Quotes: Duke 71, Marist 50

On the game as a whole:

“I really give Marist a lot of credit, I thought they did really an excellent job. They are a very difficult team to defend. They run a different style then we are used to seeing with their five out motion. They showed great patience on offense, took care of the ball. They really did everything that you would want your team to do. I give them a lot of credit. I'm disappointed overall with our effort. We didn't have the energy and focus that we wanted and needed and we were rushing. We wanted to push the ball in transition, I think we did early on and then I think we got caught up in looking to score too quickly. We didn't show the patience that we need to have on offense.”

On the early start affecting the team and causing them to become complacent:

“I think it may have. We started off strong, but even then when it was 8-0, our rotations were not correct. It was a false sense of security, we weren't doing what we really needed to do. Usually our subs come in and give us a boost and add some energy, but tonight I didn't feel that happened for us. Instead I think it gave Marist some breathing room, some confidence.”

On preparation for Houston:

“We've got some tape to watch, we'll break this game down because we have some tough lessons that we need to learn quickly. We already have broken down Houston, so we'll do the scouting report on them as well.”

On the freshmen's struggles tonight:

“I knew that was fun while it lasted. I'm sure that they will have other great games, but they are freshmen. And I see every day in practice, they come out focused and have great practices and then sometimes they tend to lose their focus and get overwhelmed, so I'm sure the games will be very similar.”

On Alison Bales' foul trouble and the effect on the offense:

“We've been doing a good job getting her the ball. I thought initially, especially to start the game we did a good job with that. Then she got into foul trouble, then we go small and we look for some different things. When you have all of our other post players, Carrem did an excellent job for us in the post, but then Joy's a freshman. We're putting Bridgette in there, she's a freshman and all of a sudden we're losing a lot of experience and a lot of height as well.”

Sophomore Guard Abby Waner

On what Duke can take away from the game:

“I think two points that Coach [Gail Goestenkors] brought up after the game that are really important are, offensively, we need to be able to work the defense and play out the shot clock, break the defense down so we'll have an easy lay-up instead of creating a tough shot. And then on the reverse side of that is being able to defend for that long. Marist did exactly what we should be doing on offense.”

On the number of young girls in the stands:

“I love seeing that because at one point I was one of those girls screaming at college games and one thing that my parents always told me to do was pick out an older player and watch everything that they do. So that was something that really helped me and I hope that I can be a kind of player that girls can look up to in that way as well. It's encouraging to see a lot of young girls coming out to our games.”

Sophomore Forward Carrem Gay

On the key to her success in her second career start:

“It's definitely my teammates' and my coaches' support. They encourage me just to go out and play hard for however long I'm on the court.”

Marist Coach Brian Giorgis

Opening Statement:

“Obviously we got off to a pretty slow start. Then we seemed to settle down a bit. We kind of had a little bit of a deer in the headlights. There's something about being in this Mecca of basketball with such a quality opponent. We didn't have much movement in our offense and that's what we pride ourselves in. That's a credit to them. They take you out of your offense with the pressure that they put on you. We just kind of lost our head at times and settled for too many threes and really didn't have much of an inside game. But overall, when you look at the big picture, we hung around most of the game and outside of a couple of bad runs we were in it. I was pleased.”

On Alison Bales:

“We don't have anyone on campus at 6-7 or that big and strong. We used one of the men's assistant coaches a little bit and we didn't stop him either. You just don't see it that often. Like we told our kids, one of the reasons I like playing a game like this is that this is the best you're going to see all year during the regular season unless we beat Liberty in the opening round of the Maryland tournament and play Maryland. So you try to use it as a gauge. I saw that our young people played young, which you expect. For the most part, they've been forcing turnovers like crazy in their scrimmages. We prided ourselves all last year on fewest turnovers and to only have fifteen against that type of pressure, I was pleased. A little bit more of an inside game and make some shots. A lot of the reason for missing shots was because of their pressure. Especially when Alison throws three away from outside and inside, you start looking for where she is. She is just a great player and they're a great team. They are extremely well coached.”

On Carrem Gay:

“I was really impressed with the way Carrem Gay played today. A kid that hadn't played much last year and we're kind of familiar with her up at Christ the King. I thought she came in and did a great job. You look at her scoring; it's balanced as anything which is what you want. They played a lot of people and they got contributions from everybody. They need to shoot their free throws better, but they look like a quality team that will compete to get into the Final Four and see what happens from there.”

Players Mentioned

Alison Bales

Carrem Gay

Abby Waner

Duke information