He's also doing what he did back in 1995, the year he took a long sabbatical to recover from back surgery and exhaustion: He's rethinking how he does his job.

Krzyzewski invited The News & Observer and one other local reporter to Durham on Tuesday to sit in with him while he taped the final episode of the second season of his weekly XM Satellite Radio show and to chat.

One of the things he talked about was how success has bred hatred for his beloved program. Seeing the signs in arenas, hearing the commentary on radio and television and reading the columns and stories nationwide the past two seasons, Krzyzewski knew something had to change.

"It's not like I can then go ask someone how to handle this," he said after taping his show. "I don't know who to ask. ... But that doesn't mean there's not a better way of [dealing with it].

"It also means some of the things you feel are working against you aren't [wrong]. You can't just say, 'They're all full of it. They're lying.' Or whatever."

Krzyzewski, who has won three NCAA titles in 32 years as a college coach, looked at himself first.

"How do you handle it?," he said. "Are you being arrogant? What are you doing? Take a look at yourself first. Then maybe you see you're not doing this enough. Or maybe this wasn't right thing to do. Or maybe we're stupid. Or we should have been answering these things. Or let's try to do new things."

On Tuesday, Krzyzewski talked about three areas he and his staff have been analyzing -- the team, USA Basketball commitments and their relationship with the media.

Krzyzewski started by doing what he has done throughout his 32 years as a college coach: His staff spends several weeks having one-on-one chats with each player. The assistants then meet with Krzyzewski to discuss what came out of those meetings. After that, Krzyzewski has discussions with each player himself.

This time around, Krzyzewski said that, with so many younger players, the face-to-face meetings had to be longer. They needed more feedback. He needed time to get to know them better.

"I had a particularly hard talk with one of players yesterday," Krzyzewski said. "I said to him, 'I know what this reminds me of.' I remember I had this talk with [Duke assistant Steve Wojciechowski]. I remember having this talk with Quin Snyder and [Shane] Battier. They've had tough talks too, so you're not the Lone Ranger and, oh yeah, they did pretty well."

The Blue Devils, who went 22-11 this season and had first-round exits in the ACC and NCAA tournaments, also needed reinforcement from someone not in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. In the past, Krzyzewski might have called upon upperclassmen to tell younger players about their own talks with the coach.

With just one junior and three sophomores remaining on the team -- next year's senior and juniors -- Krzyzewski will be asking former players to call the current players.

"We have to do more of that because we don't have upperclassmen," he said. "Battier did that with [Jason Williams] and [Chris Duhon]. ... We've had that void a little. That's the thing we're trying to overcome."

Fresh off the bronze-medal winning performance with the U.S. team at the World Championships in Japan this summer, Krzyzewski also joked that you'd likely start seeing more gray hair on his dark head after the long summer coaching NBA stars then navigating what he expected to be a difficult NCAA season with a young club.

"I've heard that some people have said me being with the national team distracted me," Krzyzewski said. "That's ridiculous. Me being with national team made me better."

Krzyzewski said he felt great physically throughout the past 12 months and that the national team schedule over the fall and winter was manageable because it was limited to phone calls with USA Basketball representatives.

This offseason, Krzyzewski already has taken several breaks -- he says they were mandated by USA men's senior national team executive director Jerry Colangelo -- including a recent long Easter weekend.

"That's a thing so [you] don't mess up with your family and your own relationships," he said.

Also, back in 1995, Krzyzewski decided to pull back on media interviews. He limited his own schedule and began having players or assistants do in-game or post-game television interviews.

That decision cost Krzyzewski and the program.

"People are always going to have counter views, but our stuff doesn't get out as much or an answer we have doesn't get out there. So we're attempting to try to get that out a little bit more."