Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
By JACOB POLACHECK
Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski has reached out and apologized to a student reporter following a viral exchange between the two on Saturday.
Following Duke’s 70-65 loss to Louisville on Saturday, Jake Piazza, a reporter for the Duke Chronicle student newspaper, asked Krzyzewski about his team’s “next step forward” during the postgame press conference.
This was not exactly how I expected my first postgame question to Coach K to go. https://t.co/a7sU1UE46a
“Yeah, why don’t we just evaluate this game? I’m not into what our next step forward is right now,” Krzyzewski said.
Krzyzewski then asked what the student reporter is studying at Duke, before comparing the scenario to exiting a difficult class and immediately being asked about his “toughest test.”
“Say you just had the toughest Econ test in the world and when you walked out someone asked you, ‘what’s the next step?’. You see what I mean? You have some empathy. Give us time to evaluate this game and we’ll figure out, just like we always try to do.”
Piazza, who traveled from North Carolina to Kentucky for Saturday’s game, said Krzyzewski called him when he returned to his apartment in Durham.
“My phone rang and Coach K was on the other end of the line,” Piazza said in a column for the Duke Chronicle on Sunday. “Our call was short, but the sincerity in his apology was genuine. And in the end, I appreciated the call.”
Duke has lost three straight games, starting the season with a 5-5 record (3-3 ACC) and falling out of the AP Top 25 last week for the first time since 2016.
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