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Men's Basketball
vs #19 Texas Tech
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Quotes: Duke 67, Virginia Tech 55
2/21/2010 11:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening Statement:
“Well it is a really big win for us. They are very, very good. Both teams play outstanding defense, so it's tough to get good looks. We shot 29 percent, I think they shot 32 percent. It's tough to come by. I thought it was a heck of a game. Even when you got an open look, you were looking to see if someone was going to come there and challenge your shot, because we got some really … some open looks. And we could just not shoot well. You have them for just that instant and then they go away. But then down the stretch, our guys hit everything. When [Virginia Tech] took the lead, [Malcolm] Delaney got that three to go up 45-44, our guys showed a lot of character in winning this ball game. [Brian] Zoubek's three-point play was huge. It gave us a five-point lead and then we hit a three at eight points … it just gave us that separation. Then we went up 11 on another three. Our defense was outstanding at the end. We didn't make any turnovers, so we handled the end of game situation very well. Zoubek getting 16 rebounds is fantastic. He was just so hungry on the boards. [Kyle] Singler played a great game. Defensively, 25 [points] and 10 [rebounds] and some of his offensive rebounds that turned into buckets were huge plays in this game. As you go through a game like this, when buckets are hard to come by and all of the sudden [Singler] just getting an offense board and willing it in the basket, you know Kyle is playing very well right now. He has played pretty good all year but he is playing really well right now. I mean we scored 67 points and we hit a three at the end, so it's like mid-60s and they are mid-50s and [Singler] has 25 and 10. That is a heck of a performance.”
On scoring distribution of the team and impact on the team:
“Well, I would like to have other people score. It's an obvious thing. What I want to do is win and not let scoring impact, in a negative way, or lack of scoring, our defense and rebounding. But, that will come. One of these games, it will break out. I mean Andre [Dawkins] had open looks in that first half. He has to continue to take them and continue to practice them. Not just Andre, but all the guys. Those three players [Scheyer, Smith and Singler] are really good. As long as they keep playing well … you have to go with what you got.”
On importance of Lance Thomas staying in the game with four fouls:
“It was one of the key factors in the game. It was also why we were slowing some things down because then [with] the double technical, Nolan [Smith] got his fourth. What you are trying to do is reduce possessions and make sure you try to score and not turn it over and stop them. Lance played like a veteran. I thought he played his best basketball after he got his fourth foul. He was one of the keys to the game, keeping him in the ball game like that.”
On Nolan Smith's defense against Malcolm Delaney:
“It was good. Jon [Scheyer] covered Delaney too. Every one of our perimeter guys … you know Delaney is a great player. He puts so much pressure on you. He got 19 [points] but he had 19 shots for 19 points. That is, overall, a decent performance against Delaney, because Delaney causes all sorts of problems and opens things up for the other guys. You know [Virginia Tech] comes in here with 21 wins and eight wins in the conference. They are a very confident, very athletic team. Seth [Greenberg] has done an outstanding job with his team. They believe they can win. We knew that right from the start.”
On Brian Zoubek's contributions in this game:
“I think those [a three-point play] were his only points. I just think, when a kid plays so hard and he is ok with not scoring, although we obviously would like him to score … he played with a lot of emotion. His rebounds were high. You know, he is just keeping the ball really high … 16 rebounds is a lot and eight of them were offensive that he kicked out. If we were hitting some of those, those are like signature plays for us. You get a rebound, you kick it out, shoot a three and the world is … we start skipping down the yellow brick road. Brian would have had about 6 or 7 assists tonight.”
On second time winning with below 30 percent shooting:
“No, I don't remember shooting under 30 percent very often. [Assistant coach Steve Wojciechowski] reminds this team a lot, and he did today before the game, it was his scout, and again at halftime, he said, 'remember our identity.' Our identity this year is not like most Duke teams. It is rebounding and defense. And he said, 'no matter what, don't forget your identity.' I would like to add, 'you are a really good shooting team,' to that. Skip down that yellow brick road. Until that happens, hopefully it will happen, the fact that they are able to maintain that shows a lot of character for these guys.”
Senior Brian Zoubek
On his big offensive put-back in the second half:
“That started a big series of plays. We got that three point play, and we hit another three right after that, and then a minute later another three. And they hadn't scored in that whole time, so we were up 11, and that's really disheartening for the other team, especially when they'd just made a run to come back.”
“I think it's a combination of things. I'm in the game more because I'm being smarter about fouls. A lot of times I would play pretty well, but then I'd get two quick fouls and I'd have to come out, and that's really frustrating. I'm just being smarter and doing the things I've been doing all year. I think it's probably a combination of me being smarter in terms of screening and then going right to the basket and right on the boards, and also being in the game a lot longer. I'm not in as bad of foul trouble as I used to be because I'm getting smarter. So I'm in the game a lot more, so obviously I have a lot more chances to get rebounds.”
On the rewarding senior season he's having:
“It feels awesome. As well as I'm playing, it feels so much better just to have our team in this position to take the top of the league. We haven't been there. I love all these guys, I'm having a great time, and everything's better when you're winning.”
