Whenever the day shall come, who will receive the daunting task of taking over the Duke basketball throne after the game’s all-time wins leader retires?
Family is a funny thing, isn’t it? You spend time building it, nurturing it, putting in the blood, sweat, and tears only to have little moments of frustration and awkwardness ruin good moments. When Pittsburgh came to Cameron Indoor Stadium back on Jan. 28, the Duke basketball family knew it was going to be a little weird.
A misheard chant and a few angry moments later, Twitter was on fire with everyone either scratching their heads or laughing at our fearless leader. As Mike Krzyzewski was going full-on drill sergeant at the Cameron Crazies, I had a realization. I realized that the man is mortal, and much to our collective misery, he is indeed getting old.
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In honor of his 73rd birthday today, (Happy Birthday Coach K!), it seems appropriate to broach a touchy subject. After getting the sadness out, (who am I kidding, it’s still there), I decided it’s time for a contingency plan. Allow me to introduce the most likely successors to the GOAT whenever said legend goes to graze in greener pastures.
Note: I’ve heard nothing at all to suggest any rumors or movement, this is just what my psycho head tells me. Also, it should be noted that Coach K will more than likely handpick his successor.
Honorable Mentions
Let’s get this one out of the way with quickly. I’m immediately disqualifying guys with no college or pro head coaching experience. I’m also waving “so long” to anybody who didn’t play for Coach K in Durham.
Coach K has built the Duke basketball program into the machine it is today, and you best believe he’s not turning it over to anyone outside of the company. With that in mind, we can safely eliminate the following:
- Nate James
- Jon Scheyer
- Nolan Smith
- Chris Carrawell
- Jay Bilas (think what you want of the guy, he knows basketball and used to be on Coach K’s staff)
- Tony Bennett (young, brilliant coach, just not a Duke guy)
Also, here are some of the ones who check the boxes, but I just don’t see it:
- Mike Brey (great coach, he just has his own program now, and he’s too old)
- Tommy Amaker (good coach, probably not at the level Duke needs, plus he’s found his home)
- Chris Collins (first runner-up to the five-spot, tough call leaving him out)
With that in mind, it’s on to the show ponies. Bear in mind all of these guys used to play and/or coach under Krzyzewski…
5. Steve Wojciechowski
Duke guard: 1994-1998
Head coaching experience: Marquette, 2014-present
Wojo should be in the running simply to continue the Duke basketball tradition of having a coach whose name you can’t spell. Steve Wojciechowski took that last name from crazy to folk-hero status during his time in Durham.
The point guard only averaged 5.4 points a game for his career, but those buckets always seemed to come at the best times. Wojo’s real measure wasn’t stats, anyways. It was his heart and defensive intensity. His lasting mark on Duke was the intensity of his floor slap, and I’m forced to remember how little the slap is utilized today.
He’s No. 5 on this list simply because he doesn’t have as much experience as some of the guys above him, not to say he isn’t killing it at Marquette. The Golden Eagles are 114-76 during Wojo’s six years at the helm. He also reminds Coach K a little of himself, just not as much as another guy to come.
4. Quin Snyder
Duke guard: 1985-1989
College head coaching experience: Missouri, 1999-06
NBA head coaching experience: Utah Jazz, 2014-present
Listen, I get it, he’s had his run-in with the NCAA, he plateaued at Missouri his last few years, and he’s not as known as some of the other candidates on this list. Quin Snyder was an ideal Duke basketball point guard for Coach K in the late 80s, forming a consistent Final Four squad with Danny Ferry (that’s right, there was a time when Christian Laettner wasn’t the big man on the team).
Snyder went straight from playing to coaching and, after his stint on the Duke staff, got picked up for the Missouri gig, where he went a respectable 126-91. He got the ax in 2006 and spent the next eight years coaching G League and international teams.
After a few years as an NBA assistant, he finally got hired as the head honcho of the Utah Jazz. He’s gone 263-201 in his six-plus years as the head man, and he’s built a consistent playoff team in the process. He obviously drafts well, (how did no one get Donovan Mitchell?), and over his time both in the league and overseas, he’s made some connections. In a time when impending NBA stars are walking through the door in threes and fours, it would perhaps behoove the Duke basketball program to have a guy in the know.
