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Quotes: Duke 79, Davidson 67
1/7/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening statement:
“We beat an outstanding team tonight. I think when two really good teams play one another, you have blows. At the end of the first half, those last eight minutes, we played really well and gave us the lead, and the first six minutes of the second half we played great. Then it looked like we got tired. We took some quick shots that missed, and I thought [Andrew] Lovedale made some big blocks when we did get a good shot. He had four blocks ? I bet he had three of them during that time. I told our kids, I said, ?This team has won over 90 percent of its games over the last three years. You think they're going to stop playing? They've got one of the top two or three players in the country.' They put a lot of game pressure on us. I thought two of the biggest points of the night were Lance Thomas' free throws. ... Those two free throws were huge. They were the biggest of the game. ... It's a good win for us. I thought we did a good job on [Stephen] Curry, defending his three. He didn't get open looks. He's a hell of a player and he's just never out of it. All the attention that you give him, it creates things for other people. ... They're a good team and we're proud that we won.”
On Davidson's play tonight:
“I thought they attacked us to begin the game. We had about five straight possessions where we didn't get a shot. In the big scheme of things, this is a big game for us, but for them, and I'm not knocking the Southern Conference, but we're the last big program until they go to the NCAA's. This is like a March game for them. We're playing this game in between conference games. I told the players we had to match them. I thought [Davidson] approached it like that, and knocked us back. We had a lot of turnovers. Then all of a sudden we played tougher. I thought the last eight minutes of the first half we played really well.”
On the scoring drought midway through the second:
“First of all, Lovedale protected their basket. We had some shots he knocked back. And, I thought we shot quickly a couple times there. Guys weren't expecting a shot and we didn't get a chance for an offensive rebound. And sometimes you don't hit shots ? that's the way it is. Sometimes you go cold, and then your defense has to help you. During that time, our defense let us down and that's how they came back.”
On defending the nation's top scorer in Stephen Curry:
“It wasn't like ?You have him,' but just trying to corral him. If he has a ball screen, we wanted a guy out there. He uses that to get open. We have confidence in Kyle [Singler], Dave [McClure], and Lance [Thomas] to cover a guard and I thought they did a good job just keeping length on him. It wasn't like at a timeout, ?Now you take him,' but if they run off stuff you have to switch. ... We did a lot of switching against him, so it made it so a lot of guys were on him. Overall, we did a good job. He's potentially a lot of points.”
“He's just very smart ? you can foul him if you're not careful. He can put his team in the bonus, he's crafty. He's just a good player, I mean a really good player. The system they run is really good for him. We beat a good team and a good player tonight.”
Jon Scheyer
On Stephen Curry:
“He's a great player, so our goal wasn't to shut him out or anything like that. We really wanted to have the guy that was guarding him just focus on him but also not let their other guys get off because [Will] Archambault and [Bryant] Barr and those guys can really shoot the ball and they get a lot because guys kind of just stare at Curry. So we really wanted to try and take those guys away and try to make Curry work for everything. He did end up with a lot of points, but I thought we did do a pretty good job on him, especially if Lance [Thomas] got switched onto him or Kyle [Singler] ? those guys can guard guys like that.”
“He's a great player, so give him all the credit. But for us, we didn't want to try to take him away completely. Obviously, we wanted to focus on him and try to make him work for everything that he was going to do, but we also didn't want the other guys to get off. When those guys get hot, the shooters and [Andrew] Lovedale inside, they're a really tough team to beat. We didn't a pretty good job ? could've done better ? but obviously he's a pretty good player.”
On his strong performance in the second half:
“It was just plays needed to be made and opportunities were there, and I just had my shots, had some drives. We took some pretty good shots in the second half I thought. Most of them fell, some of them didn't, but we when we move the ball like that, whether it's me, Kyle [Singler], G [Gerald Henderson] or whoever, we can have some good opportunities to make some plays like that.”
Kyle Singler
“We got off to a great start in the second half, which was key for us, but we let up. We just can't do that against a good team like Davidson. They were able to get some transition buckets, which we knew we needed to stop, especially [Stephen] Curry because he's great in transition. He was able to get going, he saw the ball go in, and their team was able to get back into it. I thought we played - for about 30 minutes - good basketball.”
“He definitely is the catalyst for their team. He does a lot. He definitely scores the ball, he sets up his teammates because you have to help so much on him because he's a good shooter and good playmaker. A lot of the stuff they run for him, it is tough to guard. There is a lot of switching.”
“We stuck to our game plan. We really wanted just to keep him under control. We didn't want to get him going in transition, just corral him up top and make sure he didn't get his shots up top that he usually does. I think in that span where they started coming back, they got their points in transition, was where our defense fell apart.”
“They do help off on ball screens and I was able to get some open shots and knock them down. Jon [Scheyer] was very tough tonight. He made some tough shots, he knocked down his shots, knocked down his free throws. Gerald [Henderson] played a big game too. He was big on the boards and boards tonight were very big for us.”
“That first five minutes was very tough for us. We were turning the ball over and there was no flow to the game. They were turning the ball over too it seemed like. For us, we can't do that. We wanted to get off to a good start, which we kind of did, but we should've gotten off to a better start. Sometimes you're just not used to how much they help with the drives. We knew it was going to be tough to drive just because of how much they help on defense. I would say they're kind of deceptive in that, and we just weren't able to capitalize on making kicks to the open man.”
