Smith Or Krzyzewski? Basketball Experts Weigh In On The Great Coach Debate

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Smith Or Krzyzewski? Basketball Experts Weigh In On The Great Coach Debate

Feb 6, 2003

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RALEIGH, N.C. — Who will be remembered as the better coach: UNC's Dean Smith or Duke's Mike Krzyzewski? It is a question so deeply rooted in the psyche and souls of local basketball fans that WRAL had to go outside Durham and Chapel Hill to get an honest answer.

Caulton Tudor, a columnist with

The News & Observer

, has been covering ACC basketball for 30 years. He said he cannot choose between them.

"I've always thought that's the best question in sports, because no matter what you answered, you're right," he said. "If I had to have one man coach the game after it starts, to save the world from nuclear war, I want Dean Smith. If I have one man to get that team ready to play that game, I want Mike Krzyzewski."

In terms of sheer numbers, no college basketball coach can stack up to Smith.

Smith has 879 wins, the most of all time. He also holds the record for NCAA tournament appearances at 27, the most wins in the tournament with 65 and the most 25-win seasons of any college coach in history with 22.

"I would have to say that Dean Smith would hold the upper hand in that one right now, because of what he accomplished that's already in the book," said former Wake Forest player and current commentator Billy Packer. "Mike certainly has the potential to get there. But I'd say right now, if you closed the chapter, it would have to be Dean Smith."

That chapter is still wide open for Krzyzewski. He is in his 23rd season at Duke -- 13 fewer than Smith coached in Chapel Hill. Krzyzewski's resume is already mind-boggling.

He has seven 30-win seasons at Duke and has been to the Final Four nine times. With 58 NCAA tournament wins, Coach K is second only to Smith.

"I don't know how you can really measure the two and say one is better than the other," said former Maryland basketball player and sports commentator Len Elmore. " "Certainly there have maybe been more accomplishments on Mike's side because of the dominance his teams have had on a consistent basis over the years."

There is also no questioning each man's legacy, carved out over decades of one success after another.

"This has always been one of my criteria," said ACC sportswriter Bill Brill. "You didn't have to say Smith, you'd just say Dean, and you don't have to say Krzyzewski, because people can't pronounce it, let alone spell it. You'd just say K, and they know who you're talking about."

"When you look at the whole picture, they're dead even," said David Glenn, of the

ACC Sports Journal

.

Glenn said you cannot look at the history of coaches without considering the future.

"Dean Smith is retired, Mike Krzyzewski is not. So Mike Krzyzewski has that chance to tilt the scales in his favor, whereas, unless Dean has a big surprise for us, his accomplishments are already in the book," he said.

After hearing from the experts, you get the feeling maybe the men do not need to be compared. Dick Vitale, a former coach and friend to both men, put it this way:

"They represent everything I believe in. They are all about the team, they are all about being unselfish, they are all about the American tradition of work ethic and discipline. So I can't; pick one over the other. I'm going to love both," he said.

Both Smith and Krzyzewski have a place in the Basketball Hall of Fame for their accomplishments on and off the court.