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To Syracuse guard Stephen Thompson, playing Duke in December 1989 was more or less a regular game. His No. 1 Syracuse team featured six future NBA players, so Thompson wasn’t flustered by a matchup with the No. 6 Blue Devils. 

But there was an added significance for Thompson: those schools were his final two choices. He visited Duke during the fall of his senior year and told then-Blue Devils seniors Johnny Dawkins and David Henderson that he knew he’d commit. But he had one more visit to take at Syracuse. 

“The rest was history after that,” he said, citing the Big East’s rise to national prominence and his connection with Jim Boeheim as reasons he picked Syracuse. 

Thirty-two years later, though, Thompson realizes that the game was much bigger than him. He had no idea that Boeheim knew Mike Krzyzewski from playing in charity golf tournaments in the ’80s. He didn’t know it was the first meeting between the two legendary head coaches. And he certainly didn’t foresee the close friendship that would blossom between the coaches, and their families, for years to come.

Syracuse won that day in Greensboro, North Carolina, 78-76, despite blowing a 15-point first-half lead, after forward Dave Johnson knocked down two free throws in the final seconds. It marked a starting point for years of competition between the two winningest NCAA basketball coaches.

“Back then, it was just Syracuse trying to beat Duke, and it was just Jim Boeheim trying to beat Mike Krzyzewski,” said Mike Hopkins, an SU player at the time. “As the years go on, the thing that you realize about both of them (is) they’re two of the greatest competitors to ever do this.”

The game was part of the inaugural ACC-Big East Challenge, and the Los Angeles Times called the Duke-Syracuse contest the best game of the competition. At the time, Krzyzewski and Boeheim were big-time coaches with over 200 wins apiece at their respective universities. But neither were Hall of Famers at that point, and at 42 and 45 years old, respectively, they both still had the bulk of their careers ahead of them. Now, with Krzyzewski set to retire at the end of the 2021-22 season, the two will play their final regular season matchup when Duke comes to the Carrier Dome on Saturday night. 

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“It’s going to be a historical coming together on that court,” said Juli Boeheim, the SU head coach’s wife. “The two of them combined, it’s overwhelming. It really is. It makes me teary thinking about it.”

After 16 head-to-head matchups between the two, and more than three decades of basketball, Krzyzewski doesn’t remember the first matchup in 1989. “I think we lost. I think they beat us,” he said via Zoom when asked what he recalled from the game.

Boeheim remembered a little more. With the score tied at 76, Billy Owens got the ball to Johnson, he said, who got fouled. “(Johnson) made a foul shot, and they didn’t have much time to get to the length of the court. It was a good win,” Boeheim recently said via Zoom.

In fact, Owens said postgame that he really wanted to take the final shot himself, but he recognized the defense converging on him and noticed Johnson drifting open. Johnson — a 50% free throw shooter that season — drew a foul and made both free throws with three seconds remaining. Then Duke’s Bill McCaffrey’s shot at the buzzer was blocked to secure the win. 

Thompson led SU with 21 points. Then-Duke assistant and current Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey said Thompson “haunted us” during that game by smoothly sliding up and down the baseline.

Syracuse nearly blew the game when it turned the ball over with 15 seconds left, which allowed Duke to tie the game with a layup. Boeheim said he thought Syracuse was looking “square in the eye of an overtime,” per The New York Times. But SU’s experience shone through in the final moments, Krzyzewski said postgame.

Bobby Hurley was a freshman in 1989, playing in the fourth game of his collegiate career. Hurley had four points, 10 assists and six turnovers. Moments after the opening tipoff, Johnson dunked on Hurley.

“It was my first big-time game,” Hurley told AZ Central in 2018. “Derrick Coleman won the tip and he tipped it to Billy Owens. And then Billy Owens took, like, two dribbles and I was the last guy back. He threw a lob to (Dave Johnson) and he just dunked right over me.”

Thompson said he’ll go back from time to time and watch clips from that 1989-90 Syracuse team. He praised both Boeheim and Krzyzewski’s loyalty to a single program and said there may never be coaches like them who’ve “basically given (their) life to the university.”

“You kind of knew both those guys were going to … be Hall of Famers, and you knew that they weren’t going to coach anywhere else, and they were going to do it for a long time and do it their way,” Brey said.

Boeheim got to know Krzyzewski by going to his house every evening after Duke charity golf tournaments in the 1980s, Boeheim said. Their “unique bond” grew stronger in 1990 when the two coached Team USA at the World Championships, with Krzyzewski as the head coach and Boeheim as his assistant.

They coached together in 2006, 2010 and 2014 for the World Championships (two championships, one third-place finish) and in 2008, 2012 and 2016 for the Olympics (three gold medals). Boeheim estimated they spent 300 days together during those summertimes and never had an argument, he said after playing Duke on Jan. 22. 

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Juli will always savor the simple moments at the Olympics, like sitting around a conference room table converted for family-style meals with the Krzyzewskis and Boeheims. Buddy, Jimmy and Jamie Boeheim made lots of memories with Krzyzewski’s grandkids, Juli said.

“Our families are intertwined,” Krzyzewski said on Monday. “(Jim and I) are about as close as we can be in this profession.”

Boeheim and Krzyzewski have a mutual respect that allows them to be such close friends, Juli said. Brey called them “thick as thieves” when they gang up in league meetings. They’re best friends in coaching, he said.

“You become high-level competitors but then also become high-level best friends,” Hopkins said.

When asked how much fun it’s been to play his best friend over the years, Krzyzewski laughed. “I don’t look at it as fun,” he said. “I look at it as intense competition.”

Boeheim said the same thing after the first Duke game a few weeks ago, clarifying that Krzyzewski might be a close friend but those memories are separate from basketball. They’re in a different category, he said, and they’ve been that way ever since the 1989 meeting in Greensboro.

“That’s what I think about when I think about that game, is the two of them shaking hands and greeting each other,” Juli said. “I remember it so vividly from the first game. It was powerful — our fans acknowledged Coach K and Jim and the greatness that was there.

“I hope it’s a great game. We want to win and all of that. But I don’t want to miss that part.”

Published on February 23, 2022 at 11:59 pm

Contact Roshan: rferna04@syr.edu | @Roshan_f16