Duke Basketball: AP cheapens own reputation by insulting Coach K

An AP voter has excluded the Duke basketball team from his ballot this season and even tweeted a disparaging remark about Mike Krzyzewski on Tuesday, symbolizing the AP’s decades-long disrespect for the game’s all-time winningest coach.

Imagine an obnoxious married couple at a sports bar repeatedly blabbering the following sentence loud enough for all to hear: Never, not during a single regular season, has Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski been the best among his peers.

Since this hypothetical bar is neither in Lexington, Ky., or Chapel Hill, N.C., the other patrons ignore the pair while the bartender requests them an Uber. As for the names of the loudmouth clowns that need a ride home — and then just need to go to bed — the bartender enters into the app the following: Mr. and Mrs. Associated Press.

Yes, that’s right, Coach K, who is in his 39th season as Duke’s head man, has never once received the meaningless-as-a-result-of-this-very-fact AP College Basketball Coach of the Year Award despite achieving all this:

Five national championships, second only to the 10 of John Wooden (who, by the way, won the award five times).
Twelve final fours, tied for first with Wooden.
The most NCAA tournament wins (94).
The most ACC wins (476).
The most wins, period (1,113 and counting).

ALSO READ: Top 10 wins of the Coach K era

Krzyzewski also owns the mark for the most 20-win seasons (34) and the most 30-win seasons (14); however, in none of those seasons has his coaching job been enough in the eyes of AP voters to beat out guys like the following :

Roy Williams (two-time winner)
Tony Bennett (another two-time winner)
Bill Self (yet another two-time winner)
Jim Boeheim
Mike Brey
Mark Few
John Calipari
Tom Izzo (note: Coach K is 11-1 all-time against Izzo; more on that below)
Matt Doherty

Hold up!

Eyes are not playing tricks: In the eyes of AP voters, Doherty — one would assume his inclusion on the list was a way of apologizing to UNC fans for Dean Smith never winning the award — was more deserving of an annual coaching honor (’01) than Krzyzewski has ever been. As a result of this nugget, fifty years from now, some kid is going to be studying the history of the sport, come across this list, and assume Doherty must have been greater than Krzyzewski.

Yikes!

So whose votes are responsible for this utter nonsense that should have no place in any history books?

The responsible party consists of the same folks who receive an AP Top 25 ballot each week (the selected writers — 64 of them this year — submit their ballots each year before the start of March Madness).

And that brings us to King Attention Seeker, the seemingly delusional and jealous Graham Couch.

Throughout this season, this AP voter has reiterated — to the annoyance of most Duke fans and to the delight of most Duke haters — that he would not put the Blue Devils on his ballot until after their first true road game.

Well, that road game happened for Duke — ranked No. 1 regardless of Couch — on Tuesday night in the form of Duke’s 87-65 win at Wake Forest, pushing the Blue Devils’ record to 13-1. And after the game, Krzyzewski responded to a question about his refusal to schedule out-of-conference games on an opponent’s home court.

From experience, this Ball Durham writer — who believes Coach K was deserving of AP Coach of the Year specifically in ’86, ’92, ’94, ’98, ’99, ’01, ’06, ’10, and (so far) ’19 — has found that the best defense of the GOAT comes directly from the mouth of the GOAT:

“What’s the difference when you play [the first true road game]?” Coach K asked reporters, as transcribed via a tweet from The Duke Chronicle’s Hank Tucker.

Then, stirring up his haters who later jumped at the chance to claim he seemed testy, Krzyzewski entered explanation mode:

"“To me, our schedule, we play really good teams. That’s the key thing. We’re trying to get ready for March, so where do you get a chance to play in huge neutral arenas against outstanding nonconference teams? You don’t do it during conference, so that’s our plan, whether we’re first, last, or whatever, what the hell does that mean? What importance, really, in world events does that have? I don’t get it, but it’s something we didn’t do, so then it becomes, ‘You’re a bad guy because you haven’t done it.’ We’re not as good because we haven’t done that yet? It’s ludicrous, really.“When I see stuff like that, it cheapens that person’s knowledge of the game. Knowledge of the game? Come on, man. We come up with a top-10 schedule every year.”"

Now for the latest act in the ongoing look-at-me circus put on by Couch, who was almost certainly the “that person” Coach K was referring to (and who has also been a Lansing State Journal columnist with the primary task over the years to offer his take on a program with a head coach who habitually loses to Coach K on the court and off).

ALSO READ: Five-star 2019 C Vernon Carey Jr. chooses Coach K over Tom Izzo

In response to Krzyzewski’s statement, Couch did his best I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I Pee-wee Herman impression by tweeting this:

"“Coach K actually cheapens the game by not doing what every other program does – and most have to do.”"

Grumpy Graham, you could find a couch and take a nap before you cheapen the AP’s reputation any further. Better yet, you could just go to bed.

More from Ball Durham

AP, you could work to rebuild your reputation by first finding a replacement voter — you know, one who uses sound reasoning and doesn’t concoct wild ideas to use a what-once-was-a-privilege-to-have ballot to attract as much attention as possible.

And then you could give Krzyzewski the award he has deserved for more than 30 years.

But you won’t.

Thankfully, though, that’s part of the bonus joy that comes from being a Duke basketball fan:

Watching others make fools of themselves in futile attempts to disparage the Dukies and keep them out of the history books.

So, all circus clowns, please carry on with the entertainment.

Next. How can Duke go 18-0 in ACC?. dark

The Blue Devils will face their second true road test at No. 13 Florida State — will be Duke’s sixth opponent to date who is currently in the AP Top 25 — on Saturday at 2 p.m. (on ESPN).

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