"He's never lost his fire for the day-to-day grind... He's on top of little details all the time" - Jay Bilas opens up on what separates Mike Krzyzewski from others
Mike Krzyzewski is regarded as one of the greatest NCAA basketball coaches of all time. ESPN's Jay Bilas recently spoke about what separates Coach K from other coaches.
During his time leading the Duke Blue Devils, Mike Krzyzewski established himself as one of the elite coaches in basketball. He maintained an excellent program for over forty years which earned him his reputation.
Coach K wrote the book on modern coaching, just as John Wooden did for many coaches after his time in the field. Many former players and coaches hold Mike Krzyzewski in the same regard as the other legendary coach.
One of Mike Krzyzewski's former players is Jay Bilas, who has become one of the top college basketball analysts at ESPN. Bilas recently spoke about what makes Coach K great during an appearance on KG Certified. He said:
"I mean it's I don't think it's like an X & O thing where he's gonna out strategize another coach. I think it's more he's got a great feel for people. I think he's ultra competitive, which is amazing, but he's never lost his fire for the day-to-day grind of what it takes to win. He's he's on top of little details all the time. Like, he doesn't let stuff slide."
Jay Bilas also spoke about what it was like to play under Mike Krzyzewski and how the coach handled mistakes. He added:
"Even when we're winning, the times we probably got it worse than any was when we'd won and we hadn't done what we were supposed to do; hadn't played to the level we're supposed to play. Sort of the standard was, did we do what would beat the best teams, and if we didn't, we paid a price for it."
While Coach K's approach to coaching is not exactly unique, it is something that coaches have to commit to doing to make it effective. Working on the little things and always doing so helped him build the Duke Blue Devils up to where they are now.
Coach Mike Krzyzewski and Jay Bilas will see some changes under the new Duke head coach Jon Scheyer.
With the retirement of Coach K, the Duke Blue Devils are going to see some changes from the days when Jay Bilas was on the roster. New Duke Blue Devils head coach Jon Scheyer will aim to make the program his own. One significant change appears to be that Scheyer is willing to go outside the Blue Devils' family to hire assistants.
A huge get for Scheyer, who is already showing he'll do things differently than Coach K. twitter.com/fayobserver/st…
While the new era of the Duke Blue Devils may be different. That is if Jon Scheyer can remember the little things that Coach K did. Alumnis like Jay Bilas will be happy, and the team will continue to be successful.