Every once in a while, life affords me the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time. This weekend happened to be another one of those instances.

On Saturday, I went with one of my cousins down to Raleigh to visit my sister and, since she's a Duke grad, we decided to try and go to the Duke-NC State game at the RBC Center.

When we got there, my sister informed us that if Coach K won the game, it would be his 800th win. Being the sports fan that I am, I knew that was a pretty significant milestone. In fact, only five other men (and three women) in the history of college basketball have achieved the feat.

Unfortunately, for most of the game it appeared that we wouldn't get to see history happen that day. Somehow, NC State, who sits at 4-11 in the ACC this year, was in command of most of the game. When the lead stretched to 13 in the second half, things looked grim. But fortunately for us, things got much more interesting than we had anticipated.

In the last 10 minutes of the game, Duke finally decided to start playing some defense like they have all season. By the end of the game, our guts were in knots as the outcome seemed suspended by the thinnest of threads. Indeed, it was probably the most exciting sporting event I have witnessed since Game 3 of the 2002 Stanley Cup finals, a triple overtime thriller which, incidentally, was decided in the same building as Saturday's game.

When NC State's Ben McCauley missed the final shot to seal the one-point victory for the Duke Blue Devils, it took me a second to even realize that I had witnessed an historic event.

It seems appropriate that in the same season that the NCAA's winningest coach, Bob Knight, finally hung 'em up, his former player and protege, Mike Krzyzewski, reached the 800 win milestone. Even The General has to be smiling about that one.

I'm just lucky I was there to see it happen.