There were giants in those days.
People in our day tend to think that Mike Krzyzewski had it easy at Duke and that of course Duke is dominant because, well, it’s Duke and that’s just the way it is.
But when Mike Krzyzewski was hired at Duke, it wasn’t like that. Far from it, in fact as his second and third years were immensely challenging.
In the early 1980’s, every ACC team was tremendous. NC State was rising under Jim Valvano and won a legendary national title in 1983, a year after UNC won one. Georgia Tech had Mark Price and John Salley. Maryland had Len Bias and several other very good players. Clemson and Wake Forest were bad, but the Deacs had Muggsy Bogues, in many ways the most terrifying player in ACC history.
And in Charlottesville, Virginia had Ralph Sampson and Othell Wilson, while Dean Smith had James Worthy, Sam Perkins and some guy named MikeJordan.
So Coach K’s climb seemed anything but inevitable and when you see this video of Virginia’s 1982 visit to UNC, you get a sense of just how great the ACC was in the early ‘80’s, even with Duke as an afterthought.
That wouldn’t last for long – Krzyzewski would start winning in ‘84, start making Final Fours in ‘86 and start winning national championships in 1991.
Overcoming programs like this was an incredible accomplishment.
Interesting what-if trivia: we read a while back that Jordan really wanted to go to Virginia to team up with Sampson but UVA coach Terry Holland wasn’t interested. The mind boggles.
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