Over the summer, various rumblings had Mike Krzyzewski stepping down from his position as head coach of USA basketball. Moments ago on ESPN Radio’s “Mike & Mike In The Morning,” Coach K confirmed that fate: beginning this summer, Jerry Colangelo and the rest of USA basketball will hunt for a new coach for the World Championships in Madrid in 2014.

The 1980-81 season was Mike Krzyzewski’s first as the head coach of the Duke men’s basketball team. The little-known coach had spent the five previous seasons at Army and Tobacco Road was squarely in the hands of already legendary UNC coach Dean Smith. Coach K has since cemented his reputation as one of the greatest coaches in NCAA history, but had to do it without one Michael Jordan, to whom he wrote this letter after Jordan opted for Smith, Carolina and the Tar Heels.

Mike Krzyzewski woke up, looked in the mirror, parted his hair to the side, and said to himself: “You know what? Today you’re going to see just how many people you can get to roll their eyes at once, Mike. Like, you’re gonna really go for it. Today. Is. The. Day. Seize it.”

Mike Krzyzewski is 65 years old. You could be forgiven if you didn’t believe that at first, though, considering he doesn’t look all that different now than he did 20 years ago. And as the above clip from Team USA’s gold medal win yesterday demonstrates, Coach K also possesses the leaping ability of a much younger man. [SB Nation]

The U.S. Men’s Basketball team looked terribly mortal in a 5-point, 99-94 squeaker of a win over Lithuania in pool play. Aside from the far-from-convincing victory over a Lithuanian team that apparently has given them some trouble over the past decade, Coach K’s players forced him to do something 1992 head coach Chuck Daly never had to do: call a timeout. Read more after the jump.

You have to hand it to Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski who was able to poke a little fun at himself, as well as his team, after they were beaten by the Temple Owls, 78-73, handing the Blue Devils their second loss of the season.

We’re fans of the choice of Summit — she announced earlier this year that she was battling early-onset dementia, and the way she’s dealt with her illness (by staring it dead in the face, telling it to screw, and coaching the Lady Vols this season) — is deserving of the award. But Coach K? It seems, like the choice of Derek Jeter in 2009, to be more of a lifetime achievement award than anything. The funny thing is that SI admits as much. [SI]

Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski defended fired Penn State coach Joe Paterno during a Monday news conference, which is fine — Krzyzewski and Paterno are friends. But as for the defense itself? Well… it didn’t make any sense.

Appearing on a Memphis-area radio show, John Calipari seemed to take a not-so-thinly-veiled shot at Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, and his apparent imperviousness to NCAA phone-call rules. Calipari later tweeted that his comment had nothing to do with Coach K.