Duke Basketball: What If Mike Krzyzewski Coaches until He Is 70?

College basketball is better because Mike Krzyzewski coaches at Duke.

He is the winningest coach in D-1 history and isn't showing any signs of slowing down or letting up.

Krzyzewski has not publicly set any dates or made any predictions about how much longer he plans on coaching.

At 64 (he turns 65 February 13th), he conceivably could coach more than a few additional seasons.

What would happen if he coached until he was 70?

Including this year, coaching until he turns 70 means Coach K would be in charge through the 2016-17 season.

How many wins would he compile? How many other records would he break?

Here's a quick look at how Mike Krzyzewski's coaching resume might look if he coaches until he is 70:

ACC Wins

Coach K's ACC record going into this season is 322-137.

With six additional seasons, it is completely within his reach to get to 400 conference wins.

That would take averaging 13 victories per year.

He has had that many wins in a conference season 11 times.

With the upcoming expansion of the conference and the likelihood of an expanded schedule (from 16 to 18 games), this is entirely possible.

However, getting to 365 ACC wins would move Coach K past the current conference all-time leader, Dean Smith (pictured), who won 364 wins in his 36-year tenure at North Carolina.  

Consecutive NCAA Appearances

Two different coaches, Dean Smith of North Carolina and Lute Olson (pictured) of Arizona led their respective schools to 23 consecutive NCAA appearances.

Coach K is currently riding a 16-year NCAA appearance streak. He missed one year (1994-95). Before that he had an 11-year NCAA appearance streak.

By coaching until he is 70, Krzyzewski would extend his current streak to 22 appearances, but he would not catch or pass Smith or Olson. 

Final Four Appearances

Mike Krzyzewski has led Duke to 11 Final Four appearances, which ties him with Dean Smith, and leaves him one behind John Wooden (pictured), the current all-time leader.

It doesn't stretch the imagination one bit to conceive of Duke getting to the Final Four two times in the next six years, which would propel Coach K ahead of the Wizard of Westwood.

NCAA Titles

No one, not Coach K or anyone else is likely to surpass John Wooden's mark for men's basketball titles.

Wooden won 10 NCAA national championships in a 12-year period, including an amazing seven in a row.

Krzyzewski is currently tied for second with Kentucky's Adolph Rupp (pictured) with four titles.

One more championship in Durham before Coach K leaves town? That is completely doable.

Total Wins

By coaching until he is 70, Mike Krzyzewski will add somewhere between 150-200 additional wins to his present count of 907.

Anything beyond 1000 collegiate wins would be absolutely insane and will set the standard so high that no current coach (and probably no future coach either) will be able to catch him.

Conclusion

Whenever he says his last good-byes, Coach K will go down as one of the most successful college basketball coaches of all time.

Other than Wooden's record for NCAA championships, Krzyzewski will hold many of the higher-level coaching records. Actually, he won't just hold them; he will have a death grip on them.

If he stays healthy and continues to have the fire in his belly to compete, I hope he coaches for a long, long time to come.