Whatever you think of Mike Krzyzewski — that he’s a role model for all of sports, doesn’t make a mockery of the term student-athlete and is a national hero for guiding the Olympic basketball teams to two golds OR that’s he’s a sniveling crybaby when dealing with refs, turned into Dean Smith after vowing never to get that way (being a sniveling crybaby), gets recruits because of his connection with Nike and his coaching of Team USA and dumped off the awful 94-95 team on poor Pete Gaudet rather than coach his worst team himself — you can’t argue that Coach K isn’t a great basketball coach and, if you’ve ever read about him, a pretty fine human being. In fact, over the past few years I’ve made the argument that Mike Krzyzewski is the greatest coach in the history of the sport; yes, even above John Wooden. Why?

1. His four national championships tie him for second overall with Adolph Rupp.

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We’ll get to the elephant in the room (Wooden) in a minute. But even though Duke “only” has four championships — it seems like they should have a lot more, right? — that puts Coach K way ahead of his contemporaries such as Jim Calhoun (3), Roy Williams (2), Rick Pitino (2) and Billy Donovan (2). It also tops the totals by older coaches roundly considered to be among the best to ever walk the sideline: Bobby Knight (3), Dean Smith (2), Henry Iba (2) and John Thompson (1).

2. Duke is a staggering 8-3 in national semifinal games under Coach K.

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That’s an insane winning percentage to get to the finals — far better than famous coaches with six or more Final Four appearances. Dean Smith was 5-6 in the national semifinals, Tom Izzo is 2-4, Rick Pitino is 3-4, John Calipari is 3-2 and Roy Williams clocks in at 4-3.

3. Krzyzewski is tied for the lead in most Final Fours (12) with John Wooden.

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No active contemporary is close: Izzo, Pitino and Williams have seven, Calipari has six and Boeheim and Donovan have four. Of course, the leads to the most important question of all:

4. John Wooden had 10 titles and a streak of seven in-a-row; how can Coach K beat that?

There are a few reasons:

• In UCLA’s first title year under the Wizard of Westwood, the tournament field consisted of 25 teams and UCLA had to play four games to win the championship. Though the size of the fields would slightly vary, UCLA had to win just four games to win the title in nine of its 10 title years. The only difference was in 1975, when the NCAA wised up and expanded the field to 32, meaning UCLA had to win five games to send Wooden into retirement with one final win.

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• In 1970, UCLA ran through Long Beach St., Utah St., New Mexico St. and Jacksonville to win it all, hardly a murderer’s row.

• Recruiting wasn’t the same, nor was the talent level spread across the country like it is now. The best wanted to go to UCLA. Lew Alcindor, who led Power Memorial to three state New York City Catholic Championships, left home to go 3,000 miles away, while Bill Walton, who was more comfortable at Haight-Ashbury than Hollywood Boulevard, decided to play for Wooden even while knowing his coach would be a strict disciplinarian. That’s power. UCLA was where you went to win championships. Now the top players choose their schools based on playing time, likelihood of putting up stats to go high in the draft and other factors like TV exposure.

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• During Wooden’s run from 1962 to 1974, the NCAA fields consisted solely of conference champions. It was one team per conference — that’s it. This kept out great squads, especially from the ACC, which used its conference tournament winner to make the field, while others used regular season winners. The most famous instance of ACC teams getting screwed out of a tournament berth came in 1974.

Late in the season, the AP poll had N.C. State, Maryland and North Carolina ranked Nos. 1, 4 and 5, respectively. In the ACC final, Maryland and State slugged it out past regulation and into overtime, with State eventually winning 103-100. It’s been called one of the greatest games in NCAA history and made that Maryland team likely the best to ever miss out of the tourney. N.C. State beat UCLA in the national semifinals, which means Maryland certainly had the talent to get a W against UCLA too. But the strict rules, which helped the top teams, made it impossible to find out.

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• This is only speculation, but I suspect it’s much harder to deal with players now, after AAU play which teaches individuality, not learning the team concept before arriving in college. The egos also have to be bigger today. Back then, you stuck around for all four years, so you’d want to stay on the coaches good side. Now, a star freshman playing in February knows he’s only in school for two more months. To rein in that hubris is more difficult now than it was 50 years ago.

So after all that, why do I have Coach K over Wooden? Because I believe four championships in the modern day NCAA, with its 68-team fields and great teams lurking at every turn is more impressive than winning 10 with your pick of the recruiting litter and a tournament that didn’t feature all the best teams, in which you only had to win four games to cut the nets. The fact the coaches are tied in Final Fours is also a checkmark on Coach Ks side.

Russell Westbrook shakes hands with John Wooden. (Getty Images)

None of this is meant to demean Wooden, who is a clear No. 2 in my book. His accomplishments made college basketball big-time and set the stage for Magic and Bird to make March Madness an annual tradition. Wooden’s 10 titles were a tremendous achievement — the best run ever in college basketball — no matter the differences between then and now.

Love him or hate him, Coach K is the greatest who ever set foot on the floor, a statement that’s hard for me, a man who grew up rooting for Maryland and then attended Wake Forest, to say. But it’s true and if you deny it, you’re thinking irrationally just because Duke is so hatable. But if you step back from your anti-Duke stance, you’ll agree with me. Oh, one more thing: Despite this 1,000-word love note to Coach K, please don’t let it stop you from rooting for Michigan State on Saturday. We can call him the best, but we don’t have to like it.

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