With Mike Krzyzewski on the brink of making coaching history, the compliments and analogies are pouring in.
St. John’s coach Steve Lavin may have paid Coach K the supreme compliment during a conference call Monday to promote the 2K Sports Classic.
“I think the highest compliment that I can pay Mike Krzyzewski is that he’s the modern-day Coach Wooden,” Lavin said.
“And while they’re unique in their own respects, I think there are similarities between the two coaches, in terms of the standard of excellence, the longevity in their careers and [having been] recognized for their outstanding teaching and using basketball as a metaphor for life to instill all the important traits or attributes or characteristics that go into success beyond basketball.”
Wooden won 10 NCAA championships, including seven in a row, during his tenure at UCLA.
Coach K has captured four NCAA titles at Duke.
Wooden won 664 career games as a head coach.
Coach K is at 902 and can surpass his mentor Bob Knight for first place all-time with a win Tuesday over Michigan State in the Champions Classic at Madison Square Garden.
“It’s pretty obvious anybody that breaks any record like he’s getting ready to break, you gotta say he’s one of the best ever to coach in the game,” Mississippi State coach Rick Stansbury said. “I know John Wooden, what he’s done….[Coach K’s] record speaks for itself.”
Arizona coach Sean Miller, whose club faces St. John’s Thursday at the Garden, said it was “hard to compare [Coach K] to anybody because he’s so unique.”
“Just watching him do it over the decades that he has and just watching the class that he carries with him both on the court and off the court, the investment that he’s made to USA Basketball,” Miller said.
“When I was a student-athlete in the early ’90s, he had invested in USA BAsketball at a different time and to watch what he’s done in addition to running the Duke program and to being the all-time winningest coach here very shortly, it just says a lot about him.
“I mean, he’s a once-in-a lifetime coach and someone that we all can look up to in the profession that we’re in.”
