1-seed Duke basketball is set to take on 1-seed Houston in the Final Four this Saturday in San Antonio. The contest will tip off at 8:49 pm ET on CBS.
Most around college basketball believe at this point that Duke is the team to beat. The Blue Devils have hardly been threatened thus far through the NCAA Tournament and have looked utterly dominant so far through.
Mike Krzyzewski had high praise for this group and thinks this team deserves to win a national championship. On this week's episode of his SiriusXM show "Basketball & Beyong with Coach K," Krzyzewski talked with Chris Spatola about how great of a job current Duke head coach Jon Scheyer has done and said that this year's squad is "worthy of" cutting down the nets in San Antonio.
"Well, I think the very first thing is that Jon is really good and was ready to do it. He's an oustanding coach and is his own man. He's not trying to be anybody, but he is trying to be Duke. That's a key thing...And then when he took over, he wasn't going to do everything exactly the way we did it, but he was going to run Duke's program the way we did it with the culture, the brotherhood, and be himself. Im proud of him...I really love Jon and behind the scenes have tried to be as supportive as possible, but he's really, this group is worthy of winning a national championship."
High praise from potentially the greatest coach in the history of the sport.
It's extremely impressive what Scheyer has been able to do with this group. Although the team came in with high expectations this season, Scheyer has delivered an ACC regular season title, an ACC Tournament Championship, and a trip to the Final Four. Duke also ended the regular season ranked #1 in the Associated Press Poll.
What's not talked about as much as it should be is just how difficult it is to succeed an all-time great coach. The immense pressure, the standard you're expected to live up to, the impatience of a fan base as a new head coach tries to get comfortable. Especially a guy in Scheyer's position who was never a head coach before Coach K appointed him in 2021, the consistent greatness that Scheyer has delivered to the Duke basketball program has almost been unprecedented.
You can listen to the full episode of "Basketball & Beyond with Coach K" at 5:00pm ET when the episode airs live and will be available on demand on the SiriusXM app.