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Quotes: Duke 75, Boston College 61
1/28/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening Statement
“We're ecstatic about the win. We have utmost respect for Boston College; they have three of the best players in the league in [Jared] Dudley, [Sean] Marshall and [Tyrese] Rice. Their big kids, especially [Shamari] Spears, played well today. We had to play well. I thought our defense was excellent. The last couple minutes of the first half I think was the critical time in the ballgame. Every once in a while a player plays above and DeMarcus [Nelson] for those few minutes was the best player on the court. He shot us into an eight-point lead. It was so good to see and I love that. A kid who did that for us a number of times ? Shelden Williams ? got to see a younger player know that he can do that. I thought Dave's defense in helping Greg [Paulus] with Rice was critical. Lance [Thomas] played really well. I'm really proud of our guys and really concerned about Dave [McClure]. I don't have any word on that. It's the knee he was out there for a whole year. These last five games there has been nobody more important than McClure. The initial thing is that we don't think it's unbelievably serious but it's serious enough that he couldn't play.”
On Josh McRoberts continuing the defensive tradition of Shelden Williams
“I knew Josh would be good on defense but he's really become outstanding on defense. He's like a little bit of a protector. He hasn't done that the whole year, it's kind of like he evolved into it because we play better defense than we did last year. Him anchoring us this year is not like Shelden anchoring us, but it's very good. We have to make sure we don't allow too much penetration because that's how he gets in foul trouble, kind of like what they used to try to do to Shelden. Josh has done a great job on the defensive end.”
On Boston College without Williams
“[To prepare] I watched the games that he hasn't played in. Everyone changes. The thing about it is that they've been off since Tuesday, so in watching those two games we didn't know if there would be something new from them. They're going to do something a little bit different. Their big guys played really well today. [Shamari] Spears is a load and [Tyrelle] Blair played off of people well. I thought they played pretty well. I don't think we allowed them into their normal area of deployment as much.”
On the team's rebounding
“We've been rebounding well. It seemed like they got second shots, but we got a lot of second shots too. We had a lot of offensive rebounds and we out-rebounded them. They put you in positions to foul them because they're crafty and good. Then when the shot goes up, their offense is right around the basket and not spread. You have to work your butt off to just stay in there. That's where Josh [McRoberts'] rebounds are so big.”
On the importance of the ACC standings
“We want to be an NCAA team. Nobody gives you an NCAA berth; you have to earn it and you have to earn it in the conference, and we have the toughest conference schedule this year. It just worked out that way. Every game is huge. Our league is a league right now in the way people are playing in close games, you could get seven teams in. Our league is the best league. You cheer for the other teams when you're playing someone else. [North Carolina's] win over Arizona was huge for our league and we need to talk about that as a league. I'm not saying the other leagues aren't really good. There's not an easy out in our league. We should talk about the league. Our league is terrific and it always has been.”
Boston College Coach Al Skinner
On what concerned him about Duke coming into the game
“There's a lot of things that concerned us about this team. The thing is that we had some opportunities and we didn't take advantage of it. We'd get close--- get a chance to get even--- get within six or four and then we made a mistake. We just can't afford that because we really didn't turn them over and didn't really create a lot of turnovers to get easy baskets for us so it was important that we play close to mistake-free basketball at least for us.”
On Duke's pressure
“It's something that we expected. I was surprised at how physical it was on our end as far as us trying to execute our offense. Usually it's not quite that physical and I think we didn't play as aggressively as we needed to on the offensive end.”
On Tyrelle Blair
“Tyrelle gave us a nice lift, there's no question about it. His interior defense was helpful and he had a presence inside. He's capable and as he gets more comfortable you're going to see a lot more success. In the first half I didn't think he handled the ball as well as we would have liked. In the second half I thought he did a much better job. As time goes on he's going to get more comfortable and help contribute to this team. Sometimes you just have to play a game and we didn't play the game at times. When (Dave) McClure was up trying to double team Tyrese (Rice), John Oates should have been running right to the free throw line or the three point line looking for a shot. We didn't do that, we kind of stood around dazed figuring out what we should do. A couple of times we had guys waiting for Tyrese to make plays at times. Sometimes you have to make yourself available so that you can make a play and I don't think we did that consistently enough. It's a learning experience for us and I think the next time we get in this situation I think we're going to handle it a lot better. That's what I mean when I said we didn't execute and I didn't think we were aggressive enough. It wasn't necessarily with ball handling, it was with recognition of opportunity. We didn't take advantage of the opportunities given to us.”
Players Mentioned
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