Mike Krzyzewski, Head Coach for the Duke University Blue Devils and assistant coach Quin Snyder ( left ) during the NCAA Division I Men's East Regional Tournament second round basketball game against the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane on 14th March 1999 at the Charlotte Coliseum, Charlotte, North Carolina, United States.The Maryland Terrapins won the game 97 - 56. (Photo by Craig Jones/Getty Images) | Getty Images

This is a pretty great article from The Athletic about Duke Basketball in the ’90s.

Those who were around for the early part of the Krzyzewski era will remember that for a while, it was a real uphill struggle. UNC was by far the most dominant ACC program, Maryland was reliably a Top 10 to 15 team, Georgia Tech was surging, and NC State won a national championship in 1983 (following a Tar Heel title in 1982).

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The ’90s were when Duke became an elite program, rather than simply a bunch of nice guys who consistently overachieved, but who didn’t win titles.

There are elements of Duke’s rise that you’ve seen, but a lot of it you may not have put together as well as this article does. It’s really an interesting perspective.

Although Coach K was the visionary, one man who doesn’t get enough credit for what happened in Durham is Quin Snyder.

When Snyder was a Duke assistant, he was, in a sense, the second coming of Vic Bubas.

When he was the Blue Devil’s head coach, Bubas completely redefined recruiting nationwide. He approached it systematically, identifying talent across the country at a much younger age than anyone else. For instance, Bubas nearly had Art Heyman (New York), Jeff Mullins (Lexington, Kentucky), and Bill Bradley (Crystal City, Missouri) on the same roster.

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At or about the same time, he was gathering information on Jack Marin, Bob Verga, and Mike Lewis. Dean Smith once said, “Vic taught us all how to recruit.”

Snyder did something quite similar by applying business principles to a basketball program. Prior to his innovations, nearly every program ran more or less as a mom and pop shop.

Interestingly, Jon Scheyer, who has done a lot to modernize the program in just a few short years, is perhaps the third figure in this Duke tradition of innovation.

Anyway, this is a really interesting read. It is paywalled, but the average 12-year-old can figure that out in 1-2 minutes.

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