Dean & K - USA Basketball

[Laettner]

ESPN Basketball - A Love Story #10 focused on USA Basketball and how Jerry Colangelo built the program. Colangelo gathered great basketball minds to dicuss how USA hoops should operate and when time came around to selecting a coach - DEAN SMITH told Colagelo that Coach K was the only person to consider. Colangelo was taken aback that Dean nominated his rival so adamantly.

Very cool behind the scenes story.

This whole series has been facinating.

 

[timo0402]

ESPN Basketball - A Love Story #10 focused on USA Basketball and how Jerry Colangelo built the program. Colangelo gathered great basketball minds to dicuss how USA hoops should operate and when time came around to selecting a coach - DEAN SMITH told Colagelo that Coach K was the only person to consider. Colangelo was taken aback that Dean nominated his rival so adamantly.

Very cool behind the scenes story.

This whole series has been facinating.

I knew of that story and I’m sure guys like @jimlsumner can add much more, but it’s truly a testament to the mutual respect they had for each other despite being rivals.

 

[DiehardDukeFan4Life]

That’s what a lot of the younger generation doesn’t know about them. As big as the rivalry was/is and how much they always wanted to beat each other every time they played, Coach K, Dean Smith and Jimmy V were all pretty good friends and respected each other. Specifically Coach K and Jimmy V were very close.

 

[Dukeman]

Very skeptical of that story. I believe Deano’s reasons were to help the UNC program. He probably thought that coaching USA basketball would require so much of K’s time that it would take him away from the Duke program and Duke program would suffer for it.

What program benefits most when Duke basketball struggle’s? That would be UNC.

Dean and K were never really that close. As for Valvano, Dean never really saw him as the threat K posed to UNC dominance.

Dean was the architect of the UNC Cheating Scandal.

 

[Quavarius]

ESPN Basketball - A Love Story #10 focused on USA Basketball and how Jerry Colangelo built the program. Colangelo gathered great basketball minds to dicuss how USA hoops should operate and when time came around to selecting a coach - DEAN SMITH told Colagelo that Coach K was the only person to consider. Colangelo was taken aback that Dean nominated his rival so adamantly.

Very cool behind the scenes story.

This whole series has been facinating.

I recorded and plan on watching it later tonight! Yes, it has been a great series. I want to watch them all back to back!

 

[TheDude1]

Very skeptical of that story. I believe Deano’s reasons were to help the UNC program. He probably thought that coaching USA basketball would require so much of K’s time that it would take him away from the Duke program and Duke program would suffer for it.

What program benefits most when Duke basketball struggle’s? That would be UNC.

Dean and K were never really that close. As for Valvano, Dean never really saw him as the threat K posed to UNC dominance.

Dean was the architect of the UNC Cheating Scandal.

I'm as disgusted by UNC as anyone (probably more so) but that's a bit conspiracy-esque, no? Occam's Razor; it was likely just the idea that Dean, after all those years, knew K would be great at the job.