Duke Basketball: Coach K has not seemed like himself since Zion injury

Not even the best coach in the game (arguably ever) seems to have been immune to the despair that has lingered ever since the injury to the best Duke basketball player (arguably ever).

MISSING: 72-year-old GOAT, the property of the Duke basketball program.

LAST SEEN: Shortly after 9 p.m. on Feb. 20 inside Cameron Indoor Stadium.

REWARD IF FOUND: A national championship.

Ever since the Grade 1 knee sprain to freshman Zion Williamson — the best player in college basketball this season remains day-to-day — on the Blue Devils’ first possession of their 88-72 home loss to UNC on Feb. 20, coach Mike Krzyzewski has — understandably — acted out of character in several ways.

Handshake issue. Excuses. Odd substitutions. Exhausting one player. Underplaying another. Playing two at the same time who should never be seen playing together. Unnecessarily burning a redshirt while likely unnecessarily dinging a teenager’s confidence in the process. Shocking lack of emotion. More excuses.

Nope, none of this seems like Coach K.

Yep, it’s OK to find fault with the actions of the legend who is the game’s all-time wins leader while still trusting said legend to rebound legendarily.

Besides, it’s more concern than criticism.

Let’s start with Tuesday night: No. 3 Duke (24-4; 12-3 in ACC) suffered a 77-72 loss at No. 20 Virginia Tech (22-6; 11-5 in ACC), the Blue Devils’ second defeat in three games, leaving them with little chance of finishing first in the conference for the regular season and with work to do to wrap up a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance.

And the outcome seemed preventable:

Alex O’Connell, after scoring a career-high 20 points in a career-high 34 minutes of play during the Blue Devils’ 75-65 win at Syracuse on Saturday, saw just 20 minutes of action against the Hokies and took only two shots, both makes from beyond the arc.

Coach K should have left O’Connell in longer — at the expense of minutes for junior Jack White, who has now missed 28 consecutive 3-point attempts and attracts zero defenders as a result — and drawn up plays to get his hottest hand more open opportunities.

The sophomore sharpshooter — yes, that title is justified — has knocked 47 of his 107 attempts from downtown (43.9 percent) ever since arriving at Duke. He’s shooting 40.3 percent from deep this season for a team that desperately needs more of his outside touch (the Blue Devils are shooting 30.7 from beyond the arc, ranking 330th in the nation).

And going back to the Syracuse game, he’s hit seven of his last 10.

Now, O’Connell’s critics will argue that his defense makes him a liability.

Hogwash.

In terms of steals per 40 minutes for the season, O’Connell’s mark (2.1) is far higher than that of R.J. Barrett (1.0) and White (1.4). Besides, Duke had only one steal and forced only six turnovers against the Hokies — in other words, no Blue Devil was accomplishing anything on defense worth writing home about.

O’Connell is not a great defender by any means — he did miss a chance to prevent a Virginia Tech 3-pointer from the corner in the second half — but he’s also not nearly as bad as advertised.

Now, let’s talk about Joey Baker. The freshman wing has only seen six minutes of playing time since his redshirt went up in flames. Coach K yanked him from the lineup after one minute on Tuesday, possibly because he missed his one-and-only shot attempt (no surprise considering he has had zero chance to find his rhythm). The decision to start playing him in the 27th game of the season and then not give him ample opportunity to succeed — while it could still turn out to be the right decision — seems boneheaded at the moment.

OK, moving on to playing junior big men Javin DeLaurier and Marques Bolden at the same time — for more than 10 minutes — in Blacksburg. Well, it’s no wonder the lane was so clogged for Barrett. Neither is a serious threat on offense. And the combo of both on the floor contributed to a lack of perimeter pressure against the Hokies — who were without their senior point guard, Justin Robinson, and could have been exposed against a more guard-laden and aggressive defense.

Another reason Duke’s aggression on the perimeter may have been lacking, though, is freshman Tre Jones has seen a total of two minutes on the bench across the past 240 minutes. Tuesday’s game marked five of the past six games without Jones benefitting from a single breather. And that’s not a smart move by Coach K, especially considering he continues to use his players’ fatigue as an excuse for his team’s subpar performances during his postgame press conferences.

Yet another reason Duke’s overall aggression is likely down as of late is that Coach K has seemingly never stood up from the bench. He hasn’t ripped off his jacket. He hasn’t seemed overly concerned during games while watching his Blue Devils slide down the ACC standings.

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And following both of the recent losses, he has come across as pouty, consistently pointing to the daunting six-game stretch the Blue Devils have had to face (including several mentions of having to play road games on Tuesday following road games on Saturday).

Following the Tar Heels’ win on Coach K Court, when Roy Williams — who is, dadgummit, an annoying human being — tried to express his condolences to his nemesis for the injury to Williamson, Coach K blew him off.

While some fans may disagree — understandably, based on the icky character on the other end of the handshake — the slight was a bad look for Krzyzewski.

Moments after that, Coach K addressed the media and proceeded to — understandably, yet still an excuse — harp on the difficulty of bouncing back after the loss of Williamson.

And that brings us to the easiest solution to finding the lost GOAT. A Zion sighting — on the court, fully healthy, and hopefully when the Blue Devils host Miami on Saturday at 4 p.m. (on CBS) — should instantly lead us straight to him.

Top 10 wins of the Coach K era. dark. Next

Then — maybe only then — Duke basketball fans can forget ever seeing the Coach K imposter and look forward to the real Coach K standing proud while winning his sixth national title.

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