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Seeing 68 teams in a March Madness bracket can be quite overwhelming, especially for those playing in the tournament.
However, former Duke player Jay Bilas said his legendary former head coach, Mike Krzyzewski, had a brilliant way of simplifying it to take the pressure off the Blue Devils.
“I played for Coach K at Duke and 1986, my senior year, was the second year of the 64-team group,” Bilas told Pak Gazette Digital in a recent interview. “And he broke the tournament down basically into a four-team tournament the first weekend. He talked about the opposite side of our group, the 32 teams opposite our side, and he said, ‘Look at all those teams over there,’ and he started talking about how good some of them were. And then he said, ‘Who cares? Only one team will get out of there. Only one team will get out of there. Whatever happens, it’s fine. We’ll play that team on Monday night for the championship.’
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Head coach Mike Krzyzewski of the Duke Blue Devils reacts in the first half of play against the North Carolina Tar Heels during the Final Four semifinal of the 2022 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Caesars Superdome on April 2, 2022 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
“So he gave us a bracket. It was a four-team bracket, and we were playing Greensboro in the first and second round. I think he called it the Greensboro Invitational and said, ‘This is the only thing we have to worry about.’ And we were like, ‘Wow, we can process that.’ He made it easier. And then the second week, the same thing. We played in the Meadowlands – Meadowlands Invitational. We played DePaul, and then David Robinson and Navy were on the other side. So we just played “We had to face a four-team tournament. Then we got to the Final Four, a four-team tournament. And it really made it a lot easier.”
Now, like the rest of us, Bilas watches the tournament as an amateur. And this year you’ll enjoy it with an ice-cold Garage Beer, founded by Travis and Jason Kelce.
Jay Bilas will enjoy March Madness with Garage Beer. (Garage beer)
“I like beer and garages,” Bilas joked, adding that the Kelce brothers are a key reason why he wanted to be a spokesperson for the drink this March Madness. “I probably shouldn’t talk about how much I like beer, but I like beer and I like Garage Beer. And there’s nothing better than tournament time, and those two things go very well together. I try to avoid it when I’m on the air, but I’m like everyone else: When there’s a good game, I like to open one.”
And even though there will likely be several garage beers throughout the tournament, there’s a good chance that Bilas, a self-proclaimed March Madness “nerd,” can remember almost everything from this tournament.
However, due to Coach K’s practice, that encyclopedia in Bilas’ brain doesn’t have many pages about 1986.
“I can talk to you about matches that happened in almost any tournament and remember them. I don’t remember what happened in that 1986 tournament,” Bilas said. “Because all I cared about was what we did. I mean, it’s really extraordinary. I don’t really remember anything else because of the way Coach K presented it to us and the way we approached it. And I know a lot of teams do that now, and I, at least speaking for myself, thought it was extraordinarily useful for us.”
Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski yells during the first half of a college basketball game against Cal State Fullerton in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday, March 18, 2022 in Greenville, South Carolina. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
The Blue Devils are the first overall seed this year and are aiming for their first title since 2015.
