Mike Krzyzewski Quotes about Basketball - Page 3

We lost, and that's the main thing that went wrong.

The worst thing we can do is put the (other) team in a one-and-one.

I was very pleased with the entire selection process. The manner in which it was conducted included all parts of United States' basketball, from the professional level to the colleges and high schools. Everyone was considered.

I've tried to handle winning well, so that maybe we'll win again, but I've also tried to handle failure well. If those serve as good examples for teachers and kids, then I hope that would be a contribution I have made to sport. Not just basketball, but to sport.

Leaders have to search for the heart on a team, because the person who has it can bring out the best in everybody else.

When I had troubles, I'd go out - with basketball, you can do it by yourself, too. So you'd go out and shoot, and you'd fantasize.

Why do you play a game? I play a game to see how good we can be.

We travel in Duke stuff... They can have a hat, but it must be a Duke hat.

Even though we want huge individual egos, our collective ego is unbelievable.

When you win, sometimes it overshadows a poor performance.

First of all, what happens is, when you're good at something, you spend a lot of time with it. People identify you with that sport, so it becomes part of your identity.

That's why basketball was so good, because I didn't really need you or anyone else to play it. It would be better if we played four-on-four or five-on-five, but I could go out there alone.

A common mistake among those who work in sport is spending a disproportional amount of time on "x's and o's" as compared to time spent learning about people.

For a college basketball player or coach, to reach the Final Four is la-la land. You’ve achieved, you’ve got your stamp of approval. My first team to do that was in 1986. Then we did it in ’88, ’89 and ’90.

I always wanted to teach.

...you can't play any defense if the other team is on the foul line.

Basketball was not my main sport in grade school, or even the first year of high school.

If the only reason I coached was to win basketball games, my life would be pretty shallow

I'm fortunate now that I coach at Duke University and we've won a lot. I have some kids who haven't failed that much. But when they get to college, they're going to fail some time. That's a thing that I can help them the most with.