CBSSports.com’s Jeff Goodman and other college basketball analysts on Seth Davis’ show Courtside discussed whether or not anyone will be able to catch Mike Krzyzewski‘s 900-and-counting win total when the venerable Duke coach decides to hang it up. Monday, Goodman asked the active coach closest to Coach K, Jim Boeheim to ponder if he stood a chance. Boeheim gave himself no chance whatsoever and even stated that, “I think Mike will coach another ten years.” If that’s true (I for one, don’t think Krzyzewski will coach more than five more), Coach K will end up with somewhere between 1150 and 1200 wins, putting the record essentially out of reach barring an unprecedented career spanning six decades.
As for his best guess, Boeheim mentioned West Virginia’s Bob Huggins as the most likely active candidate for passing Coach K. Goodman did the math: “[Huggins] has 691 career victories. Let’s say he goes 12 more years (until he’s 71) and averages about 25 wins per year. […] That would put him just shy of 1,000 victories.” Barring a sudden retirement, Krzyzewski should pass the 1,000 win mark sometime in the next four years. Here are other coaches who could (somewhat feasibly) pass Coach K.
Update: John Gasaway of Basketball Prospectus pointed out a slight wrinkle with Boeheim’s guess that Huggins could pass Coach K: 71 of Huggins’ wins were at Walsh, which was not Division I and therefore would not count on his D-I record.
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Another Knight prodigy! Steve Alford at UNM will pass them all eventually. he's already at 413 wins ond he's only 46, stop the east coast bias already and show him some love.