WRAL Sports Fan

North Carolina

Rating Williams and Krzyzewski

By Dane Huffman

Mar 6, 2009

Duke is at North Carolina on Sunday at 4 p.m., and the game will match two of the ACC's top men's basketball coaches.

But when the ACC coach of the year is announced next week, you probably won't see Roy Williams or Mike Krzyzewski at the top of the list. Look instead for Al Skinner of Boston College or Leonard Hamilton of Florida State to win the award.

Does that mean Skinner and Hamilton are superior coaches? Well, no. But it does speak to the job Williams and Krzyzewski have done this year.

Krzyzewski even joked about how he has performed this season Thursday night at the Greater Raleigh Sports Council, saying he felt like jumping out of the plane on the way back from the loss at Boston College. And he quipped that the plays he called for the U.S. Olympic team seemed to run a lot smoother when Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were on the floor than the ones he has called for Duke.

This year, Krzyzewski has struggled to find the right backcourt combination – going from Nolan Smith to Greg Paulus to Jon Scheyer at point – and hasn't had one of Duke's top defensive teams.

And Williams has struggled to get the defensive efforts he wants – so much so that he, uh, used a naughty word in a news conference.

Both coaches are having news conferences on Friday. But heading into Sunday's big game on WRAL, how do you assess how the Hall of Fame coaches have handled their teams this season?