Greg Paulus
“It's a great win. They're a very talented team. They don't quit ? we had it up to 25 and they kept pushing it, making a run at it. We did a good job closing it, but they can score in bunches and they're a very dangerous team.”
“Give them some credit for that. We weren't as sharp on offense for whatever the reason might have been. We need to do a better job of expanding that and not getting stuck on whatever the number was for a certain amount of time. During that time they crept back into the game. Even if we're struggling offensively or have a couple of possessions where we don't score, we still need to do the dirty work ? rebound, play defense ? and that'll give us a chance in the end.”
On Stephen Curry:
“He's pretty good, he can do a little bit of everything. You've really got to concentrate on him every possession. If you take a play off or you don't concentrate as hard, he's always moving and he can shoot it from deep or he can put it on the floor. When you can do that as a scorer, it's a possible threat every time you touch the ball no matter where you are.”
Davidson Head Coach Bob McKillop
Opening Statement:
“I'm certainly pleased that we got better as a team today. I'm not pleased that we had moments in the game where we played on our heels, but that's what Duke does to you. They put you on your heels. I've been doing this for 20 years against Duke. They expose you, they undress you, and unless you stay in the center ring and fight from the center of the ring instead of back pedaling and getting caught on the ropes you're never going to be successful against Duke. What they do is they do it for 40 minutes and that's what makes the program they are, the team they are. I am delighted with the way our guys responded in the second half and never quit and never gave up and I thought that loose ball scrum at the end of the game was an indication that we did give everything we had to try and come out on top in this particular game.”
On Duke going into delay late in the game:
“Lance Thomas came to Duke and I remember what they had written about him prior to him coming to Duke about how aggressive he was on the offensive boards. He secured four offensive rebounds tonight that I thought were key because it gave them second shot opportunities and I believe one of those second shot opportunities was Jon Scheyer's three from the top of the key. We went to a four guard lineup for a good portion of the second half. We got beat on the offensive glass, 14 offensive rebounds, but Duke does an outstanding job of chasing those balls and getting second shot opportunities. They started in the first half and they didn't relent the whole game long.”
On Duke's defense against Stephen Curry:
“Because Duke switches so much it makes it difficult to take advantage of that mismatch. There is always someone in the help position who is going to jump right out and switch on to him. I thought what we did well in the second half was attack with the dribble in the full court and I thought that Steph [Curry] and Brendan [McKillop] did a great job of getting the ball up the court. We shot some open shots because we didn't have to go against their half court defense. That's just the talent that Duke has, the IQ that they have that they're able to do that and not miss a beat.”
On the value of playing in Cameron Indoor Stadium:
“We played Purdue three weeks ago and some of the slapping that they did to us lingered tonight. Those very unpleasant memories surfaced tonight in the early stages of the first half and early stages of the second half. Great teams don't allow that to linger. This is a team that is going through a process of getting better and a significant number of guys on this team were not a part of fighting through those adverse situations in their previous history and that's what I think made our team better last year. We had gone through the UCLA, North Carolina, and Duke experience and got to the NCAA Tournament and had that in our memory bank, but they were not the kind of beatings that Purdue did. We've got to erase that from our memory and realize that we've gotten better. Tonight we did get better, because it could have been a repeat performance. I'm delighted that our guys have grown, but the team that we have is not going to grow in leaps and bounds in one particular experience and Duke will never let you grow in leaps and bounds.'
Davidson's Stephen Curry
On getting his shot in the second half:
“Starting from the opening tip they really pressured the ball whenever I had it out on the perimeter and took us out of our offense, which we're comfortable with. I got some good looks and kind of rushed them a little bit and didn't get my rhythm until the second half. My teammates bailed me out early and kept us in it for the most part. They did a great defensive job on us as a whole throughout the whole game.”
On Duke switching players guarding him:
“I think their help defense allows them to do that because if they create a mismatch where I'm guarded by a big guy, I usually try to take him off the dribble. If I see a guy right behind him on the second line of defense it's tough to create something. That's why they're really good if they can switch and take away the initial shot and then when you drive they're right there to help and make you make a tough decision. They did a great job of that.”
On coming back in the second half:
“I think our system, we found out how to execute it. After they made that big run in the second half and got up by 20-plus we didn't panic. We've been in that situation before, kind of too often now, but we got back to hitting singles as coach would say and making the easy play, which we had trouble with early in the game. We really got some stops down the stretch, got rebounds and got in the open court. That's where we're best at on the offensive end.”
On being guarded by so many different players:
“It's a special team that can be able to do that, to throw different guys at you and not miss a beat. I've seen a lot of defenses and a lot of different personnel throughout games, but they did a great job tonight.”
On where the team is going into conference play:
“I'm pretty confident with where we're at right now. We've had some setbacks with some big losses to Purdue, Duke, and Oklahoma, but we've also gotten better. That's something that we need to do going into our conference schedule, expose our weaknesses and figure out what we're not good at and what we need to work on. Getting down big sometimes and having to fight back just makes us a tougher team. The entire out of conference schedule has helped us in that regard and now we can focus on the SoCon and hopefully play our highest level of basketball throughout the year.”
Davidson's Andrew Lovedale
On what he learned about the team tonight:
“I've heard a lot about Cameron before even coming to the United States and that it's a great place to play basketball. It's a great atmosphere for us, their fans are into the whole way. We didn't do what we were supposed to do which is to win a basketball game, but like coach said earlier we got better and that's the most important thing. I think that was one of our objectives coming in here, to get better and to do it in a hostile environment like this should do us good in a couple of months.”
Players Mentioned
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