Coach K’s Cake Day Results

Today is Mike Krzyzewski’s 73^rd birthday. He was born on this day in Chicago in 1947 to Polish immigrants Emily and Bill Krzyzewski.

This is Coach K’s 40^th season at Duke, as we are all well aware. Over the years his Blue Devils have played 13 times on his birthday. 2020 is not one of those times.

The only ACC head coach who’s been handed a stress-filled birthday present this season is Pitt’s Jeff Capel, whose Panthers hosted Clemson yesterday and lost for the second straight year on that date (Feb. 12, Lincoln’s birthday).

Duke, on the other hand, has gone 9-4 in games played on Krzyzewski’s birthday, an opportunity it hasn’t had since 2016.

There are a few interesting twists in the roster of K Day contests.

The opponent in five of those 13 games (38.5 percent) was Wake Forest, which delivered all four defeats suffered by Duke on Feb. 13’s. The teams squared off four times in an 11-year span from 1993 through 2003, back when the Demon Deacons were a first-rank program. The Blue Devils’ only win in that span came in 1999, when they became the last ACC team to go undefeated in league play.

Another K Day quirk: all but four games Duke played on those occasions were at Cameron Indoor Stadium, where the home coach was serenaded with “Happy Birthday” from the fans.

The Devils won by an average margin of 17.3 points on K days. As is often the case, averages can be deceiving. Duke’s most recent 2/13 outings were anxiety-inducing victories by five points against Carolina (2013) and one point against Virginia (2016). Those results were counterbalanced by routs of 43 and 35 points over nonconference opponents nearly three decades ago.

The Blue Devils won their last five games on Krzyzewski’s birthday.