By today’s standards, Duke would have fired Mike Krzyzewski after his 2nd season as its head basketball coach. Certainly, he’d have been gone after Year 3, an 11-17 smudge that included a home loss to Wagner and a 3-11 ACC record.
In his 2nd year, K’s team finished 10-17, with Ls to Stetson and Appalachian State. It wasn’t as if K had been great at Army, either. When Duke AD Tom Butters hired him before the 1980-81 season, Krzyzewski was coming off a 9-17 winter in his 5th year at West Point.