Junior Nolan Smith
“They're a very good team, and clearly the standings show that. It was a hard-fought game, and we knew it was going to be a battle for 40 minutes. We didn't want to relax. When we get a lead, we try to build off our lead and get momentum, but a team like Virginia Tech, with a scorer like [Malcolm] Delaney and the scorers they have around him, anything can happen. So we just had to keep playing and keep making shots.”
On winning the game despite shooting 29% from the field:
“[We won tonight] the way we've been winning games all year, and that's defensive rebounding. Obviously we've shown this year that we can shoot bad – it's going to happen. Most years we might lose those games and let that affect our defensive rebounding, but now we're not letting that happen, so we're still able to win these big games.”
“Being in tough games like this will definitely help [in the postseason]. We'll play against a lot of good teams like Virginia Tech. Of course, they're going to be in situations to play against teams like us. Even though they lost, they're going to be able to fight back. They didn't quit. We knew they weren't going to quit. It was just a hard-fought game.”
On Brian Zoubek's key put-back in the second half:
“Brian's been making so many plays for us like that. When he makes those plays, it really gives us a lift and that's what happened from that play. We really got going. He's just playing tremendous basketball.”
Junior Kyle Singler
“Our defense [was key]. We played great defense, and we rebounded the ball well. I think another key to the game was we limited them getting to the free throw line. Malcolm Delaney usually gets to the line like 10 or 15 times, and I think he only got to the line like eight times, so we did a good job in that.”
On Brian Zoubek's play:
“Defensively and offensively, he's been huge for us. He's kind of our glue guy. He sets great screens for us. Defensively, he's a big body and rebounds, and he's very valuable for us.”
On Nolan Smith's performance:
“We've had a couple of games where it's been close and Nolan's kind of come up with some big shots for us.”
Virginia Tech Head Coach Seth Greenberg
Opening Statement:
“The game came down to our inability to rebound the ball on the defensive end and secure the basketball on our rebounds and then tight rebounds. [Brian] Zoubek gets eight offensive rebounds, which obviously gives them extra possessions. We took care of the basketball and we competed at a high level. I didn't think we were as good defensively early on getting through screens and helping off screeners. But really in the end it came down to our inability to rebound the ball in the defensive end. We got good looks. We missed some good looks. We had opportunities to attack the rim. We had a couple plays we didn't finish, but our guys competed at a high level. But that's not what we came here for. We came here to win a basketball game and we're at the stage of our program now that being competitive is not good enough. It's about winning. We play to win. We didn't do enough today to win in this environment. We got good shots. Both teams got some shots. We weren't as disciplined at times defensively off their shot fakes. More importantly we just have to rebound the ball better. It's just that simple.”
On what Virginia Tech did differently at the end of the first half to stop Duke:
“I think they missed some shots. We went zone a couple of possessions to kind of survive in terms of our foul trouble. We secured some rebounds and got some things in transition. We bought ourselves some time with the zone. The second half we showed our resiliency by finding a way to take the lead. And once we took the lead we had opportunities to score to create some separation and we just didn't make enough shots. We didn't make enough plays. We got some stops and had some opportunities. We just didn't seize those opportunities. We got a couple of close shots, we got a really good look at a pull-up jumper and we just didn't finish them. I can't fault our effort. I think the kids were very ready to play, not because it was Duke, but because it was the next game and it was a chance to separate ourselves. We break the season into parts and these teams you only play once become that much more valuable because they are tiebreaker games. I think that our team played really hard, but we didn't play well enough to win on the road. We didn't make the right couple of decisions I wish we had back. We've got to rebound the ball. You got to secure the basketball. You can't give your opponent that many extra possessions. We did a great job of taking care of the ball in the second half. We were strong with the ball. They took us out a little bit in the second half. They did a good job of playing the ball and making it hard for us to get into the flow of it.”
On Brian Zoubek's play and his three-point play late in the second half:
“He's a mountain masquerading as a man. The guy is a huge human being. He gives you a little pop and he creates space to rebound the ball and he's not too far from the basket once he rebounds it. We fouled him on that play. I'm not sure if he fouled us first, but we sure fouled him the second time. It was just a hard-fought game and I think that our kids compete hard. But that's not why we came here. We didn't come here to compete hard and we didn't come here to be a team that played Duke closer than the other teams had come in this building. We came here to win a basketball game. That was our mindset. Now our mindset is to fix some things and get ourselves ready to play a very good Boston College that is coming off of beating North Carolina.”
On whether he wished they had done something better against Jon Scheyer, Nola Smith and Kyle Singler:
“I wished we would have hit some ball screens a little bit hotter. I thought on their curls we were a little late and they created some separation on those curls and we weren't disciplined on some shot fakes and even on that last play on Nolan [Smith] we didn't have enough of a sense of urgency getting there.”
On Virginia Tech's foul trouble:
“It's part of the game. I think our concept of what we tried to do in putting their bigs in ball screens conceptually was good. But that's the game. It's difficult, but that's what happens in a basketball game. Some guys get in foul trouble and some guys don't.”
