Feb. 2 (UPI) — Legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski missed most of January while recovering from back surgery.
After his initial Jan. 4 departure, the Blue Devils won once, before dropping three of its next four games. Duke rebounded recently, beating Wake Forest and Notre Dame.
The Blue Devils have dealt with its fair-share of distractions this season, including the suspension of Grayson Allen for unsportsmanlike conduct on the court. But its true floor general is returning for its 1 p.m. matchup Saturday against Pittsburgh.
On Thursday, Duke Basketball’s Twitter account tweeted a simple series of words and Emojis, including: “Saturday…#HereComesDuke.” The tweet included a blue dot, a devil, and a goat, representing the saying ‘greatest of all time.’
“I’m going to be back on the sidelines on Saturday when we play Pitt,” Krzyzewski said on his Basketball and Beyond with Coach K show on SiriusXM radio. “Basically…I’ve been doing stuff everyday, with our program. Not as much with the physical nature, but with preparation and some of the things that you just have to do in running a big-time program.”
He has been attending practice for the last week-and-a-half and having meetings at his house. He also temporarily kicked Duke players out of the locker room and didn’t allow them to wear Duke apparel, according to ESPN.
“I have to commend my staff for the great, great job that they’ve done,” Krzyzewski said on his radio show. “The last time I had a back operation was 22 years ago. I kind of changed how we did our program and stopped micromanaging things and gave everybody a chance to do more. We got better as a result of it. With me being gone, Jeff Capel took over and he did a marvelous job.”
Krzyzewski, 69, had the surgery to remove a herniated disc fragment. The winningest coach in men’s basketball Division I history missed seven games. Krzyzewski leads all coaches with 1,060 career victories and has five national titles.
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