While one pair of former intra-conference rivals appear to be nudging closer to renewing their series, another doesn't seem to have much hope on the horizon right now.
The 2013-14 season will be the last Duke and Maryland share a conference. Come next summer, the Terps move from the ACC to the Big Ten for good. The Feb. 15 game at Cameron Indoor is the last scheduled matchup between the two, and it might be that way for many years to come.
Because Mike Krzyzewski said so.
Coach K -- who we recently, gleefully learned is obsessed with Beyonce -- went on radio and again maintained that Maryland's move would affect the rivalry for good (and for bad). Krzyzewski has been critical of Maryland's motives for leaving the ACC and repeated his contempt in the past year.
Via the DC Sports Bog, which transcribed the interview, here's what Krzyzewski said this week Washington, D.C.'s ESPN 980.
“The quality of athlete on the court and then the atmosphere that they were able to play in really brought out some special moments,” Coach K agreed, discussing the Duke-Maryland games of the late ’90s and early 2000s. “You can’t just say you’re going to replicate that in another conference right away. That was already there. It was established over a period of time, and that won’t happen again. That’s not gonna happen again, because we’re not gonna schedule them. It’s tough to schedule anybody when you have 18 conference games. But when we schedule non-conference, it’s usually outside of our conference area, so that we play national teams.”
When you're in Krzyzewski's position you can make these power claims and pretty much no one is going to stand in your way. He remains saddened and maddened by how the ACC has been stripped of some of its identity, and sort of in the same way that Kansas' Bill Self now refuses to schedule Missouri after the Tigers left the Big 12 for the SEC, Coach K will follow suit here.
The only hope for a rematch will be if TV powers-that-be opt to schedule the Blue Devils and Terrapins down the road, in the annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
“Well, that would be the only way it would be done, because we won’t schedule Maryland,” Krzyzewski said on radio, per the Bog. “And there’s nothing to that, just that it doesn’t work out for us to do that. That’s the only way it would happen, if they continue the Big 10-ACC.
Realignment doesn't kill all rivalries, but plenty become victim.
