Duke and USA Olympic coach Mike Krzyzewski, who has won four NCAA Tournament titles and led the U.S. to two gold medals, visited the Incarnation School in Washington Heights last week to recognize students who have excelled in the National Association of Basketball Coach’s Ticket to Reading program.
After his talk, Coach K sat down for an exclusive interview with The Post. He discussed a wide range of issues, including his thoughts on Notre Dame joining the ACC, the possibility of the five power conferences splitting from the NCAA and LeBron James’s evolution into one of the greatest basketball players ever.
Q: You decided early in high school you wanted to be a high school basketball coach and teacher. How do you explain the success you’ve had?
A: It worked out, the basketball gods were good.
Q. Do you like the newly constructed ACC?
A: I like it because I thought the ACC was in a lot of trouble with all this conference realignment. Like a number of conferences, we were very vulnerable, and in a few months with the addition of those teams and the [media] grant rights restriction, we’ve become a great conference in this new world.
Just like a company, a company could be a great company and the world changes. Unless that company adapts, you’re out of it. I think that’s still what’s happening with conferences.
In our conference, the impetus for it was not basketball. But what’s occurred is we now have the best hand at the table for basketball in the country. Our conference is ahead of the others.
Q: Did the ACC sell its basketball soul when it added Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College (in 2004-05)?
A: I don’t know [about] selling our soul. I just think our conference was looking for ways to get better and they were somewhat myopic in their approach. In other words — football!
I’m not saying you shouldn’t look at that, but when you throw a stone into a pond you don’t just get a splash, you get ripples. And if you’re making decisions for the splash sometimes the ripples can get you.
I still think so much of this is everyone is throwing a stone for one reason and then you hope the ripples work out. For us, again, I don’t think the impetus was to create a great basketball conference. We’re lucky that the ripple turned out to be that way.
Q: Is it inevitable that the five super conferences (the ACC, Pac 12, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC will have 64 schools in 2014-15)
will split away from the NCAA?
A: Look, one of the main reasons people are doing this is for the money, right? The main reason. So those conferences are going to have the opportunity to earn much more money than any other conferences.
What happens when people get more money? They move out of the neighborhood. They form their own neighborhood. If they do that, is that neighborhood still part of the NCAA community? Like maybe a different division structure? Things change so there might be another division where you still have everyone under the NCAA umbrella. Or do those conferences do something else?
Football is really outside the NCAA. They go by the NCAA rules, but they don’t share money with the NCAA.
Each conference is like an independent contractor. In basketball that’s not the case, so football basically already has a structure. They have [125 schools]. They do a whole bunch more and they don’t have a female counterpart.
The reason things are where they are now is because you have a smaller group, they are outside the NCAA — except for the infrastructure of rules and then the organization of sports other than football. To think that they could not develop that infrastructure is wrong.
Q: Would you prefer a split?
A: As an old-school guy, I’d rather have everyone still stay under the NCAA umbrella because I like our academic community in sports — only our country does it — is under one umbrella.
Q: Do you fear for the future of programs like St. John’s and Georgetown, which are not in power conferences?
A: I don’t know fear. I wonder how it’s all going to fit. I wonder how it’s going to fit. I’m glad our own conference has gotten it right because it’s hard to get it right.
Q: Do you think Maryland will rue its decision to leave the ACC?
A: I’ve never felt good about Maryland leaving. Because they were a charter member. I know that area well. They have a proud tradition, an ACC tradition. Kids in that region grew up wanting to compete in the ACC.
And I think it was a quick decision. Things that come out of nowhere you worry about it.
If somebody is having financial problems, I think a conference should help out. But it’s done.
I feel badly that they’re no longer in the ACC. I respect Maryland and I respect that area. Basketball-wise, we had great games against Maryland. It’s not just basketball. It’s tough to say Maryland and not ACC. It’s tough to say West Virginia and Big 12.
Q: Do you like the relationship with Notre Dame the ACC agreed to (joining in all sports except football, but playing five football games a season against ACC foes) in order to add the Fighting Irish?
A: I think you can’t do something for one that you’re not willing to do for all in these type of situations. I would never have accepted personally them coming in and not being totally in.
Why don’t Duke and North Carolina do something different in basketball? I mean it’s not right. I’m happy that they’re part of it I’m just not happy the way that they’re apart of it.
They add value but, just being old-fashioned, [if] we’re playing cards, we all get five cards. That’s why they were never a member of the Big Ten.
Q: Would the traditional ACC schools, such as Duke and North Carolina, agree to bring the conference tournament to Madison Square Garden for a block of years?
A: I think it would be great for our fans, ACC fans, to experience at least one time, a tournament in New York and then draw their own conclusions. This is a magical place.
Q: How are you getting acclimated to your new iPhone?
A: It’s like a coach that has the great player that he doesn’t have often. So you know you got him, you don’t necessarily know how to use him. I feel like I positioned my iPhone, he’s a ‘4’ but he could be play ‘1’ through ‘5.’
Q: Do you think LeBron James will play in the next Olympic games?
A: I don’t know. For the guys who’ve served a number of times, but are still eligible to play, if they did, I know they would not do it for the World Cup next summer. I would think that they might want to be part of our pool and then see where they are a couple of years from now.
Q: What have James, other Olympians and you learned from the Olympic experience?
A: It’s like if you put five great musicians together, they would find something out about how they play the piano or the sax of the guitar. they’d find something new. Because that setting is unique.
We all have done that. To say that that’s happened with LeBron, it’s also happened with me as a coach and for everybody involved. Because you get to experience something that nobody else gets to experience. And you get to do it with people that have high levels of talent and high levels of intellect.
Q: What’s your assessment of LeBron?
A: LeBron is brilliant. Brilliant. He’s not smart, he’s brilliant. His recall, I compare him to somebody who can play [an instrument] by feel.
I can show him and the team five things that Argentina does in a team meeting, offensively. And by the time we get to the court and walk through, he knows them already. And he’s already thought of ways of defending. So when you ask him well what do you think about this, he can give you input. A lot of times his input, that’s what we do.
After London I told a lot of people, he’s what I call, ‘Mastering it.’ He and the game are one. It’s not just about X’s and O’s. He’s 28, I think right now, and it’s all hit in the last couple of years. He’s one of the greatest ever.
Q: What’s your opinion of Carmelo Anthony?
A: He’s been a warrior for USA Basketball. He’s willing to do anything. In the last Olympics he was willing to come off the bench. He’s been great to coach, upbeat.
Internationally, he’s one of the best players ever. I mean, he’s one of the best players anyway.
In international ball, he can play the ‘4’ a lot. And he’s tough enough to play any ‘4’ and most ‘4’s cannot guard him. Or it opens up, like when he and LeBron are in, it creates amazing matchup problems for an opponent. We won down the stretch, they were my ‘4’ and ‘5.’
Q: Do you get the sense Carmelo craves an NBA championship?
A: I know he craves a gold medal. I don’t see him in this environment with the Knicks, but I would think he wants to be a champion in that arena, too. It’s a tough thing to win.