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Quotes: Duke 69, Virginia Tech 44
1/4/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening statement:
“We're really proud of our guys for beating a very good Virginia Tech basketball team. The defense was outstanding ? we were talking, switching. In the last six minutes, guys were rebounding ? I thought we outrebounded them 16-4 ? and there were different guys rebounding the ball. They're a very physical team, a strong team. I thought our guys played well. Dave [McClure] off the bench, he didn't score, but he had five rebounds and played [A.D.] Vassallo well. That was big. I thought Greg [Paulus]'s three when we were up 11 to put us up 14 was one of the bigger buckets. You're right there ? are you going to stay in the teens or go into single digits ? is there going to be game pressure on you ? and all of the sudden a kid hits a really big shot for us. And then Kyle [Singler] did turn it over too much, but had some really nice passes. We had some really nice passes in the last 10 minutes there where we didn't know who scored, but you knew we did. I'm proud of our guys. We've been working real hard, and we had to work really hard tonight to beat a really good Virginia Tech team.”
On the defensive effort:
“[The second half was] the best half [of defense this season]. To hold someone to 13 points who's good ? they came in 9-4 but could have been 12-1 ? they're a good team. I think they're a really good basketball team, so we just played very well on the defensive end of the court, and executed pretty well offensively.”
On Nolan Smith and Brian Zoubek's contributions:
“We're more of a complete team [with them in the lineup]. Kyle [Singler] played a lot of minutes today ? 37 ? but I don't think he played defense inside, unless he switched, so it's a different kind of 37 minutes and then towards the end of the game he's fresher than if he's guarding the five. Brian played well, and Lance [Thomas] would cover that guy also. Nolan can play very good defense, and today toward the end we have both he and Greg [Paulus] in at the same time, and hopefully you'll see that in later game situations. We have a different dynamic there even toward end-of-game situations than we've had in a while.”
On Nolan Smith's maturation:
“It comes with the experience of playing ? you get on him. I got on him at halftime ? I thought we should have scored on the last possession. ... That comes with experience. He responded really well to that. Telling him, ?You gotta make that play, you're in the ACC.' Again, I thought he responded real well. He made a couple really strong plays in the second half and I thought his defense was outstanding.”
On ACC play:
“It's a much more physical game when you get into conference play. Nobody's afraid of the other team. The intensity just goes up a level. You have to play through contact. I'm not saying it's fouls, but there's more contact than in some of the non-conference games. There isn't that physicality, and that just knocks you off. I think it knocked both teams off a little bit tonight.”
On Wednesday night's game vs. Davidson:
“We already talked to our guys about it. Davidson is one of the best teams in the country. I think [Stephen] Curry's the best guard. He may be the best player in the country. That kid, during the holidays when I had a chance to watch a few games on tape, I just watched him ... he's sensational. His ball handling, not just as a point guard, but when you're on him, he gets his shot off. If he gets his shot off, it's got a chance to go in. They do a hell of a job. It'll be a great game for us.”
Duke Sophomore Kyle Singler
“I thought we played good defense. We stopped their key players and one thing we can take away from the game that we could improve on is just taking care of the ball. They played us tough again tonight but I think we were just a little tougher throughout the whole game. We played all 40 minutes and I think that was key. They got tired and we were able to take advantage of it.”
On the intensity of an ACC game:
“The crowd got into it a little more, which was good to see. It was exciting. You're kind of getting that feeling - it is still the first game - but the ACC is very exciting. The crowd knows it; the opponent knows it and games just kick up a little.”
“They're a good team and I think it was just the mindset that we brought to the game - we knew we had to play good defense. We wanted to bring the mindset of playing good defense and rebounding the ball on both ends, offensively and defensively. I think over the final six minutes we outrebounded them something like 16-4 and that's pretty impressive.”
Duke Junior Gerald Henderson
On the focus in the huddle during the timeout at the 17:25 mark in the second half:
“We just really decided that we can play better defense than we were and be sharper on the offensive end than we were. We were still up but they were four points down. They were still in the game, so we just needed to turn up our effort a little bit.”
“We know the last time we played them in Cameron, they beat us. You want to focus on the game, the scouting report and all that stuff, but in the back of your mind you always know that the last time you played them here in your own house they beat you. So you kind of put that in your back pocket.”
