Kentucky, Duke are looking more alike all the time
CHICAGO — As Kentucky hurtled toward an unprecedented 40-0 record last March while Duke less loudly entered the Final Four, the tournament conversation was dominated by a perceived clash between the programs and between their head coaches — national championshipwinning, generational talents who are now both in the basketball Hall of Fame.
Kentucky’s loss to Wisconsin in the national semifinals prevented the Wildcats from facing the Blue Devils, who went on to beat Wisconsin for the title. But on Tuesday night, No. 2 Kentucky (3-0) overwhelmed No. 5 Duke (2-1), 74-63, at United Center in an overdue referendum on the wildly different strategies, merits and even morals of Kentucky’s John Calipari and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski.
Except, like the villain and the hero in the action movie, they are not really so different after all. In a landscape where nearly all the most talented high school players are surefire “one-and-dones” — prospects who plan to compete in college for just one year, in keeping with NBA rules that require players to be a year removed from high school — recruiting such players and doing what you can with them for the season you have them is the only way to be a consistent contender.
Krzyzewski and Calipari may possess varied temperaments. Their fan bases may nurse longstanding grudges (Chris- tian Laettner’s last-second shot in the 1992 NCAA Tournament still stings in Kentucky). But in reality, the coaches and their programs provide about as much of a contrast as their respective shades of blue — which is to say almost none at all.
“It’s just stylistic,” said Jay Bilas, an ESPN analyst who played on Krzyzewski’s first Final Four team and was an assistant coach for his first two national championships. “They’re both basically doing the same thing.”
The simplified story goes like this: Calipari, 56, succeeds in exploiting the one-and-done dynamic by simply recruiting the best talent available. In the past decade, four of his players have been drafted No. 1 over all by the NBA. Meanwhile, Krzyzewski, 68, wins championships — five including last season’s — with players who might stay a few years and seem just as suited to a future as one of his assistants than to one as an NBA player.
Calipari is the salesman who laughs past the pretense that his players are ostensibly students first; alternatively, he is the false consciousness-lifting truth-teller who plays within bad rules (after years of reportedly flouting them) and thereby exposes the sport’s unfair reality. Krzyzewski is the traditionalist who still believes in developing players; or he is the hypocrite who pretends that player development is his priority, rather than winning.
But this narrative is simplistic at best, out of date at worst. During the past several years — arguably dating to his taking on the role of USA Basketball’s head coach a decade ago — Krzyzewski has played the same game as Calipari in more ways than one. In 2011, the top N.B.A. pick was Kyrie Irving, a Duke one-and-done. But Karl-Anthony Towns — the most recent of Kentucky’s No. 1 overall picks, a one-and-done who was the Wildcats’ best player last year? Krzyzewski has acknowledged that he had wanted him for his team.
Even before last season, the notion that Krzyzewski eschewed one-and-dones for upperclassmen was obviously untrue. But whatever was left of it was interred by the 2014-15 Blue Devils, who won a national title on the backs of four freshmen, three of whom — Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow of Houston and Tyus Jones — promptly declared for the NBA draft and were selected in its first round. In the title game, they and Grayson Allen, then a freshman, scored 60 of Duke’s 68 points, including all 37 in the second half.
“The ability to adapt is key in everything,” Krzyzewski said immediately after that victory. “I think I’ve adapted well.”
Meanwhile, nobody who watched last year’s Wild- cats, who split minutes among several players in a modified platoon system and had a historically stingy defense, could have mistaken them for a mere collection of individual talents.
For his part, before this season, Calipari applauded Krzyzewski’s success.
“I was happy because now it’s been vetted and we won’t hear it anymore,” Calipari said of Duke’s success with one-and-dones. “It’s good. It’s an OK thing now, so it’s done. Let me coach my team and let me be about these kids and their families, try to win as many games as we can.”
Calipari’s evident frustration could stem from the black hat with which the news media has frequently fitted him. It might also have something to do with the fact that he may no longer be college basketball’s top recruiter.
On Tuesday morning, the Wildcats landed a commitment from the North Carolina-based power forward Bam Adebayo, prompting the three main recruiting sites into agreement: Kentucky’s class of 2016, they said, is the second best in the country. The best? Duke’s. On national signing day last week, Krzyzewski secured commitments from two top-five prospects: power forward Harry Giles and small forward Jayson Tatum. Kentucky had been a finalist for both players.
The three recruiting sites also agreed that Duke and Kentucky had the firstand second-best classes of 2014, and that for the class of 2015 — this season’s freshmen — it went Kentucky, then Duke.
In fairness, neither coach is blameless in furthering the narratives about them. Calipari said in his book that the biggest day for him related to his players was the one when they were drafted, and he even showed up to the draft in June, glad-handing and celebrating — sending an obvious message to future prospects. And last month, Krzyzewski bemoaned the one-and-done culture in an ESPN interview, even as he benefits from it.
Bilas acknowledged of Krzyzewski that the new way of doing business “may not be his preference — he would like all players to stay longer so he can enjoy the relationship.”
“But that’s not the reality,” Bilas added, going on to refer to high school prospects who hope to attend college for only one year. “The reality is you have to play against them. And some of them want to come to Duke.”