UNC Ends Coach K’s Career; Secures Eternal Bragging Rights over Duke

North Carolina’s Caleb Love (2) and Armando Bacot (5)Brynn Anderson/Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS—“The winner was going to be joyous and the loser was going be in agony.”

Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski started out the final press conference of his coaching career with a succinct summary of one of the greatest college basketball games ever played.

And in the 1,570th game of his illustrious career, the side in agony was his own. No. 8 seed North Carolina emerged from a two-hour-long heart-stopper featuring 12 ties and 18 lead changes with an 81-77 victory over No. 2 seed Duke.

There was no possible way for this game to live up to the hype, right?

Every regular-season Duke-UNC game gets the red carpet treatment from the national media multiple times per year, but meeting in the NCAA tournament—in the Final Four, no less—for the first time ever was a whole new level of razzmatazz.

In the week-long build up to the national semifinals in the Caesars Superdome, so much attention was paid to the past, present and future of Duke-UNC that Kansas-Villanova—a humongous showdown between blue bloods, which was very clearly the main attraction in the Final Four just four years ago—felt like an exhibition game by comparison; the local band you’ve literally never heard of who takes the stage before the headliner you paid to come see.

With expectations higher than half of the people on Bourbon Street at any given point in time, the game itself was going to be a letdown, wasn’t it?

Nope.

Not even a little bit.

Not even at all.

The 258th all-time installment of the sport’s greatest rivalry exceeded our wildest expectations.

After a bit of a sluggish start—understandable with the weight of the entire world on each player’s shoulders—the Tar Heels and the Blue Devils exchanged haymakers like only these loathed rivals can.

“I think it reached the level that you would expect,” said Krzyzewski. “Those kids from both teams played their hearts out.”

North Carolina’s Hubert DavisBrynn Anderson/Associated Press

At times, everyone in the building (and probably everyone watching at home) had to remind themselves just to breathe. Every single basket was met with a raucous ovation, as it felt like the entire game was played within the margin of a single bucket. In reality, Duke’s largest lead was seven and North Carolina’s was six, and those outlier moments were separated by a 13-0 Tar Heels run that flipped the game on its ear early in the second half.

But at the end of this enthralling hate-fest, it was Love that ruled the day.

Caleb Love, that is, who had 22 of his game-high 28 points in the second half, including the ice-in-his-veins, huge you-know-whats three-pointer that put the Tar Heels ahead by two possessions with 25 seconds to play.

“Very few guys in that situation are looking for that type of shot,” UNC head coach Hubert Davis said. “Caleb is one of them. He has the confidence to be able to knock it down.”

And just like that, North Carolina is moving on to the title game against Kansas, Duke is headed back to Durham and the former will hold bragging rights over the latter always and forever.

Seriously, outside of winning a head-to-head national championship in a future season, what can Duke possibly do to one-up this one?

Jon Scheyer could win every single game against the Tar Heels for the next decade, and Carolina fans would still grin ear to ear while reminding Duke fans who ended Coach K’s career in the 2022 Final Four.

It’s the ultimate trump card.

Naturally, though, neither coach wanted to talk about the all-encompassing history and finality of this game.

Duke’s Mike KrzyzewskiDavid J. Phillip/Associated Press

Krzyzewski and Davis spent all week deflecting questions about the rivalry—which they both called “the noise”—more or less echoing the same ‘it’s big because it’s the Final Four’ refrain. And after the game, Davis said that the history of ending Coach K’s career is something they’ll “put in a box to think about over the summer” while Krzyzewski didn’t want anything to do with reflecting on his career.

“It’s not about me, especially right now.”

But it is.

We all know it is.

And it has been since this—let’s call it “unorthodox”—decision to have a year-long farewell tour.

It’s the end of a near-half-century long era, and it ends in the most agonizing way imaginable for Coach K and his disciples: So close to the goal of winning one more title. And he might’ve gotten away with it, too, were it not for those meddling kids from 10 miles down the road.

Now, we’re headed for a national championship on Monday night where the two most noteworthy coaches aren’t the ones on the sideline. Not only did North Carolina end Coach K’s career, but that win set up a “Roy Williams Bowl” against Kansas.

But, hey, what’s a little more noise for these deaf Tar Heels to ignore?

Kerry Miller covers men’s college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.