The past two weeks for college basketball have been nothing short of exhilarating. The concluding moments of March Madness have taken the media by storm. Duke’s head coach of 42 years is finally hanging it up, and the Kansas Jayhawks dominated the tournament. 

Arguably the greatest college basketball head coach of all time is retiring at last. Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski is concluding his coaching career with a remarkable 1202 wins and 368 losses, a .766 winning percentage. Throughout his entire career, he compiled 15 ACC championships and a total of 566 ACC regular-season wins. Serving as the head coach at Duke for that long, he also led his team to five national titles and 13 Final Fours in the March Madness tournament. 

His final game was a devastating loss to archrival the North Carolina Tar Heels. After the Final Four heartbreaker, Coach K’s lifetime record against the Tar Heels fell to 50-48. With the blue devils out of the tournament, the realization that he is leaving on a loss to his rival was tear-jerking, to say the least. 

Wayne Hills senior, Luke Hulbert had some heartfelt words following coach K’s departure. Hulbert said, “Even though I wasn’t much of a Duke fan at all, I have nothing but respect for Coach K. He is the best college basketball coach in my opinion, and the reality that he won’t coach anymore still hasn’t hit me yet. I think myself and a lot of other people will miss him a lot.”

Before last night, the Jayhawks hadn’t won an NCAA championship since 2008 when they beat Memphis in overtime. Coach Bill Self and his team led by Ochai Agbaji came back from a 15 point deficit at halftime and went on to win the national championship. This was the largest comeback in NCAA final history. Agbaji went on to have 12 points. David McCormack had a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds. After the game, Coach Self had this to say, “To win when your team had to fight and come back the way they did and show that much grit makes this one off the charts.”