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Quotes: Duke 134, Shaw 55
11/1/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
On his impression of Duke's performance against Shaw:
“I was pleased with our effort. We're trying to install a new system, both offensively and defensively. It was good to play 40 minutes like that, get a look at our half-court defense, our press and our running game. The score was not what we're looking at. We're trying to develop and use the scrimmage to learn to push the ball like we want to push it during the year.”
On whether it was difficult to gauge the team's performance against Shaw:
“No, because we're playing our system. We can tell if a guy didn't make an extra pass, and why he didn't. There are a lot of technical things we can look at. The score is irrelevant, but what's important is that the habits are there. We did get a lot out of the game and we'll be able to show [the players] things. These are habits that will eventually make a running game go better. We're just trying to learn those.”
On the implementation of a zone defense:
“What we've tried to do as a staff is study the game and study how we want to play it for the last two summers. Some of the things we would liked to have done last year, we couldn't do because of injuries. But we started to put in this system last year, but then we weren't even sure if we were going to have a point guard. We just didn't have the depth to play like this, but now we have two point guards. We can keep up that tempo.”
On how the freshmen played:
“I do know that Kyle (Singler) was amazingly efficient. Taylor (King) is going to be there. With our guys and our three-point shooting tonight, they didn't have their feet set. Running is good, but feet being set has is a must. They're anxious, but they really wanted to play. They will all help this season.”
On how this team differs from those in the past:
“Just the fact that we have more players. We don't have the separation that we did from Reddick and Williams. They were national players of the year and both lottery picks. We had McClure and Nelson get hurt that year, and it hurt our depth. It's been a while since we've had 10, and when Dave comes back, 11 guys who are pretty good basketball players. You have to coach who you have. This system lends itself to having depth and having good players. Hopefully some of them can become outstanding players.”
On what Gerald Henderson brings to the team:
“Energy. Athletic ability. He's got arms and legs that go in a lot of directions real fast. Hopefully the arms get on the ball and not the legs, but the legs can run down people and he has to be in amazing shape to do that. That's the big thing for Lance and what he does well for our team. Tonight, I bet he had four buckets on offensive rebounds, and that's a big thing. When you're going that fast, to be able to slow down on the offensive side and see things, it's not easy.”
Sophomore Gerald Henderson
“It's good to get out there and play against some other guys. We've been playing against each other since the summer. It's good to get out there and play against some guys who don't know our plays. It's good to just run our stuff against another defense. We feel like teams aren't going to match the kind of defense that we have, so in practice that makes us better, but it's good to play against some other guys.”
On the freshmen:
“You couldn't really tell in a game like this but they're really competitive. We've been practicing for a good three weeks now, and I've been impressed with just how competitive they are. All three of them are really talented but all three of them have heart and they're all winners. I love having them on our team, and they're going to contribute a lot this year.”
“Things we still need to work on are contesting steals ? it's a big thing we work on in practice. We didn't get a whole bunch of contesting steals tonight. Obviously we did a good job on defense but we can always be better. Also we got drilled a lot tonight ? they had some quick guards that penetrated into our paint, and that's something we don't like to accept. We've got practice tomorrow and we'll focus on that.”
Sophomore Jon Scheyer
“We've really been trying to push the ball the best we can and I think it showed tonight. We scored more points tonight than we did [in any game] last season.”
“You can get caught up in focusing on offense and pushing the ball [in a game like this], but our defense still is our priority, and getting after teams and trying to make them play faster is a big thing for us. We really need to do a better job of putting pressure on the defense, and that's something we're really going to try and do a lot this year.”
“I think we have a lot of weapons on the team, we have a lot of depth and we can do some really good things. We only pressed and played our defense for about a half, and it really was effective I think. Playing against guys who don't know the plays and playing some different guys was good for a change. I think we're really getting into the mode where we're a team now.”
Sophomore Lance Thomas
On the pace of the game:
“It's just what we do in practice everyday. It's nothing new. We've been pushing each other in practice really hard and we're in excellent shape. We've been running fast, pushing the ball, everybody's running the floor. And points come easy like that and eventually the other team is going to get tired.”
On what you take from a game like this:
“We use it as a learning experience. We tried a lot of different things in the game. We tried a lot of defenses, and a lot of them worked very well. And now it's back to the drawing board ? watching film, seeing what worked and what didn't.”
Shaw Head Coach Robert Brickey
Opening Statement:
“It was a tough matchup this evening. We played against a very good team--- a much improved team. I had a chance to watch them play last Saturday and they have gotten significantly better. The freshmen class is really good. They're a very polished group for a very young group. They've got poise, they've got confidence, they've got desire. You throw that into the mix with what they have returning -- [Greg] Paulus, [Brian] Zoubek, [Jon] Scheyer, DeMarcus Nelson--- you've got upperclass leadership and they're still a young team with only one senior. We got into the mix -- I think we got a little wide-eyed and we lost our focus. We didn't execute and my main point prior to going out tonight was we have to execute. Their pressure was really good on the defensive end which is good for us. We want to face pressure like that in our league and against our non-conference opponents. It's never as bad as it seems and it's never as good as it seems. We can extrapolate some things out of this game that we can take and say we did so-and-so very well. We can look at things that we didn't do very well. I think it was small things -- we weren't very strong with the ball, we weren't very tough when it came to getting open or boxing out, we didn't make the smartest passes all the time, we didn't know the difference sometimes when to make a bounce pass or make a chest pass, especially when they went zone. We didn't communicate well with transition defense and they got wide-open shots. We got down and I think our guys' focus went completely out the window. I'm upbeat about what we have -- we've got two or three kids that aren't here that will join us hopefully in the next 4-6 weeks due to injuries. They'll really help us with size and athleticism. We just have to work on some of our perimeter guys and our perimeter skills -- getting open, being tough, making good passes, being strong with the ball and taking that bump and still finishing the play.”
On coaching against his former coach Mike Krzyzewski:
“It was a dress rehearsal - everybody needs a dress rehearsal. You need to put the uniforms on, have the lights, the fans and the band and all of that. It's amazing how situations change from practice to game time when you're doing exactly the same thing--- how much more energy it takes during a game that it does during practice. I think it's good for our team, I think it's good for our university to play a school such as Duke. It's good for guys to see what a high level of basketball is like and what we have to do to be successful against a team like Duke. Then we have to take those things and apply them to the rest of the games we play.”
Players Mentioned
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