Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski will undergo back surgery Friday and is expected to be away from the team for about a month.
Krzyzewski will have a fragment of a herniated disk removed from his lower back, the school said in a statement on its official website. The expected recovery time for the NCAA’s all-time winningest coach is four weeks.
The back problem has been an ongoing issue for Krzyzewski, who said our “medical team have worked tirelessly to help manage this issue for several weeks. Together, we have determined that surgery is the best course of action at this time.”
Assistant Jeff Capel, who has head-coaching experience at Virginia Commonwealth and the University of Oklahoma, will guide the Blue Devils in the absence of Krzyzewski.
“As soon as the doctors clear me to do so, I look forward to returning and giving our team 100 percent of my energy and attention, which is certainly something that they deserve,” Krzyzewski said.
The 69-year-old Krzyzewski has guided Duke to five national championships, second only to legendary UCLA coach John Wooden (10).
Krzyzewski has won 1,055 games in 41-plus seasons, an NCAA Division I record. He has compiled a 982-264 mark in 36-plus seasons at Duke, guiding the school to NCAA championships in 1991, 1992, 2001, 2010 and 2015.
A Hall of Fame inductee in 2001, Krzyzewski also has guided the U.S. men’s national team to gold medals in each of the last three Olympic Games. He is the only coach to lead a country to three consecutive Olympic basketball golds.
Krzyzewski, who underwent knee and hernia surgery during the offseason, had to step away from Duke in January 1995, a result of complications from back surgery, and missed the rest of that season.
Duke entered this season as the No. 1 team in the Associated Press Top 25 poll. The Blue Devils fell to 12-2 after losing their ACC opener at Virginia Tech on Saturday.
Following that game, Krzyzewski announced that he was stripping star guard Grayson Allen of his captaincy. Allen was suspended indefinitely by Krzyzewski for tripping an opposing player for the third time dating to last season.