Quotes: Duke 59, Princeton 46

Jan. 5, 2005

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Opening Statement
"Any time you beat Princeton, you have to be pleased about it. Our defense, overall, was very good. I didn't think our offense helped our defense, especially in transition. In the first half, we were 0-for-10 in transition. It was one of those halves where we played a lot better than the score, especially on the defensive end. They hung in there, they got back and we made more plays on defense and in half-court than we did in transition. [Will] Venable was terrific tonight and it's a tough offense to defend. DeMarcus [Nelson] made some big plays for us. He hit the three, then he got a steal and the dunk. I thought [Lee] Melchionni really did a nice job for us, especially on help-side defense. We wanted to take away the three. When a lot of teams play them, they want to take away the back door, but 60 percent of their shots are threes, so we're going to defend the three. Our offense has to help our defense more and we didn't do as good a job of that tonight. But again, credit Princeton for that. They're a good basketball team and they hung in there. They make it difficult and they don't give up on plays."

On J.J. Redick
"Our free-throw percentage went up today. J.J. was in a position where they were taking away his jump shot with the zone, so one of our things was to have him drive. You're going to have to foul him then because he's too good of a player and when he goes to the line, he's going to make almost all of them and that was a key factor in the game. I wish we could have executed a little bit better, but we did get to the line and we did rebound well, but we had 18 turnovers."

On his lineup options
"It depends on the opponent. Against a zone, we thought to have four shooters in the ballgame around Shelden [Williams] would be a good thing. Lee has played well. I thought he did a really nice job tonight. We can either use him or we might go small with DeMarcus or even use Dave McClure in there. And I thought Patrick Johnson gave us good minutes while he was in there."

On the injury situation
"I do so much work with The V Foundation and Children's Hospital. We have some injuries, but come on, we're playing basketball. If we make excuses because of injuries, we're complete idiots, as far as what's going on around us. Hey, this is the hand we got, so let's play it. That's how you get better and if guys come back, you'll be even better. You don't become a winning team by rationalizing and making excuses. You become a winner by defeating rationalization and having no excuses. That's the way we're going to run our program."

FRESHMAN GUARD DeMarcus Nelson
On his key three-pointer in the second half
"They had a little momentum building up, and we'd had a pretty comfortable lead that they had cut. It was just the flow of the game where I got a good pass from a teammate, was able to set my feet and get a good look at the basket, and I just shot the ball with confidence."

On his three point shooting so far this season
"Even though I haven't hit many, I know I'm a good shooter. I've been having a lot of injury problems, especially with my right hand kind of throwing my shot off. Now that I'm kind of getting healthy my shot is starting to come back. I'm not worried about only hitting two because I know there are a lot more coming. I just have to have confidence to keep shooting it."

"That's what Duke basketball is built on - defense. Our offense might be shaky, and one game we might be hot, the next game we might be cold, but as long as our defense is the same, we'll always have a chance to win the game. Tonight I wanted to get us going and make a big defensive play to get our offense rolling. We had times in the game when we looked good, and then we went down, so we were a little shaky. But defense leads to your offense - that's what I was thinking in my head."

On his expanded role and responsibility with the team's injuries
"Having this responsibility on my shoulders is something I've always looked forward to, something I've always had playing basketball. So it's no different now, no added pressure on my shoulders. It's something I'm used to, something I like, and I'm going to take this as a challenge to get better personally and to make sure that collectively as a group we continue to get better and win ballgames."

"I'm here to play. Unfortunately, our numbers are going down, and players are getting hurt. For me individually, it's an opportunity for me to help our team win and to keep this train rolling. We're a little down in numbers, but we're not down in spirit, and we've got a lot of big hearts on this team, and everyone is going to fight every game."

JUNIOR FORWARD Lee Melchionni
"I've had a more prominent role since Reggie [Love] and Shav [Randolph] got hurt and just try to come in and do what I can to help the team win. With each game I feel more comfortable. I'm not trying to play outside myself or anything like that, just stay within myself and help the team win."

"Our team right now is coming together tremendously, and when Shav [Randolph] and Reggie [Love] come back, we'll have other guys with game experience, and we'll be a force to reckon with."

"Princeton runs a very peculiar offense. If you watch other teams, those teams don't pressure them. We just wanted to get after them tonight, and our pressure got to them and didn't let them score, and that was our goal. I think most teams are afraid of the backdoor. We knew they were going to get a backdoor here or there, but we wanted to keep them down. When teams back off, that opens up their three point shots, and we didn't want to do that. So we'll give a backdoor here or there, but to prevent the three point shot - that was our goal."

"It was kind of a different game from what we normally play. Their big guy stayed out around the three point line for the majority of the game, and it was kind of like a different position that I was guarding tonight. I pretty much played smart and didn't try to do too much when I was outside pressuring the ball. I knew he was a good three point shooter, and I was trying to limit his three point shots."

"They were double teaming down inside, and I was kind of getting frustrated on the offensive end. So I tried to turn my attention toward defense and tried to rebound and block some shots."

"We knew that they were an outside shooting team, and they hardly ever offensive rebound, and we knew that if we shut down their three point shots and try to kill them on the offensive boards, we could maybe start fast breaking and get our offense going."

JUNIOR CENTER Shelden Williams
"It was kind of a different game from what we normally play. Their big guy stayed out around the three point line for the majority of the game, and it was kind of like a different position that I was guarding tonight. I pretty much played smart and didn't try to do too much when I was outside pressuring the ball. I knew he was a good three point shooter, and I was trying to limit his three point shots."

"They were double teaming down inside, and I was kind of getting frustrated on the offensive end. So I tried to turn my attention toward defense and tried to rebound and block some shots."

PRINCETON HEAD COACH JOE SCOTT
Opening Statement
"From about the 12-minute mark there until the four-minute mark, the late minutes, were the key to the game and the beginning of the first half. Their pressure was successful. We didn't play sort of the way we were supposed to play there and they took us out of our stuff sometimes. Everyone wants to say that they're short-handed and all that stuff and sometimes that makes you play a little bit better and a little bit harder and other guys step up to the occasion and do what they're supposed to do. I think Duke did a really good job tonight zeroing in on what their coaches told them to do and I thought those guards did an excellent job pressuring the ball and that was the key to the game. We had about five or six things that we needed to do, that we practiced, and the first two we did were wrong and we stayed with them too long. Then, in the second half, we went for these other three things and those were the right things to do. Like basketball, you never know what's going to be the right thing or the wrong thing and it took us a little too long to figure that out. It made the game go their way and you have to give them credit. I think that they earn that and, like I said, I think those guys came through for them the way guys do when people are saying they're down."

On senior guard Will Venable's efforts
"Will is a senior and ... he gives a lot to us. I think he played pretty well. The seven turnovers sort of hurt us, but he does a lot for us and he's a senior. As we go into our league play, I know that Will Venable is going to give me that 100 percent effort for 40 minutes every single night. I think we're going to be in pretty good shape in our league. That's the most important thing to us."

On Duke's defense
"They just deny, deny, deny and, to be honest, the deny, deny, deny, made us forget what to do. It was the same stuff that we ran in the second half, it's just in the first half during that period, we didn't have one guy remember and you have to give them credit for that. That's called toughness. They're able to make our guys not be able to do what we're supposed to do. That's what Duke was trying to do and they accomplished that with their pressure."

"If you want to beat Duke on their home court, you got to be perfect. You got to be perfect and you got to be perfect for 40 minutes. We played Princeton basketball and we're perfect in our own ways for maybe 20 of those 40 minutes and that's nowhere near good enough for this venue, against this team. I think that was the key to the game."