How do you replace the irreplaceable?
There’s a simple answer for that not so simple question — you can’t.
Duke will never be able to replace Mike Krzyzewski just like UCLA was never able to replace John Wooden.
The Green Bay Packers? They’ve never been able to replace Vince Lombardi, but have still won multiple Super Bowls since his retirement in 1968.
And Rock and Roll? The industry still survived after The Beatles broke up over 50 years ago thanks to some help from The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and U2.
These are all good examples for people to reference today when they start to ponder and forecast the future of a sport that is unquestionably going through a phase filled with volatility.
The retirements of Krzyzewski — who announced on Wednesday that next season will be his last — and North Carolina’s Roy Williams have signaled the end of an era, one that’s also moving to a world that includes NIL and a one-time transfer exception that’s completely changed college recruiting as we know it. According to the website verbalcommits.com, there are currently 1,630 players in the transfer portal as of Thursday.
New professional leagues such as Overtime Elite and the NBA G League are offering five-star prospects lucrative salaries to play for them rather than play college basketball. Two of the projected top five picks in this year’s NBA Draft — Jalen Green and Jonathan Kuminga — opted to play in the NBA G League last season rather than play in college.
Every top flight prospect and every person should have the right to make that decision based on what’s best for themselves personally, but here’s one important thing to remember: Nobody is going to remember that these players opted to make those decisions on the night that Duke plays North Carolina or Kentucky faces Louisville.
Traditions usurp what is en vogue.
“If players don’t want to be in college, they should have the opportunity to play professionally in the G League or in the NBA right out of high school,” Villanova’s Jay Wright said in 2017. “The overall talent base of college basketball may be watered down a bit, but the overall state of the game may be healthier.”
Despite the loss of five-star prospects like Kuminga, Green, Isaiah Todd, and Daishen Nix — who all never made it to college — last season’s NCAA Tournament had its highest rated Sweet 16 since 1993.
Additionally, the two most-watched non-football related sportscasts since 2019 were this past April’s national title game between Baylor and Gonzaga and the Bulldogs’ Final Four classic with UCLA two days earlier.
That doesn’t mean that there’s not issues that need to be refined in college basketball because there are.
That doesn’t mean that the sport isn’t going to miss luminaries like Krzyzewski, Williams, Lon Kruger, and whoever next follows them down the path of retirement.
It does mean though, that new faces are primed to step into the spotlight.
If the NFL only knew Bart Starr, it would never have gotten acquainted with Roger Staubach, Joe Montana, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning.
If Rock and Roll was only going to listen to The Beatles, it would have never fallen in love with Mick Jagger, Billy Joel, and Elton John.
Someone once told me that “one person’s sunset is another person’s dawn”.
That’s an appropriate way to paint the picture of what we’ve seen over the past few months in college basketball.
The exits of guys like Williams and Kruger along with the looming exit of Krzyzewski after next season is going to open the door for guys like Wright, Gonzaga’s Mark Few, Baylor’s Scott Drew, Virginia’s Tony Bennett, UCLA’s Mick Cronin, and Texas’ Chris Beard to assume a more prominent seat at college basketball’s head table.
They’ll have to navigate more minutia than their predecessors given the current state of the game, but right now, that’s part of the deal.
No coach or figure — not Wooden, not Krzyzewski, not Lombardi, not John Lennon — can last forever in their respective vocation.
The only thing that can is the games that are played, season after season and decade after decade.
One person’s sunset is indeed another person’s dawn.
Leftovers
- Florida, Miami finalizing agreement to meet this season in Jacksonville
- CBS Sports Podcast (6/16) — Minnesota’s Niko Medved
- Dayton, Florida State to begin home-and-home series
- Florida/TCU, Wisconsin/Providence to headline 2025 Rady Children’s Invitational
- Texas A&M, Florida State to start neutral site series in Tampa
