Where is Coach K? Former Duke coach also led USA Basketball to dominance

For the greater part of his 47 years coaching on the sidelines and drawing up Xs and Os on a clipboard, there was not a coach that won at the level of Mike Krzyzewski.
His resume in 42 season at Duke basketball speaks to this: 1,202 career wins, five national championships, 15 ACC Tournament titles, 13 Final Four appearances and three Naismith College Coach of the Year awards.
The Basketball Hall of Famer’s success as a coach didn’t just stop at college, either. It also extended to the international level, with Team USA Basketball — a decision once made by Jerry Colangelo that was looked upon as perhaps a bit unorthodox at the time of his hiring in 2005.
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It’s one that is now looked back on as the building block and catalyst for the United States refining its winning identity after a letdown at the 2004 Athens Olympics in which the U.S. finished with a disappointing bronze-medal finish.
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Entering the 2024 Paris Olympics, USA Basketball looks to continue chasing history — and its dominance on the Olympic Stage — with a fifth consecutive and 20th overall gold medal at the Summer Games. It is a feat, and standard in some sense, that was started by Krzyzewski.
With that, let’s revisit Krzyzewski’s tenure at the helm of USA Basketball and the National Team, including his record and medals won at the Olympics:
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr will lead Team USA into the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Kerr was named the coach of USA Basketball in 2021, replacing San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. Prior to being named the head man of the sidelines for the United States, Kerr served as one of Popovich’s assistant coaches at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Krzyzewski, who was hired by Colangelo in 2005, concluded his tenure as the USA Basketball National Team coach following the 2016 Rio Olympics. He was replaced by Popovich for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which would be his one time on the Olympic cycle for Team USA.
The Basketball Hall of Fame coach originally was supposed to end his tenure as the USA Basketball national team coach after the 2012 London Olympics — where he led Team USA to gold — but came back through the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“About four years ago, I was asked about Coach K’s return, and what I said then is still true now — when you have a good thing going, you don’t mess with it,” Colangelo said in a statement in 2013 after the 2012 London Games.
He retired from coaching as a whole in 2022, after leading Duke to the Final Four for the first time since winning the 2015 National Championship. Krzyzewski retired as the winningest coach in college basketball, both men’s and women’s, at 1,202 wins but lost that feat in 2024 when former Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer surpassed him as college basketball’s winningest coach.
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Krzyzewski made his Olympic debut as the USA Basketball National Team coach at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, famously known as the “Redeem Team” after the United States finished bronze, i.e. third, in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The path back to Olympic gold did not start out how Krzyzewski, or USA Basketball, envisioned it. The United States finished with bronze at the 2006 World Championships with a team that featured LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Chris Bosch and Carmelo Anthony.
Two years later Krzyzewski and USA Basketball would bring on Kobe Bryant as a veteran piece for the Beijing Olympics, and, as seen in the Netflix documentary “The Redeem Team,” it worked. The Los Angeles Lakers star not only pushed those on the team, but also helped lead the United States back to gold at the 2008 Summer Games, which included the highly physical and intense gold medal game against Spain and Paul Gasol, his Lakers teammate.
The Beijing Olympics kickstarted what was one of the most dominant runs in USA Basketball, and basketball, history as the United States would not lose a single game after that while winning two more gold medals at the 2012 London Olympics and 2016 Rio Olympics.
At the 2012 London Olympics, Krzyzewski put together one of the all-time USA Basketball National Team offenses as the United States averaged a 32.1-point margin of victory in London while setting the Olympic record for 3-pointers made at 129.
Here’s a look at how USA basketball did at the Olympics under Krzyzewski:
Beijing 2008 – Gold Medal
London 2012 – Gold Medal
Rio 2016 – Gold Medal
All told, Krzyzewski led USA Basketball to three Olympic medals during his tenure, all of which were gold. He is the only men’s basketball coach to have won gold at the Summer Olympics, the FIBA World Cup and a college basketball NCAA national championship title.
Team USA’s gold medal finish at the 2016 Rio Olympics put Krzyzewski into another class of his own as he became the first basketball coach to win three consecutive gold medals at the Olympics.
Krzyzewski also holds gold medal finishes at the 2007 FIBA Americas Championship, 2010 FIBA World Cup and the 2014 FIBA World Cup during his time as the Men’s National Team coach.