Upcoming Event: Men's Basketball versus UCF on October 21, 2025 at 7 p.m.
/
7 p.m.
Men's Basketball
vs UCF
.png&width=24&height=24&type=webp)
Quotes: Duke 82, Virginia 63
1/28/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening Comments
“We played very well on the defensive end tonight. You usually don't get a start like that defensively. Sometimes you go off offensively, and you hit shots. I thought our team defense was great, and if our team offense would have helped our team defense in the first half, it would have been a lot better. We didn't value the ball very much, and Virginia is a very, very good basketball team, especially in transition. They took those turnovers and turned them into points. J.R. Reynolds' two threes in the last couple of minutes in the first half really turned the game around. I thought our final possession of the first half was huge, just to score, because that last T.V. timeout, they totally outplayed us and got themselves back in. But that gave us a little bit of momentum, and then the second half we only turned it over twice. We were a very efficient offensive team, and I thought we kept up pretty good defense.
On defending Sean Singletary
“Singletary is as good of a guard as any in the league, and they do a lot of things for him. They allow him freedom, and then they set a lot of screens for him. You have to be constantly on your toes and alert to defend him. Sean Dockery did a really good job on him, and so did DeMarcus Nelson. Having DeMarcus back gives us a really good defender. I think our defense will pick up.
On Shelden Williams
“Shelden almost had another triple-double. He was sensational.”
On J.J. Redick
“I've never really seen this here at Duke, where with 13 guys, you get 40 points. J.J. Redick was incredible. It was just an incredible performance. J.J. had one of the great performances here. Are you kidding me? Eleven out of 13 and eight out of 10 from three. I'm not sure how many times he hit the rim. He hit the rim more on his free throws than he did on his three-point shots.”
On beating Virginia
“We beat a good team, a team that was 4-2 coming in here. I'm proud of my guys for the 48 hours, to be able to go up to Blacksburg and win there and then come back here and win. We'll give them tomorrow off. J.J., nothing serious with him. DeMarcus I thought handled his minutes well, but again he's not 100 percent. You can see that, but he has to just keep getting treatments. Lee came back really well from this week with that sprained ankle.”
On 15 turnovers in first half
“You get a lead, and then they went zone, and we usually do really well against a zone with the shooters we have and the inside presence. We got casual with the ball, and we didn't set up any pass. We were doing a lot of arm passing. If you're really passing, you're passing with your whole body, your legs, and you're faking. We just got casual, and then in transition, they get back so fast, and they're very active with their hands. They knocked a couple of balls away when we had a chance to add some points. So to their credit, they hung in there. A lot of teams would have just folded, but they kept getting back, and all of a sudden they got themselves back into the ballgame. Our second half was really good.”
On Dockery's defense of Singletary and four turnovers in first six minutes
“I think he set the tone for our defense. I thought Sean's play was as important as the play of any other kid on our team. Singletary is very, very good, and Sean did not let him have freedom of movement and turned him over a couple of times. You're not going to stop that kid, but at least he didn't go off. (Sean) got over-anxious in the second half and got in a little bit of foul trouble, and DeMarcus did a good job on (Singletary).”
On J.J. Redick being more focused and committed
“He's off the charts with focus and committment. Nobody has had more or done it better here. Some kids have done it equal, but he's there with any guy. He's one of the truly great players to play in this conference. Of all time, this kid's a treasure. That's part of learning every year, not being satisfied with where you're at. He's a believer, and he's full of committment.”
On best thing Redick does in practice
“This is really important, and I hope you believe this. He plays every play in practice hard, and that's the best way to stay in shape. If there's a loose ball -- like it's a one-on-one contesting drill, and he had a hand on it -- and it was going out of bounds, he would run after the ball and get it. He keeps putting himself in the positions you would put yourself in a ballgame, and so he doesn't have any lax time in a practice. Really, he doesn't sub out. We give our guys a chance, we get six white shirts or seven white shirts against blue or four-on-four, and he never subs out, ever. Usually the great players practice hard. All of the guys who have had their jerseys retired here or have been National Players of the Year, they've been great practice players. He's a great practice player, and so is Shelden. Shelden's the same way. He does not sub out in anything.”
On depth outside Redick and Williams
“We have to develop other guys to a high level. Sean Dockery's right there. He's just got to take his open shots, and then he'd really go off. Lee Melchionni gives us that for a lot of moments, not all the time, and hopefully where we have Josh McRoberts playing now and how Greg Paulus is playing, that can be there. DeMarcus Nelson is of an ilk that can get to that level. His drive today, if we have that once he gets better, with our team, we're going to be better.”
On Josh McRoberts
“I think part of it is how we position him. He's in a low-post position now, and he's in a neighborhood that he likes and that he's comfortable with, and he's showing it. He's grown up. This past week is a great week for Josh.”
On Dockery improving with Nelson out
“He made the biggest adjustment. When DeMarcus went out, Sean was still starting. Greg wasn't starting. Sean was playing point guard, and we asked Sean to move over. He has really reacted well to that, where he's guarding the ball, but he's not bringing it up most of the time. Greg is. He'll do whatever you ask him to do. I really think he's our second-best outside shooter. Sean needs to take that shot more. He passed up about three of them in the first half, and then they turned into turnovers. He's got to shoot it, and if he misses, I'll never criticize a kid on my team for missing shots -- free throws, layups or jumpshots, as long as they're good shots. You shoot them, we're okay with them, but shoot them. He did in the second half. If he starts doing that, again we can get better.”
