Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski reached out and apologized to a student reporter days after a viral exchange between the two.
Jake Piazza, a reporter for the Duke Chronicle student newspaper, asked Krzyzewski about his team’s “next step forward” after Saturday’s 70-65 loss to Louisville — Duke missed multiple shots in the final minutes — but the longtime head coach wasn’t in the mood to answer.
“Yeah, why don’t we just evaluate this game? I’m not into what our next step forward is right now,” Krzyzewski said on the postgame Zoom call. He then compared the scenario to Piazza exiting a difficult class and immediately being asked about his “toughest test.”
But Piazza, who had made the trip from North Carolina to Kentucky, said Krzyzewski called him once he got back to his apartment in Durham.
“Our call was short, but the sincerity in his apology was genuine,” he wrote in a column on Monday. “And in the end, I appreciated the call.”
The Blue Devils (5-5, 3-3 ACC) have lost three straight and could miss the NCAA tournament for the first time in more than 25 years. Through six ACC games, their opponents have made more than 40% of their 3-point attempts.
Duke, which fell out of the Top 25 last week for the first time since 2016, hasn’t missed the NCAA tournament since the 1994-95 season. Krzyzewski missed most of that season due to a back injury.