Duke’s Coach K, Cal State Fullerton’s Taylor and dueling storybook endings of March
Dedrique Taylor did not need long here on Thursday to recount the brief moments he has shared with Mike Krzyzewski. One of those men has come to be known by a singular letter and leads a program, as Taylor described it, that is not just among the faces of college basketball but “college basketball itself;” a team synonymous with the sport.
And the other is Taylor, the 47-year-old coach at Cal State Fullerton. Their teams will meet here Friday in the first round of the NCAA tournament, an event that Taylor described as “one of the world’s greatest sporting events,” and one that, this year, anyway, comes with an especially clear storyline, given that it will be Krzyzewski’s last.
The storybook ending for Duke, and its coach of 42 years, would take place in New Orleans in early April. The storybook ending for Cal State Fullerton, meanwhile, would come here Friday night, if the 15th-seeded Titans somehow find a way to pull off what would be undoubtedly remembered as one of the more shocking upsets in NCAA tournament history.
That is if Fullerton’s storybook moment hasn’t already arrived, simply by advancing to the tournament. When Krzyzewski met with reporters here on Thursday before the start of his last NCAA tournament, he walked up a short staircase and sat behind a microphone in front of a crowded room, one with few empty seats.
About 90 minutes later, Taylor sat in the same chair. The room was much emptier, only a handful of people there to listen to him, or ask him a question. He’d walked into the interview room with his two young daughters and before he stepped onto the stage with the microphone, he directed his girls to the rows of empty chairs: “Y’all can have a seat anywhere in there,” he said.
They had plenty of options before settling into two seats in the middle, where they listened to their father answer questions about his team’s experience and how it might handle this moment and how he’d scout the Blue Devils and, yes, about what it was like to coach against Krzyzewski in the first game of Krzyzewski’s last NCAA tournament. Did they have a relationship at all, Taylor was asked.
“I think I met him once or twice,” he said, smiling. “When I say ‘met him,’ I shook his hand. He doesn’t know me from Tom, and that’s awesome, but I did work for Herb Sendek, who competed against him for over ten years.”
And from there Taylor detailed what he’d learned about Krzyzewski from Sendek, the former N.C. State coach who was Taylor’s boss when the two worked together at Arizona State. Perhaps there’s a tidbit or two Taylor learned back then that might prove helpful Friday. Some things, though, don’t require much of a scouting report, either.
“When you speak about college basketball,” Taylor said, “when you think about college basketball, you think about Coach K. When you think about success, you think about Coach K. When you think about leadership the way that I think about leadership, you think about Coach K.
“And he’s synonymous with all three of those things, among others.”
Krzyzewski’s final March run, whether it ends here in Greenville or next week in San Francisco or in the Final Four in New Orleans, will be among the storylines of the tournament — and perhaps the storyline, depending on when it all ends. Every team that Duke plays between now and the end of its season will have a chance to become the answer to a trivia question: Which team dealt Coach K, the most victorious in the history of his sport, his final loss?
The Titans, who earned their way here by virtue of a one-point victory against Long Beach State in the Big West Conference tournament championship game, have the first crack at it. If a trail of nerves followed them on their cross-country flight from California, it didn’t show Thursday. Fullerton’s players, an experienced group mostly composed of juniors and seniors, spoke with confidence — albeit to a mostly empty media room that’d cleared out by the time it was their turn.
Yes, said Tray Maddox Jr., a senior guard for the Titans from Michigan: He and his teammates are aware of the unavoidable reality that this is Krzyzewski’s last tournament; and that Fullerton, then, could play the ultimate spoiler.
“I would say obviously we all know that,” Maddox said. “Like E.J. (Anosike) said, we’re a real mature group. We don’t think about those types of things, you know what I’m saying? We’re confident and focused on the basketball game. We know what’s at stake.
“We just go into the game, not thinking about whose last ride it is.”
Moments earlier, Maddox had put things more bluntly:
“There’s a lot of people that are doubting us right now, but we just know in our group and our space that we got this and we’re going to take care of business.”
There’s a precedent, at least. Exactly 10 years ago Thursday, Duke arrived at the Greensboro Coliseum as a No. 2 seed and endured a 75-70 defeat against 15th-seeded Lehigh. It remains the most stunning postseason defeat in Krzyzewski’s 42 years at the school, and a constant reminder of what’s possible in March.
Reminded Thursday that he’d reached the “one and done” portion of the season — the part where any defeat will be Krzyewski’s final defeat — he offered a quick correction: “Mine will be 47 and done,” he said, referencing the number of years he has spent as a head coach, including those five early seasons at Army.
“No, look, I’m just going to go forward,” Krzyzewski said. “That’s what I’ve tried to do all season long. ... I just want to be in the moment. I’m excited. Look, this is a great, great time. I mean, to see college basketball back at this level of stage again with — I’m really honored to be a part of it.
“I think this is the 36th time. I never would have thought that my first couple years at Army or Duke, but it’s worked out all right.”
Not long after that, Duke took the court for its open shootaround at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena to a boisterous reception. A human tunnel of cameramen waited for Krzyzewski’s arrival and, when he appeared, people stood and aimed their phone cameras in his direction. There were hundreds of spectators in the lower bowl of the stands wearing Duke blue. They remained until the end, and those closest to the tunnel clamored for a photo of Krzyzewski, or an autograph.
Less than an hour later, Cal State Fullerton ran onto the court for its open practice. By then, the arena had mostly emptied. There were no cameras waiting for Taylor to enter the arena; no fans pointing their phones toward him, no kids asking for autographs from the seats closest to the court. There were a few people wearing Titans orange about 20 rows up from the floor, but that was about the only visual that suggested any Fullerton fans were here at all.
The scene was reflective of a sentence in Fullerton’s media game notes, which usually contain no shortage of statistics and granular minutia but in this case included something of a notice: “The Titans are no strangers to being overlooked.”
Taylor before his team’s shootaround had argued that his team had a chance.
“The rest of the world probably doesn’t think so, and that’s awesome,” he said. “Nobody ever said we could do anything anyway. So I think our own conference, they picked us seventh or eighth, so who cares?”
This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 9:19 PM.
