32 days in Krzyzewskiville - Camping with the 'Crazies' ahead of Coach K's home finale

On Thursday, Feb. 27, 1986, a group of Duke students from the Mirecourt House decided over a game of quarters that they wanted to get a jump on securing seats to see the No. 1 Blue Devils host their archenemy, the No. 3 UNC Tar Heels.

The group, made up mostly of ROTC cadets, pitched tents next to Cameron Indoor Stadium a full four days before what became a glorious Sunday afternoon 82-74 Duke victory. As they camped, Mike Krzyzewski, in his sixth season as head coach, brought pizzas to the Duke devotees.

When one of them scribbled «Krzyzewskiville» onto a piece of cardboard and taped it to a post, college basketball's most famous village was born.

On Saturday, 36 years, 12 Final Fours and five national championships later, the Heels will be back in Cameron. Coach K will be on the sidelines of his home court for the last time. This year's edition of pre-Carolina «K-Ville» was much more than a handful of tents on a lawn. There were 70, staked into the grass between Wilson Gym and Cameron Indoor for 32 days.

How does it work? How badly does everyone smell? We sent a camera into all that dark blue nylon to find out.

This year's encampment began on Jan. 23, four days after the infamous blue tenting test, a one-hour, 14-page exam covering every facet of Duke hoops, from the history of the UNC rivalry to the life of Coach K. («Who was Coach K's High School Basketball Coach?») A record 175 12-member tent teams showed up at Cameron for the test. The 70 highest-scoring tents, 840 students in all, earned a spot on the lawn.

When the COVID-19 omicron variant surged during the holidays, it forced Duke to delay in-person classes until Jan. 18 and students feared K-Ville would be shut down for the second straight year. Instead, limits