Duke Basketball: Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Belichick win despite changes

Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots have won yet another Super Bowl and Belichick, along with the Duke Basketball Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski, continue to win despite the constant change in sports.

Two of the best coaches of this generation, Bill Belichick and Mike Krzyzewski, have continued to win for years because of one common theme, their ability to constantly change and adapt to their teams and to their sport.

Belichick and the New England Patriots won its sixth Super Bowl Title since 2001 and have been in the Super Bowl nine times in the past eighteen years.

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Both numbers are ridiculous and having one of the best quarterbacks of all time in Tom Brady never hurts when accomplishing that, but Belichick knows that in order to win, a coach must adjust to his players and to the sport.

In this NFL season, the highest scoring NFL year of all time, Belichick won the Super Bowl LII over the Los Angeles Rams by a score of13-3, which became the lowest scoring Super Bowl ever.

Belichick knows that in order to get to the playoffs you must adjust to the league and play the uptempo and high scoring offense, but once it becomes a single elimination game in the playoffs, it’s a running game and defense that will win you a championship.

The same goes for Mike Krzyzewski in college basketball.

As the sport is now, fans love high scoring games and to see Zion Williamson soar through the air for highlight reel dunks, but Coach K knows that this style of play will not work once the NCAA Tournament comes around.

It’s about defense and taking care of the ball on every single possession.

In the success of the two coaches in their separate sports, both men had the chance to learn the game from iconic and Hall of Fame coaches.

Belichick was taught by Bill Parcells and Krzyzewski played for and coached with the legendary Bob Knight.

While Belichick was a coach for Parcells with the New York Giants and New York Jets, Belichick was the defensive coordinator and as he became the Head Coach of the New England Patriots, he was always known as the defensive genius but as football started to become more offensive, Belichick showed he was able to adapt and then became the football genius.

The same ideas are true for Mike Krzyzewski, in terms of scheme and recruiting.

As Coach K started as a Head Coach at Duke, the style of recruiting was about trying to get the four year player since one and done’s weren’t popular. With four National Championships under his belt, many thought Coach K could not change and he would always try and recruit the four year players.

However, that would quickly change as Duke began to bring in the one and done’s regularly, but would struggled in the NCAA Tournament, until 2015 when the Blue Devils won the National Championship by starting three, one and done’s.

Fans only have to look back to that 2015 season and to last season to see how Krzyzewski is able to adapt on the fly with implementing a 2-3 zone for portions of that Championship season and going to a full time zone last season as he led a bad defensive team to the Elite Eight, after Duke was a solely man-to-man team since K became the Head Coach in 1980.

Bill Belichick now has Super Bowl Championship No. 6 and Mike Krzyzewski will be going for NCAA Championship No. 6 this March and April, the two have withstood the test of time in their legendary careers.

While no one knows when either Hall of Fame coach will retire, their ability to constantly change and adapt to what is happening in their respective sports while still constantly having success, it what makes them two of the best coaches of all time, regardless of sport.

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