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Coach K Says ‘There’s Nothing There’ On Claims From Michael Avenatti About Duke

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David Hookstead Sports And Entertainment Editor
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Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski doesn’t appear to have one second of time for Michael Avenatti.

Avenatti, who is facing charges for allegedly trying to extort Nike, tweeted early Wednesday morning, “And Duke…” when going off about “cooperating” with the NCAA about a potential recruiting scandal, according to Yahoo Sports. The disgraced lawyer’s Twitter account has since been locked. Avenatti has claimed to have damaging info on Nike and illicit recruiting practices.

Coach K told the media Thursday that “there’s nothing there” on Avenatti’s insinuation that there’s some coming info about Duke, which is a Nike program.

 

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For as much as I hate Duke, I highly doubt there is any info out there in Avenatti’s hands or the hands of anybody else that could put Coach K’s program in jeopardy. (RELATED: Duke’s Victory Over UCF Draws Massive TV Ratings)

Coach K doesn’t need to cheat in order to win. Those words were literally painful for me to write, but they’re true.

 

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The Blue Devils are so dominant because they have the best coach in the sport and the best recruits want to play for him.

Playing for Duke is about as close to the NBA as you can get without actually being a pro. It’s run like a pro organization, it has pro-caliber coaching and it has an infrastructure better than the vast majority of the NBA.

 

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Again, I hate Duke. They took a ring right off of my finger in 2015. It doesn’t matter. I get paid to call balls and strikes, and I’d be shocked beyond belief if there was a shred of evidence to suggest Coach K was running a dirty program.

There are a lot of dirty tactics in college basketball. There’s no doubt about it, but it’s not happening at Duke. If Avenatti wants to sit down in person and convince me otherwise, I’d love to hear it.

Until that happens, I have no reason to believe Coach K is anything other than an honorable man running a clean program, even if I hate them with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

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