In playing at Pitt, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski recalls family ties to Western Pa.

There’s plenty to hold Mike Krzyzewski’s attention these days.

The ACC regular-season title that the Duke team he coaches just won. The looming end of a 47-year Hall of Fame career. The upcoming conference and NCAA tournaments. An emotional final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium against rival North Carolina on Saturday.

But despite all that, what was on Krzyzewski’s mind Tuesday while he was in Pittsburgh for a game against Duke? A tiny community in Fayette County.

“Keisterville,” Krzyzewski said proudly not long after his Blue Devils beat Pitt, 86-56, at the Petersen Events Center. “That’s where my mom was born. And my grandparents immigrated from Kraków (Poland) to the minefields there, and I used to visit Keisterville when I was a little kid. There is still some family there but then they moved — the (Pituch) family, five sisters and a brother.

“And I thought about them a lot today. A lot.”

True to form for a man whose soft-spoken and unobtrusive demeanor belies his status as a colossal basketball icon, Krzyzewski appeared choked up by the gesture. https://t.co/OmPaNWksDy

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Tuesday was the final true road game of Krzyzewski’s career. He announced last year that he would retire at the end of this season.

Pitt coach Jeff Capel has known Krzyzewski for more than 30 years and played and coached under him at Duke. Before Tuesday’s tip-off, Capel presented Krzyzewski with a gift after a tribute aired on the large video boards at The Pete.

“It’s weird to think,” Capel said after the game, “that the guy I’ve known as the Duke coach my whole life, the only one I’ve known at Duke, that this would be the last time I would be on the floor with him as a player, coach, coaching against him. It was a little bit surreal.”

Just this week the 75-year-old Krzyzewski was talking publicly about how proud he was of the legacy in Durham, N.C., of the Emily Krzyzewski Family Life Center. Its mission is to inspire students to be leaders, help them achieve in school, go to college and break the cycle of poverty.

And it was named in honor of Krzyzewski’s late mother — a woman who grew up and spent most of her life in Western Pennsylvania.

“Those are my roots,” Krzyzewski said. “So this part of the country, I identify with greatly because my mom brought those things and taught me and my brother those things: hard work, family.

“Keisterville. Who woulda known?”