3. Bobby Hurley
Duke guard: 1989-1993
Head coaching experience: Buffalo, 2013-15; Arizona State, 2015-present
Jalen Rose once called Bobby Hurley, “Bart Simpson.” Who can blame him? Hurley did look like a 12-year-old in a Duke basketball uniform, but I would ask Mr. Rose how many times he beat Bobby in college?
The answer is never, and it’s for one simple reason: Bobby Hurley was a killer. For you younger folks like me, do yourself a favor and go back to watch some of his career highlights. In the 1992 title game, Laettner was cold as ice, and guess who was Bobby Buckets when his team needed him?
Hurley doesn’t have the coaching experience that a lot of these other guys do. He’s gone 129-86 in his time at Buffalo and Arizona St., but his teams get better every year, and he clearly knows the game well.
Hurley’s advantage during the coaching search will be the emotional side. He is the first point guard to bring Coach K home a title (two, actually, in 1991 and 1992), and he also must remind the legend most of himself. A scrappy little guy who wasn’t afraid of anybody on the court and had to make his name grinding and working. Krzyzewski might just go paternal on this one and choose the guy who he probably feels the most fatherly towards.
2. Johnny Dawkins
Duke guard: 1982-86
Head Coaching Experience: Stanford, 2008-16; UCF, 2016-present
The coveted runner-up. You kids out there, like me, probably only know Johnny Dawkins as the man who almost coached UCF to a tourney win over Zion Williamson and the gang last season. I’ll refer again to Hurley and say if you haven’t gone back and watched the tape on Dawkins, you’re doing yourself a serious disservice.
Dawkins was Duke basketball’s original superstar guard, and by the time he left in 1986, he was the program’s all-time leading scorer (it’s J.J. Redick now, and in case you didn’t know, he can really shoot). He broke through the wall and was a driving force behind Duke becoming a household name in college basketball.
Thanks to Dawkins, making the Final Four has become a yearly prerequisite to a successful season. He went from playing to coaching on Coach K’s staff for 10 years and followed that up with 12 years coaching Division 1 basketball. He has gone a combined 236-159 in his tenures, and he is quite obviously still family in Coach K’s eyes. You can tell by the postgame press conference of that NCAA game last year when K said, “I love Johnny Dawkins. The moments and times we’ve spent together building a program…the connections…We’re family.”
The only reason Dawkins comes in at No. 2 is his age. He’s 56, and you have to think K wants someone who has a few more years on his side. The last reason is his lack of ACC coaching experience, which might not be that important, but I’m of the belief that it’s still the top of the conference food chain. You have to know how to compete and win in the ACC yourself before you can do it at Duke. With that in mind, let’s see the winner…
1. Jeff Capel
Duke guard: 1993-97
Head coaching experience: VCU, 2002-06; Oklahoma, 2006-2011; interim Duke head coach for one game each in 2016 and 2017; Pittsburgh, 2018-present
“Sit with us, Coach!” Who would have thought that the Cameron Crazies were psychic? First off, Jeff Capel was a quality Duke basketball guard during the mid-90s and was the freshman point guard on the 1994 squad that almost brought home a title (you suck, Scotty Thurman!). Up until Tre Jones happened recently, Jeff had the ultimate Carolina buzzer-tie.
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After playing, he went on to coach VCU and left a year before the program knocked off Duke in the tournament. That team may not have been coached by Capel, but he put it together. Everyone at the party knew that Capel was a great recruiter at that point, but it wasn’t until his next stop at Oklahoma that people got to see it in action.
He made a splash his second year at OU when he signed Blake Griffin (you heard that correctly, Capel got Blake Griffin to go to Oklahoma). I know Griffin’s brother was there, and he was from Oklahoma City, but you still have to admit that with Kansas right up the road, that’s pretty impressive. His teams dropped off at Oklahoma, but I’m not entirely sure that was his fault, but we won’t get into that now.
Capel followed up that dismissal with almost a decade on the Duke basketball staff and is now putting in his time as the boss at Pittsburgh. He’s gone 204-139 in all his time as a head coach, but I think the ultimate thing that will get him this job is the aforementioned recruiting chops.
His time at Duke as associate head coach proved he isn’t a great recruiter, he’s an ELITE recruiter. I don’t throw that word around lightly, but I think Jeff has earned it. I understand it’s easy to recruit when you have a brand like Duke behind you, but there’s plenty of schools one-and-done guys can play at. Capel brought the revolution to Durham, and his recruiting skills, connections, and coaching experience make him my ideal candidate.
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