On the play of Brian Zoubek:
“When they're playing their zone or even man too, when we hit the post, it's like penetration because not only is he looking to score but he's really good at passing out of the post. When we get it in there, it makes the defense make a decision. [The post presence] wasn't as strong last year ? we obviously didn't hit the post as much as we do this year. We feel like that's a strength of our team now and we're definitely going in there now.”
On the upcoming matchup with Davidson:
“They've got [Stephen] Curry. Obviously everyone knows what kind of player he is. We'll have to put together a good game plan. I'm sure the coaches are already on it, and we'll be prepared. That's one of the things we take pride in is being prepared for every game. We'll really get ready for them. [When asked if he wanted to guard Curry] Do I want to guard him? Yeah, he's one of the best players in the nation, so why wouldn't you? It's going to be tough because he's a really good player, but I think everyone on our perimeter is up for the challenge.”
Duke Junior Jon Scheyer
“I know this is one of the best teams we've played with some really talented offensive players, so to hold them down in the second half was big. I would say it was one of the best [defensive performances of the year].”
On the focus in the huddle during the timeout at the 17:25 mark in the second half:
“[Passing] was the main point in that timeout. It's not like any of us are selfish or anything, but I think we were just looking at our shots when maybe someone else had a better shot. That's something that Coach [Mike Krzyzewski] pointed out to us right away and from then on we made the extra pass and we got better shots the rest of the game.”
“ACC games are just a lot more physical, and a lot more is let go as far as playing through no foul calls. For us, that's the way our practices are ? they're really tough and physical, so we were prepared coming into this game for that part of it. Those are tough games and I like it when they let you play.”
On Davidson and Stephen Curry:
“Obviously he's a great player. We've played them the past two years and they're a really tough team, play great defense, and they play really well together. Obviously [Curry is] one of the best players in the country so it's going to be a challenge.”
Virginia Tech Head Coach Seth Greenberg
Opening comment:
“It's real simple. I thought at the beginning of the second half we got them to come back to us a little bit, cut it to four, they called a timeout and we didn't respond. It's really that plain and simple. It's nothing more than that. When we actually moved them a little bit to drive it, we had opportunities. When we cut it to four, we had pretty good spacing. We got the ball to the post early, they doubled and we threw it away, and coming out of the timeout they kicked our tails on the backboards and got extra possessions and it snowballed from there. The game was over after his timeout. Their guys responded and ours didn't, it's that simple. Defensively at times, I thought we were pretty good. Obviously offensively we were not our best and that's probably giving it a compliment.”
On how hard Duke plays and its effect on his team:
“I thought we played hard. We didn't play well. In that one stretch coming out of the timeout, they were tougher than us, they got the ball. They doubled us in the post and knocked a couple balls away and got the ball two or three consecutive shot opportunities and scored it and it went from four to 11 or 12 very quickly.”
The run Virginia Tech made in the first half:
“We were eventually going to score. We had a concept of how we wanted to play and when we fulfilled that concept we made plays. This is a game you don't run plays, you make plays. You have to make basketball plays against them. You have to have good spacing and you got to have guys play off of that and we didn't do a good enough job when we got back in the game. Malcolm [Delaney] had those back-to-back pull-ups where we had pretty good spacing and he had a gap to drive it and we had the floor spread out a bit. At the start of the second half we had some pretty good spacing again. They were just much tougher than us coming out of that timeout and we never responded after that.”
Message in the team's first timeout:
“Basically when I called that timeout there was 37 minutes left in the game, relax. At that point we had about three or four scoring opportunities and we were defending alright. At times we actually did a pretty good job of keeping them in front of us and getting in the gaps. It was offensively where we didn't capitalize. You have to compete on both sides of the ball.
On team's toughness:
“I don't think that we aren't tough, I think that we didn't respond coming out of that timeout for a long period of time. We made some bad decisions. We got the ball in front of the rim and then we threw the ball away. We got a stop and then we couldn't come up with a loose ball.”
On loss:
“Again, we lost. We have 16 more conference games for sure including the conference tournament. Going into the 16-minute timeout we had a chance to win and then we stunk it up. There's no magic dust. It's one league game. If you overreact to one league game on the road in this league, you're a village idiot. You're going to play 16 games. There are other people who are going to come in here and lose games.”
Players Mentioned
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