Duke’s Coach K Secures 999th Win Against Pittsburgh

In what is an exclamation point on a long and illustrious career, Coach K, aka Coach Krzyzewski, secured his 999th win as a head coach, which is his 926th victory at Duke. The win came when the number six Blue Devils defeated the Pittsburgh Panthers 79-65: and as the above picture shows, after the game fans cheered on the Coach’s accomplishment by holding up signs with “999” on them.

For those who do not know, Coach Krzyzewski is the all-time leader in wins: the closest behind him is Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim with 961 wins. This ultimately means he will be the first coach in NCAA Men’s Basketball history to reach the coveted 1,000 win mark. And his first chance to do that is Sunday’s match up against the struggling 12-5 St. John’s, who has last four of their last five games to DePaul, Villanova, Butler and Seton Hall.

Duke, who is 2-2 in their last four, have a tough collection of games following St. John’s: they have the number eight Notre Dame twice with the number two UVA and the unsteady Georgia Tech in between. So if the 1,000 game does not come against St. John, who exactly knows where it will. But the 16-2 Duke is still playing at the top of their game, so I would expect this feat accomplished sooner rather than later.

And this stat will only further cement him as one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time: in 40 seasons he will have over 1,000 wins, four NCAA Championships, eleven final fours and an all time tournament record of 82-26. And this is not even taking in account his accomplishments while coaching the USA National Team.