Duke-Notre Dame Hoops Showdown Carries Extra Meaning For Coach K

When the Coach K Farewell Tour rolls through South Bend, Ind., on Monday night, it won’t just be the stakes that are high. 

The emotions will soar, too, for Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and his extended basketball family.  

Yes, a first-place tie in the Atlantic Coast Conference will be on the line when ninth-ranked Duke meets unranked (but surging) Notre Dame. The game was originally scheduled for New Year’s Day but a Covid-19 issue on the Blue Devils’ side forced the game to be pushed back.

Geography and loyalty add to the appeal of this matchup, which comes less than two weeks before Coach K’s 75th birthday. 

Duke’s Chicago-bred coaching legend would have been a dream candidate to replace Digger Phelps three decades ago, but that job opened just as Duke was winning the first of its five NCAA Tournament titles.

Nine years later, when the Irish were again looking for a coach, they wisely followed Krzyzewski’s recommendation and hired former Duke assistant Mike Brey away from Delaware. Brey has since surpassed Phelps in career coaching victories at the school while leading the Irish to back-to-back Elite Eight appearances in 2015-16. 

Brey, 62, remains the only former Krzyzewski assistant or player to beat him as an opposing coach. It has happened six times, most recently last February at Cameron Indoor Stadium. 

That snapped a seven-game winning streak for Duke in the series, which immediately followed a span of five wins in six tries for Notre Dame after the Irish moved over from the Big East Conference. 

“He didn’t hire me when I was a high school coach – I was a high school assistant coach,” said Brey, who coached under another Hall of Famer in Morgan Wootten at DeMatha Catholic. “(Krzyzewski) gave me a chance in 1987 and then let me get my hands on everything to really prepare me to be a head coach.”

Brey spent eight seasons on the Duke staff, including the Devils’ first two national titles, before heading out on his own. 

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be in the same league with him – the ACC – with expansion,” Brey said. “I kind of liked having my own world over there in the Big East. We’ve had some great match-ups with them. We’ve had some great wins. It’s given us great credibility.”

The Brey-K friendship will carry on well beyond Monday’s pivotal meeting, but coaching roughly 80 miles from his boyhood home should make this experience even more memorable for Krzyzewski. 

“He’s amazing,” Brey said. “I tip my cap to the intensity and (him) wanting to still compete after all these years. It’s very fitting he rolls through South Bend in his last year. I would think he’d have a lot of family here from Chicago, being a Chicago guy. Monday will be cool.”