When Mike Krzyzewski was hired by Duke in 1980, he inherited the remnants of Bill Foster’s great team, but not much more. Gene Banks, Kenny Dennard, Jim Suddath, Tom Emma, Chip Engelland and Vince Taylor gave him something to build on. It was a good but not great team. Mike Gminski had left the year before and the hole in the middle would prove impossible to fill.
But the rest? Pretty good and certainly experienced. Banks and Dennard were not like any forwards Duke had ever had, with the possible exception of Art Heyman. They were both larger than life figures who were forced to adjust, in their final season, to a very different sort of a coach who was only about a decade older.