There will be a lot of Duke basketball royalty in San Antonio on Saturday night when the Blue Devils play Houston in the Final Four but there will be no bigger star that cheers for the team from Durham than Coach K.
It had been speculated throughout the week if the 5-time National Champion would make the trip to Texas, and he confirmed as much on his Sirius XM radio show, Basketball & Beyond with Coach K.
“I’m planning on being there to watch them,” he said. “I try to stay out of it publicly just to give our program a chance to keep moving in its direction, but I want to be there for [Jon] Scheyer.”
Scheyer talked about the distance that Krzyzewski has given him since taking over as the head coach of the program three years ago. He mentioned that the two still talk regularly but he is not hovering over the team to make sure things are run like he did during his tenure.
Coach K has not attended an NCAA Tournament game since his retirement, but he has been coming to more Duke games this year than in the previous two seasons.
“Look, I want Duke to win. So, I want to be there in support of them with my wife, Mickie,” he continued.
“This has been a special season for the Blue Devils and in Jon’s third season he has a chance to win the National Championship.”
Scheyer fell short of the Final Four by one game last year, losing to NC State in the Elite 8 but will try and climb to the mountain of college basketball this season behind superstar freshman Cooper Flagg.
This will be the first Final Four since 1978 that the Blue Devils have played in without Mike Krzyzewski as the head coach.
Tipoff is approximately at 8:49 p.m. ET (CBS) and the winner of Duke and Houston will play either Florida or Auburn on Monday night in the title game.