SB Nation Reacts: Coach K’s Retirement Changes The Landscape Of College Basketball

This is SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the college sports world. Each week, SB Nation sends out questions to the most plugged in Oregon State fans, and fans across the country. Sign up here to join Reacts.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard the news of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski deciding to call it quits after the conclusion of the 2021-2022 campaign, which led SB Nation Reacts to better gauge where the readers stand on the all-time legacy of the Duke head coach.

With Coach K moving out of the picture, 32% of fans voted that Gonzaga’s Mark Few will take over as the best active coach in the game, with Villanova’s Jay Wright (21%) and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo (16%) trailing behind him. The rest of the list includes the likes of Virginia’s Tony Bennett, Kansas’ Bill Self, Kentucky’s John Calipari and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim.

And where does Coach K stand in the all-time picture? 67% of fans (in my opinion, rightfully) voted that he deserves to be considered in the “Top Five” of coaches, while 18% consider him to be the best ever (Hello, Duke fan base) and 11% placed him in the top ten.

And finally, the great question of will Duke remain among college basketball’s elite programs comes to mind. What’s your take? Will the Blue Devils continue to be an annual Final Four threat? 54% of fans said yes. But with 46% of fans also saying no, maybe there’s time for a change of the guard at the top of the college basketball world.