Mike Krzyzewski Winning Quotations

Imagination has a great deal to do with winning.

Everybody wants to take responsibility when you win, but when you fail, all these fingers are pointing.

That's what I do now: I lead and I teach. If we win basketball games from doing that, then that's great, but I lead and teach. Those are the two things I concentrate on.

Actually, the Kentucky moment was better than winning the two National Championships, because it was the epitome of what I try to get from a team in a crisis situation.

When you win, sometimes it overshadows a poor performance.

I always won in my imagination. I always hit the game-winning shot, or I hit the free throw. Or if I missed, there was a lane violation, and I was given another one.

Once you win a National Championship, how do you do that again? How do you get the passion to do that again? We won it again right away, the next year. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn't give myself an opportunity to enjoy the first one.

If you win a National Championship, or you win two, people think you have not only seen the Holy Grail, but you've embraced it. Basically, I do what a lot of people do, but I've been able to win.

Only the mediocre are always at their best. If your standards are low, it is easy to meet those standards every single day, every single year. But if your standard is to be the best, there will be days when you fall short of that goal. It is okay to not win every game. The only problem would be if you allow a loss or a failure to change your standards. Keep your standards intact, keep the bar set high, and continue to try your very best every day to meet those standards. If you do that, you can always be proud of the work that you do.

Our goal is not to win. It's to play together and play hard. Then, winning takes care of itself.

Don't worry about losing. Think about winning.

It's not like we have not had close games. We've just been able to win them, and as a result, the reality sometimes doesn't set in that you're weak in certain areas or you're not doing certain things well. ... When you win, sometimes it overshadows a poor performance.

If the only reason I coached was to win basketball games, my life would be pretty shallow

I believe a big part of leadership is about winning the moment.

Therefore, as a player, as a coach, even though we might have lost in a season or not won a championship, it was like a self-fulfilling prophecy that I'm going to win some time. I've never felt myself a loser.