. 7, 1981, game at Cameron Indoor against Maryland, the Dark Knight surfaced unexpectedly.
“This is when who he was,” Banks said. “He comes into the locker room, and that’s when you saw the Bobby Knight. He takes off his jacket and he yells and screams: ‘I want soldiers, I want guys who are going to go out here and fight for me!’ We’ve never seen this. And we’re looking at each other like, ‘God, here’s Bobby Knight in the flesh.’ And he’s going off and he’s going: ‘I want guys when we leave out of this room, we’re going to go ahead and take care of our business. We’re going to take care of our home.’ ”
Coach K left. Then he returned: “Are you with me soldiers?” Yes, his Duke soldiers were with him. “We jumped up and ran out of that locker room, did the layup line and we won this game,” Banks said. “That’s when I saw the power he had of motivating.”
Doherty recalls Banks sending the Feb. 28, 1981, game into overtime and then winning it for Coach K’s first triumph in his third try over Carolina at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
“It was always a big deal, even when they weren’t great,” Doherty told The Post. “The Cameron Crazies were still crazy. If you went out for early warmups, they were yelling and saying things and doing goofy things. They were always pretty nuts, even when their teams weren’t very good.”
Banks recalls Coach K treasuring that first win over Smith and the James Worthy-Sam Perkins Tar Heels more than he let on at the time.
“It was pretty much under control. But I know one thing, his last daughter he had, I know I’m the reason for that, because he went home and the next day he came back and he had this smile on his face — that’s when I knew that he was human, because he came back and said he had a hell of a night last night. I guess his daughter Jamie — him and Mickie went back and made a baby on that shot. And he doesn’t deny it now,” Banks said with a laugh.
Doherty had been recruited out of Holy Trinity HS (Long Island) and averaged 24 minutes and 6.0 ppg as a freshman. He was an immediate target at Cameron. “I know they picked on me a little bit,” Doherty recalled. “I’d say they’re just a bunch of yankees who’d come down to Duke and they’d let out their stress at games or something like that. I think they picked on me because they knew that I wasn’t going to score 20 points on ’em. They didn’t want to make Michael or Sam mad.”
Coach K incurred the ire of Duke fans early on (17-13, 10-17, 11-17 in his first three seasons) but he persevered thanks to the continued support of late athletic director Tom Butters.
“By the time I was a senior, Coach K came out and said something before the ACC Tournament about there’s a double standard in the ACC regarding officiating,” Doherty said. “And I really thought that impacted our game with Duke in the ACC Tournament where Duke beat us by like two. So then it was game on when they turned the corner.”
Doherty enjoyed success in his first year on the North Carolina sideline before some players rebelled against his combative style and forced his resignation after just three seasons.
“The first game we played Duke was at Duke, it was like a seven-point game with about a minute to go and Duke’s making a run,” Doherty said, “and we were up, so I was trying to keep the guys loose, so in the huddle I said, ‘One thing’s not changed and Duke still has the ugliest cheerleaders in the ACC.’ And I just decided to get a chuckle out of ’em to keep ‘em loose, and we ended up winning the game. So that’s the first time Carolina beat Duke at Duke in five years.”
It was an innocent joke that was intended to stay private.
“It got out and then it was on TV,” Doherty said. “I remember people debating whether it was appropriate or not, so I sent a letter to Coach K and I sent a letter to the Duke cheerleading coach, who ironically was a cheerleader at Carolina when I was in school.
“So it’s kind of made the rivalry folklore.”
Wait until Coach K versus Carolina on Super Saturday.
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