news-record.com

DURHAM -- Mike Krzyzewski coached his 1,000th game at Duke on Saturday.

Don't look for him to coach his first NBA game any time soon.

Reports linking Krzyzewski -- who turned 63 Saturday -- to the struggling New Jersey Nets are simply not true, the coach said after Duke's 77-56 victory over Maryland.

"I've not been contacted by anybody. That's just, well, I don't know what it is," Krzyzewski said. "I mean, the (Nets owner) is Russian, right? Do you think he'd hire a Polish guy? Really?"

Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov recently bought a majority interest in New Jersey's team, and the Bergen Record newspaper quoted an NBA source who said Krzyzewski is "the Nets' first choice" to take over for Kiki Vandeweghe as coach of a team that has struggled to a 4-48 record.

Krzyzewski might be on the Nets' wish list, but the coach said he's not going anywhere.

"No one's contacted me," Krzyzewski said, "and if they do, saying 'nyet' would be easy for me to say."

Krzyzewski, who has coached NBA players with the U.S. national team, turned down the Los Angeles Lakers job in 2004.

When NBA rumors surfaced again last summer, Krzyzewski squashed them.

"I'm not leaving Duke," he said in a July news conference. "Whatever you hear about anything like that, I will never leave Duke until I leave coaching."

In his 30th season at Duke, Krzyzewski has led the Blue Devils to 10 Final Fours and three NCAA championships. Duke has been ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll for 738 of his 1,000 games. The Blue Devils have been No. 1 in 190 of them.

-- JEFF MILLS, Staff Writer