Coach K on His Relationship With Roy Williams

Players don't spend as much time together

Roy Williams talked earlier this week about his relationship with Mike Krzyzewski, and how the two will talk on the phone about issues in college basketball. Coach K was asked the same question about his relationship with UNC coaches over the years.

“Well, Dean [Smith] never gave out his number, at least to coaches who have not yet made it,” he joked. “No, he was great, one of the great men of all time. Even towards the end of his career and when we started to achieve at a high level, we developed a good friendship based on great respect. It’s kind of like you know what the other guy’s going through, when you have to do it every year at the level with the scrutiny that’s there. Roy [Williams] and I both understand that. I think there’s great empathy for one another and great respect. We now are the guys running these two incredible programs, and we won’t be running it all the time, but while we are running it, you want to do it with class, dignity and a pursuit of excellence and doing it the right way. I think we both have handled that. Their players and our players have handled it.”

The players don’t see each other quite as much as they used to, Krzyzewski believes.

“There used to be more interaction between players, because they had pickup games,” he said. “That’s changed for a while, but still, even on staff, Nolan [Smith] and Kendall Marshall are really good friends. They grew up together, so they know that they have something really good and we have something really good. You don’t have to make something bad to make you stuff look good. We both know we have good stuff.”