880 In Greensboro

It was a pretty uneventful holiday break. The usual vices of food and drink were, of course, enjoyed - in far too much quantity. I did make it up to Greensboro on the Wednesday after Christmas to witness a historical event. Duke defeated UNCG for the 880th victory for Mike Krzyzewski, one more than legendary UNC coach Dean Smith.

Comparing these two coaching giants for the purpose of determining the single better coach is a fun, but futile, exercise. Brett Friedlander from the ACC Insider has a decent statistical summary. Their careers overlapped by only 17 years and the game (and the underlying culture) has significantly changed between the time Coach Smith took over UNC in the 60s and today.

Even the non-statistical comparisons around coaching innovations get a bit fuzzy. For example, I have probably read a gazillion times in the last two weeks that Coach Smith is credited with, among other innovations, creating the Four Corners, when the reality is that he merely popularized it. The Four Corners was actually created by John McLendon.

Digressing a bit but, while discussing coaching giants, if you want to talk about innovation in basketball, you should take a look at that cat’s (McLendon’s) resume. Start with the excellent ESPN documentary entitled Black Magic – and consider that he was advised/mentored by Dr. James Naismith. Can you imagine going to a job interview for a coaching position and and being able to list that reference!

So we are talking about Smith, Coach K, and McLendon all doing their thing within a 12 mile radius of each other – though not simultaneously. McLendon coached at the North Carolina College of Negroes (now known as NC Central University) in Durham in the 40s and 50s.

It is hard to convey the emotion that folks in this neck of the woods are feeling about all of this. Imagine Bobby Bowden or Bear Bryant establishing their programs 8 miles from State College around 1982 (after Joe Paterno had already cemented his legacy) and battling JoePa 2 or 3 times a year for the next 17 years. Emotional advocates for either coach (and school) can cherry-pick and choose statistical categories to bolster their claims.

Bottom line is that one really doesn’t need to choose. Both are Hall-of-Famers. Additionally, K is still going strong – any real comparisons should probably wait until he and his contemporaries (Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun) all hang up their whistles.

Fun stuff. Now on to the actual game. We left Hillsborough at around 3:30 and got to Greensboro around 4:30 where we grabbed some beer and sandwiches at JP Looney’s off campus. They had a 128-ounce domestic Brewtender of Bud Light for $10.75 that a couple of us enjoyed. (Inside the Coliseum, a 24-ounce domestic can of Bud Light was $8.00.)

After eating and drinking, we had two options. We could either park at Chris’ apartment and walk over to the Coliseum or just park in the Coliseum lot and pay the $10 fee.

Chris’ apartment is across the street on Englewood St. but I actually chose the latter option because:

• I didn’t want to walk in the cold  - I know – wussy!
• I didn’t want to bring my coat into the game (required if we were to walk)
• We were all heading back to Hillsborough directly after the game.
• I didn’t realize how close Chris’ apartment actually was to the Coliseum

I also didn’t realize at the time how much Chris is like Cody N when it comes to traffic. If I knew that, I would have opted for the former option. Let me explain that. My Dad would really get nervous in heavy traffic or driving in unfamiliar territory. You could of driven a particular road twice every day for the last 5 years, but if traffic was heavy and if Dad was riding along with you, he might ask “Are you going the right way?”. He would also get really agitated when backed up in traffic. Apparently Chris has inherited that gene from his granddad.

In our case, the area around the Coliseum was very congested and it took us about 17 minutes to get to our parking spot – about a 1/4 mile trip. During this 17 minute timeframe of bumper-to-bumper congestion, Chris proclaimed (naturally from his back seat location) that “I told you we should have parked at my apartment and walked”. He reminded all of us about that (and me in particular) oh, about 7 times in 17 minutes.

Finished busting my chops, Chris finally relaxed and we got to the arena around 6:30 – in plenty of time for the 7:00 jump. Our seats were, hmmm, interesting. Last row, BBB, in Section 227. 28 rows up in the upper level and a pretty steep incline at that. But the price was right, so no sense of complaining.

Even though we needed oxygen at that elevation, I still had a great time and the vantage point really wasn’t that bad. In fact, from that perspective, you can truly appreciate aspects of the game that you don’t always see on TV. Namely, the action that happens away from the ball.

Screening, cutting, bumping the cutters (Jay Bilas’ favorite expression), and boxing out – all of that stuff happens off the ball.  UNCG was outmatched, but Duke ran some beautiful motion in this game with excellent spacing, crisp passing, and the trademark intensity and teamwork that has been their calling card. Pretty much the way they have been playing for 31 years now. My heart will always be with these guys, but I can appreciate sustained excellence – from wherever it originates.

Other Observations from Greensboro….

• Big crowd – over 22K. Many were late arriving due to the traffic mess outside the arena. Continually amazed that so many people pay good money for a ticket and then expect to be able to whiz right in right before tip-off. The same thing happened at the UNC-vs-Texas game a couple of Saturdays ago, but I guess nobody was paying attention.
• Kids Say the Darndest Things: With a couple of minutes left and Duke already having scored 94 points, I noticed this cute little boy in the row in front of us counting something with his fingers. Couple of seconds later he proudly exclaimed: “Only 10 more points and Duke will have 100 points!” Math fail.
• Attention Whoredom: A UNC fan with a Carolina Flag sat in the UNCG Student Section and would periodically stand up and wave that flag. Cue boos. Dude, it was sort of cool the first time – not so much by the sixth or seventh time.
• Halftime Entertainment. Amazing performance by this Asian acrobat who, while riding a 10-foot unicycle, balances these porcelain bowls first on her her foot and then kicks them on to the top of her head. Starts with just 1 bowl and progresses to 5 bowls. Amazing stuff. By the time she got to 5 bowls, she brought the house down.

Here is a Flickr Slideshow of shots taken on December 29, 2010 at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC while attending Duke University's 108-62 victory over the Spartans of UNC-Greensboro: