GREENVILLE, S.C. — The first time Mike Krzyzewski and Tom Izzo squared off was 1999. The matchup? Oh, just a little thing called the Final Four. The stage was appropriate enough for two Hall-of-Fame coaches, though few could have realized then that both those men would become Hall-of-Famers. K clearly knocking on the doorstep then (he would be inducted in 2001). Izzo wasn’t even five years into the job.
In 1999, Izzo was a year away from winning his first (and to this point only) national championship. Krzyzewski was coaching an all-time-loaded Duke team that would lose two nights later to UConn and become regarded as one of the best teams to never win a national title. Coach K got the best of Izzo that night in ’99, his Duke squad winning 68-62.
A coaching friendship flowered. Per Izzo’s words shortly after midnight on Saturday morning, following his seventh-seeded Spartans hanging on to beat No. 10…
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