He took over for Bill Foster after the '80 season. In Foster’s last three seasons he went:
'79-80 made the elite 8
'78-79 T-1st ACC and made 2nd rd of tourney
'77-78 they made the Finals of the NCAA tournament (were runners up)
*team that had Gminski, Spanarkle, and Banks
The reason Coach K almost got fired is because of the success they had under Foster.
Did Coach K build it into the powerhouse they eventually became yes, but by no means did he “build that program”.
There were plenty of good teams in the West back then. USC was #2 in the country behind UCLA in the very early 1970’s (with players like Paul Westphal and Gus Williams). There were a couple other west coast teams that had decent years (Santa Clara, Utah State), but they were always well behind UCLA (just like everyone else). UCLA’s dominance really didn’t end until freshmen were allowed to play in like 1974 or 1975? That made a big difference in recruiting because players knew they could play right away. Until then, spending an extra year or two in Los Angeles wasn’t a bad consolation prize (and many UCLA players ended up becoming actors anyway).
Local high school player Tate Armstrong from Spring Woods is credited with Duke’s resurgence in the mid-to-late 1970s in John Feinstein’s book “Forever’s Team.”
I know Feinstein isn’t popular among UH followers but it’s a good read on Duke basketball, which played Kentucky in the 1978 championship game.
What coach K has done at Duke is remarkable but he didn’t have to totally rebuild a program like Sampson.
Amazingly Armstrong played four years at Duke and was not on national TV one time. Pre ESPN. Armstrong, one of the best high school basketball player to come out of Houston, was a first-round draft choice by the Bulls and played on the 1976 Olympic basketball team that won gold.
A quote from Coach K, from his introduction in “Last Dance” . . . . . “Had I known what the first three years were going to be like, I might have thought twice. I had to learn on the job how to coach-and recruit-in the ACC. Dean Smith was at his absolute zenith as a coach. My first game at Duke was against North Carolina in the old Big Four Tournament in Greensboro. Carolina had James Worth and Sam Perkins and Al Wood on the court, and Dean had already gotten a commitment from a high school senior we knew was pretty good named Michael Jordan.” I am really going to enjoy this book.
The transfer carousel has probably something to do with, but the fact he had his worst team in years and did not make the dance, probably had some alumni thinking he should move on. He had a good run.