Duke Player Quotes
Senior J.J. Redick
“We played great halfcourt defense, but then we had 15 turnovers in the first half and they got eight straight points in transition, and we went from being up 17 to being up nine within the span of just a couple of minutes. That was kind of frustrating for us because we knew we had played well. We just hadn't taken care of the ball. [In the second half] we obviously wanted to take care of the ball and execute on the offensive end. We did a good job of that, but also, we continued to play good halfcourt defense.”
“Sean [Dockery] was great for us. He set the tone for the rest of the game with his defense on [Sean] Singletary. Sean Singletary is a great player, and he's had a heck of a year, but Sean is such a fighter that I had a good feeling going into this game that he was going to play good defense on him.”
“We've defintely had more focus since our loss to Georgetown, but we still have shown that we're not as mature as we want to be. We're not where we want to be come March. Yesterday at practice we didn't get off to a good start. Coming off a win, we let up. That's been our tendency all year - to win a couple of games playing well and then to let up. I think we need to take these two wins and just move on, move on to the next play.”
“I have a feeling before every game that it's going to be a good shooting night. It doesn't always work out that way for me though. Tonight I think the key was for me to get off to a good start and hit my first couple of shots. The play that was great was early in the game - Shelden [Williams] got an offensive rebound and threw it out to me, which is a great relocation pass and something that not a lot of teams do.”
Freshman Greg Paulus
“Against Georgetown, we didn't play good defense. At Virginia Tech, we did a pretty good job, but it's tough to come back and play in 36 hours, so I think the kind of effort we played tonight is something that we need to continue to build on.”
“I think we're getting a little more comfortable. We have different guys stepping up at different times, whether we miss some shots or things just don't go our way without J.J. [Redick]. That's going to happen, with or without J.J. We have scoring droughts with and without him. Obviously it helps to have him out there, with all the attention he brings and with the ability he brings himself.”
“Shelden [Williams] is terrific. He has the potential to [record a double-double] every night. He's such a great help-side defender, and offensively he has so many moves and is so versatile.”
On J.J. Redick
“It helps us out whenever he has these kind of nights. The more he has them, the better off we're going to be. Any time he's had one of these, the outcome has been pretty good for us.”
Senior Shelden Williams
“I think this is one of our best starts at the start of the game. We jumped on them pretty good from the tip-off. We saw ourselves with a big lead, and we kind of let up a little bit, especially on the defensive end, and they got a lot of transition baskets, which gave them confidence and let them back into the game. That was something we knew they were going to do because they've got a pretty good guard-oriented team. We knew that if we didn't defend, they would run it down our throats on the other end.”
On J.J. Redick
“He was being J.J. He came in running around and hitting his open shots. He draws a lot of attention for our team. They came out and were collapsing down on me in the first half, which I didn't really understand. When you have a great shooter like that on the perimeter and he's been doing it all season and he's going to continue doing it. That's something that's great for our team - if we don't have the inside going right away, then we have the outside going, and that translates to the inside game.”
Virginia Head Coach Dave Leitao
Opening Statement
“Obviously, the game got away from us a little bit early. I think we talked about it for a few days in preparation is that the first five to ten minutes of the game were going to be the most critical because that's when you have the opportunity to keep them (Duke) hopefully a little back on their heels and establish in your mind and in their mind that you're here to play and we did not do that from the outset. I thought that (Sean) Dockery had a lot to do with it because he took Sean (Singletary) as a challenge and got him off balance a little bit and everybody else that was on the court for them picked up on it. Obviously, if you are going to go into a great team's building and come away satisfied or winning, then your margin of error is real slim. I haven't seen other real good teams up close and personal but I think what makes this particular team (Duke) so good is they have two of the top four or five players in America and everybody else, including those two, executes their mission better than anybody I've seen in a long time. I think that gives room to have discussion about why they are one of the best, if not the best team in America.”
On trailing by 11 at the half after slow start
“I don't know if I quite looked at it in terms of us being in good shape or anything like that. Every team that plays Duke has to face this is that you are going to have to come after them a little bit. I thought towards the end of the first half when we went into a zone, they missed some shots and had some not so good possessions. Then we started to attack a little bit but we didn't have any staying power within that particular time, before it or after it. I was just looking for some consistency in what we were trying to do and we really didn't have that. I never really had a comfortable feeling like we were in a good place.”
On J.J. Redick
“I think what he is doing this season, I think all of us - players, coaches and media in particular should really savor. He's having, not only a career, but particularly this season, a year for the ages. I've watched it, I've studied it on film and now I've seen it in person. He understands this game of basketball for what he is as a player more than anybody I've seen for a long time. He understands what it is to score, how to score and how to play with your teammates. He's not even selfish. This is the third time he's scored 40 points this year and I wouldn't say anything he did was selfish at all. He really knows this game of basketball and usually that's reserved for a guy that may play in the NBA in his eighth year who is a veteran. By coming back this year, he's really made it worthwhile and we all need to sit back and admire it because it won't happen for a long time after this.”
On Shelden Williams
“You're talking about one of the most prolific shot blockers and intimidators that the ACC has ever seen. In order to go up against a guy like that, you have to be creative. You can't just lay the ball up and I thought too many times, we tried to play as we normally would play and he doesn't allow that. He really did a great job of protecting their basket and he took away some of our opportunities in close. We didn't do a real good job of either lift faking or going up strong. He's a senior and at 250 pounds, he is light on his feet with long arms and strong. In order to attack that kind of player, you really have to do something different and I don't think we did that.”
Players Mentioned
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's BasketballCoach Scheyer Media Availability
Wednesday, September 24
Jon Scheyer Press Conference: Summer 2025
Tuesday, July 08
Duke vs Houston: Press Conference
Sunday, April 06
Duke vs Alabama: East Region Champions Press Conference
Wednesday, April 02
