Coach K calls out Mark Emmert, unleashes list of questions for NCAA

When Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski ahead of the Final Four, his press conference came before one of the only people with a higher profile than him. NCAA president Mark Emmert was right after him, and he had quite an exchange with a reporter about it.

Krzyzewski started out by talking — probably tongue-in-cheek — about how much he was looking forward to hearing the head of the NCAA speak.

“I am sitting at the edge of my chair,” Krzyzewski joked.

However, he said he’s “got a team to coach,” so the reporter then asked if Krzyzewski had any questions he wanted asked.

“I have many questions,” Krzyzewski said.

Did that mean he had a question he wanted someone to ask for him? In short, yes — and it was a good one.

“I think the very first one is where are we going?” Krzyzewski said. “And who is going to be in charge? Not that I’m saying that he shouldn’t be. But what are we doing? What are we doing to make sure we’re taking care of all divisions that are under your roof — men, women, all sports, those that make money and those that just make men and women out of people. And probably that’s more important than the other, but you have to do that.

“So there’s balance. And we’re understanding that everyone cannot be treated the same. That doesn’t mean that everyone’s not treated fairly. And it’s a new day that should have been a new day decades ago. So we’ve got a lot to make up for.”

Mark Emmert responds to Coach K question

True to his word, the reporter asked Emmert the question in his press conference on Coach K’s behalf. The head of the NCAA offered a lengthy answer in his response.

“In terms of where we are and where we’re going, as I started to say in my opening comments, we’re at a place of a huge disjuncture, if you will, around college sports,” Emmert said. “This is just my opinion.

“We have a relatively short window of time during which the schools, especially in Division I, need to decide what they want — and this is where Congress needs to come in, as well — what they want the relationship between student-athletes and their schools to be, what the governance structures can be currently in the legal environment, and similarly how the rules and structures at a national level, at a divisional level, at a conference level, can be made and should be made.”

The press conferences came before a highly anticipated matchup between Duke and North Carolina in the Final Four on Saturday. It’s the first time the two teams will ever face off in the NCAA Tournament, and the game tips off Saturday at 8:49 p.m. ET from New Orleans.