Coach Roy vs Coach K on 'Injurygate'

You can’t have a college basketball blog in North Carolina without mentioning “Injurygate.”

So here goes. . .

North Carolina’s Roy Williams believes Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski was aiming a thinly veiled insult at the Tar Heels when Krzyzewski said Sunday night that Duke doesn’t release its injuries to the public.
If that’s the case (and Krzyzewski isn’t commenting further so we don’t know for sure), then Williams is right. Krzyzewski should worry about coaching his own team.

But Williams shouldn’t have fired back Monday night on his weekly radio show at Krzyzewski. Williams said Tuesday that the coaches have more important things to do than argue through the media.
Again, he’s right. That’s why he would have been better off biting his tongue. Krzyzewski made his comment on the Duke radio network’s postgame show after a loss, so only a small number of fans would have known about his comments if Williams hadn’t said anything about them.

Now everybody knows.
The question of whether to release injuries to the public isn’t worth getting excited about either. Some might suggest that if Duke is withholding injury information, it encourages gambling interests to try to get close to the team to gain an edge.

But the reality is that despite Krzyzewski’s statement, Duke’s injuries aren’t a secret. He has mentioned that Gerald Henderson is playing with an injured wrist. Before the Blue Devils played at North Carolina, Krzyzewski mentioned that center Brian Zoubek was close to returning from a broken foot, perhaps later that week against Boston College.

Zoubek did return in that game. And believe me, the media weren’t clamoring for injury updates on Brian Zoubek. So it’s not like Krzyzewski is withholding valuable information.

Nor is Williams giving too much information about North Carolina’s injuries. Media members ask him during every news conference when Ty Lawson might return from his sprained ankle, and Williams answers. When he’s talking about Lawson’s health, he naturally also mentions the status of his other players.

It’s newsworthy that two Hall of Fame coaches are having a spat. That’s why in its preview story for the Feb. 6 game in Chapel Hill, the Observer wrote a lot about the coaches’ disagreement over what was said about Hansbrough vs. Henderson. The players seemed to have made peace over last year’s incident.

Williams said neither coach would ever be completely happy with what was said. They had to agree to disagree.
But in the case of Injurygate, the subject matter of the disagreement is so trivial that both coaches come off looking silly. – Ken Tysiac