Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has the penultimate showdown of his illustrious 40 year college coaching career when his team takes the court against hated rival UNC Saturday night in the Final Four. What’s even wilder about that is that this is the first time that two have ever played each other in the NCAA tournament. This game is definitely going to fulfill the Madness part of the the tournament.

Coach K will inevitably go down in the history of not just basketball, but college sports all together. The man IS Duke basketball. We could sit and list all of his accomplishments but A)you’d be reading this for a while and B) that’s not what we really do here. What I (and I assume many other people) are interested in is to see if he will lose to his greatest rival or walk off the court in the greatest way possible by going on to the Final for the chance at a National Championship in the last game of his coaching career. And after losing to UNC in his final game at Cameron Indoor, the stakes have been raised even higher with this matchup.

The Most Dramatic Game Ever??

Personally, I am here for the chaos of him losing. Duke and Coach K have one of the most hated programs and fan bases across all of sports so it’s no secret that most of the country will be rooting for their downfall on Saturday night. They aren’t even unanimously liked in their own college town which is understandable since UNC is a mere 9 miles away. Now, it could be that you hate them because they personally hurt your team at some point in the last 40 years. (I’m looking at you Christian Laettner.) Or maybe you hate them because they have one of the most bandwagon “I only root for winning teams” fan bases. It feels like there’s a disproportionate amount of Duke fans that are also Yankees, Cowboys, and Lakers fans. But that’s just my observation. Or maybe you hate the fact that Coach K has now become the poster boy for “one and done’s” after years of harsh criticism of other programs that operated that way. Rational or not the dislike of Duke spreads far and wide.

On the opposite side I can see why people will be rooting for Duke to win not only tomorrow night but to win the whole thing now that they’ve come this close. You’ve gotta admit that it would be pretty epic to watch Coach K cut down the nets after winning his last National Championship. He may not be universally liked but he definitely is universally respected.

No matter which way you root this will be a game for the ages. As has been Coach K’s entire career and we will be witnessing the end of an era as he prepares to step away from the game he loves.