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Quotes: Duke 86, St. John?s 56
2/23/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening Statement:
“I thought our guys played really hard. St. John's had a terrific game plan coming in and during the first part of the first half executed it really well; they had control of the tempo of that part of the game. Then our defense picked up a little bit; we got some fast breaks off of turnovers and got the margin and our defense kicked in a lot better and then in the second half we had a little bit of a rough start again, but then afterwards we played hard. It's been a long week for us starting last Sunday night with two games on the road. The two losses knocked us back; we're not an established team yet. The roots of confidence both individually and as a team, are not deep enough yet and they shouldn't be with so many developing players. So when you get knocked back, you have to reestablish those roots and it will take more then one game. Hopefully it will come, because they've been a beautiful group and they want to do well and I thought they played real hard this afternoon. We just need to keep getting better.”
On the lineup change:
“It was partially because of Gerald [Henderson]'s injury. Since the injury he's probably averaged six points a game and has seemed distracted a little bit on defense. We may not stay with that line up, but sometimes just a little time off, not a punishment, just ?Don't think about it, just try to play the best you can with what you have.' I thought he did that today. It was probably the thing that I was most pleased with along with Brian Zoubek getting extended minutes. He got 20 minutes.”
On the adjustments required now that Zoubek is back:
“It's not just that the spacing is different, we've played for as long as we've played and we've won; and we're going to continue to win if we keep playing that way. Brian is an asset and now we know that he's going to be with us. His foot has responded to the last one and a half, two weeks and now we have to put some plays in where he gets some touches. There is some newness, but I think it's good newness. We just need to use the last few weeks of the season and the ACC tournament to get us ready for March.”
On the past week and the maturation of the team:
“Sure it was. We're 23-3. We weren't ready to jump off a bridge with two losses. We've had to fight for everything this year, it's not like we've been blowing teams out in the league. We just have to stay on our course and sometimes that course means you're going to get beat. What you do after you get beat and how do you get better are questions that we have to answer.”
St. John's Head Coach Norm Roberts
Opening Statement:
“Give Duke and Coach K a lot of credit; they're a very good basketball team. They can beat you in so many ways. They're so quick and they can really shoot the three. We didn't do a great job in transition and I think a lot of it happened because we missed a lot of open shots which led to long rebounds. They do a good job of sharing the ball and defending and this is a tough place to win at, but they really played well.”
On the opening minutes:
“We played very hard. My team plays hard all the time. I just can't make freshmen juniors. They play hard and try hard. We made some shots and got some steals and made some plays and got some confidence there. We needed to continue to do that. When Anthony Mason, Jr., doesn't have a good day but he's trying really hard and Justin Burrell doesn't shoot it well, that's really going to hurt our scoring. Give Duke credit; they did a great job guarding them, too.”
On how the team handled the environment:
“I thought they did fine. I thought they did fine for freshmen. I don't think the environment affected them; Duke has a good team. It wasn't the environment. We told our guys ahead of time, this is probably the best environment maybe in the country. It's unbelievable and it's great the way the fans support them and get after it. I told the guys to enjoy every bit of the atmosphere. You should revel in it and enjoy it and play as hard as you can because it's as good of an atmosphere in college basketball that you could ever be in.”
On continuing the series:
“I think it's a great series. It's great for our program to play against a prestigious program like this. Hopefully our freshmen and sophomores will get to be seniors and juniors and we'll be more competitive and we'll be better. I think it's always great for us to play Duke."
Players Mentioned
C
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