Mike Krzyzewski details the lessons he's learned, tried to teach throughout his coaching career

Mike Krzyzewski has enough valuable life lessons throughout his coaching career to write a book. Luckily, he’s sharing some of those with the world as he continues to adjust to his newfangled retirement.

Joining Jon Rothstein on The College Hoops Today Podcast, the Duke legend detailed the lessons he’s learned and the lessons he’s tried to teach his team throughout his coaching career, using the Blue Devils’ loss to North Carolina in the Final Four earlier this year as an example.

“It’s not so much what you tell them, you’re trying to console them. I mean, they were all heartbroken. Crying. Basically, you’re trying to comfort them. But in doing that, I felt good. Because I’ve said this many, many times — at the end of the year, you should want your team to either be crying for joy, or either crying because they, it’s over. And if they’re crying, it means they’ve put everything out there,” Krzyzewski said, speaking about Duke’s loss to North Carolina in last season’s Final Four. “I thought, this was my youngest team, they were one of my closest teams. They made youthful, they did youthful things that pretty much translated into winning. Every once in awhile it didn’t, but I enjoyed them immensely.

“Basically, to try to console them and congratulate Carolina, when you’re involved in a game like that, you always respect or you should always respect your opponent in a win or a loss, and because you’ve shared that arena with that team, and not many people get to be in the arena. Win or lose, we’ve won a heckuva lot more than we’ve lost. We’ve been very fortunate. But when you do lose, you should credit the team that beat you. We did, and I still will. Again, to me it’s one game of about 15, 1600 that I had the opportunity to coach. But it was one of the, I think we’ve coached almost two-dozen games in the Final Four. Those are amazing games. Really, in order to get there, you win what I think is one of the more amazing games, and that is a regional championship. To get to the Final Four.

“So, we’ve been in a lot of big ones. We’ve won more, but we’ve lost some tough ones. That was a rough loss. But I’d rather be in a game that’s a tough loss than to not play our hearts out.”

Indisputably, Mike Krzyzewski is one of the all-time greats. The Duke legend will continue to command respect wherever he goes next, and his advice will remain highly sought-after by players, coaches and fans alike.