On the team's offensive in the final 10 minutes:
“We missed some shots to be quite honest with you. We got the ball to Jeff [Allen] a couple times around the rim. That last one he got hacked pretty good. Malcolm [Delaney] had a pull-up roll out. We missed some shots. They're shots that I would take. I don't mind Jeff attacking the basket and I sure don't mind Malcolm pulling up. They're a good defensive team. I'm not sure there were a lot of uncontested shots for anyone tonight. We had the game at the ugly quotient, we just couldn't finish it. ”
On whether he felt defensively the team did enough:
“Part of defense is rebounding the miss and we didn't do that very well. There is a reason those three guys score a lot of points, they're good. There's a reason my guys score a lot of points, they're pretty good too. We had one more field goal tonight so that's something positive, but again 10 of their 18 field goals were threes. We have to do a better job defending the three.”
On the effect Brian Zoubek had on the game:
“He's just huge. Where he effects the game is that he is a screener and a shaper and when the ball is shot he gets rebounds. He doesn't move too far to get them, but he gets them. He's a big physical body and he has good hands, he really has good hands.”
On what they could do differently rebounding:
“Be more physical on the block-outs. We had to make them make a call. If you just went right through the guy's chest and weren't worried about rebounding the ball, but came through his chest, then maybe they call him over the back. Maybe we weren't as physical as we needed to be blocking them out. But those guys are also helping on the screens and rotating back off the ball screens, so sometimes it's hard to get back to them.”
Opening Statement:
“Well it is a really big win for us. They are very, very good. Both teams play outstanding defense, so it's tough to get good looks. We shot 29 percent, I think they shot 32 percent. It's tough to come by. I thought it was a heck of a game. Even when you got an open look, you were looking to see if someone was going to come there and challenge your shot, because we got some really … some open looks. And we could just not shoot well. You have them for just that instant and then they go away. But then down the stretch, our guys hit everything. When [Virginia Tech] took the lead, [Malcolm] Delaney got that three to go up 45-44, our guys showed a lot of character in winning this ball game. [Brian] Zoubek's three-point play was huge. It gave us a five-point lead and then we hit a three at eight points … it just gave us that separation. Then we went up 11 on another three. Our defense was outstanding at the end. We didn't make any turnovers, so we handled the end of game situation very well. Zoubek getting 16 rebounds is fantastic. He was just so hungry on the boards. [Kyle] Singler played a great game. Defensively, 25 [points] and 10 [rebounds] and some of his offensive rebounds that turned into buckets were huge plays in this game. As you go through a game like this, when buckets are hard to come by and all of the sudden [Singler] just getting an offense board and willing it in the basket, you know Kyle is playing very well right now. He has played pretty good all year but he is playing really well right now. I mean we scored 67 points and we hit a three at the end, so it's like mid-60s and they are mid-50s and [Singler] has 25 and 10. That is a heck of a performance.”
On scoring distribution of the team and impact on the team:
“Well, I would like to have other people score. It's an obvious thing. What I want to do is win and not let scoring impact, in a negative way, or lack of scoring, our defense and rebounding. But, that will come. One of these games, it will break out. I mean Andre [Dawkins] had open looks in that first half. He has to continue to take them and continue to practice them. Not just Andre, but all the guys. Those three players [Scheyer, Smith and Singler] are really good. As long as they keep playing well … you have to go with what you got.”
On importance of Lance Thomas staying in the game with four fouls:
“It was one of the key factors in the game. It was also why we were slowing some things down because then [with] the double technical, Nolan [Smith] got his fourth. What you are trying to do is reduce possessions and make sure you try to score and not turn it over and stop them. Lance played like a veteran. I thought he played his best basketball after he got his fourth foul. He was one of the keys to the game, keeping him in the ball game like that.”
On Nolan Smith's defense against Malcolm Delaney:
“It was good. Jon [Scheyer] covered Delaney too. Every one of our perimeter guys … you know Delaney is a great player. He puts so much pressure on you. He got 19 [points] but he had 19 shots for 19 points. That is, overall, a decent performance against Delaney, because Delaney causes all sorts of problems and opens things up for the other guys. You know [Virginia Tech] comes in here with 21 wins and eight wins in the conference. They are a very confident, very athletic team. Seth [Greenberg] has done an outstanding job with his team. They believe they can win. We knew that right from the start.”
On Brian Zoubek's contributions in this game:
“I think those [a three-point play] were his only points. I just think, when a kid plays so hard and he is ok with not scoring, although we obviously would like him to score … he played with a lot of emotion. His rebounds were high. You know, he is just keeping the ball really high … 16 rebounds is a lot and eight of them were offensive that he kicked out. If we were hitting some of those, those are like signature plays for us. You get a rebound, you kick it out, shoot a three and the world is … we start skipping down the yellow brick road. Brian would have had about 6 or 7 assists tonight.”
On second time winning with below 30 percent shooting:
“No, I don't remember shooting under 30 percent very often. [Assistant coach Steve Wojciechowski] reminds this team a lot, and he did today before the game, it was his scout, and again at halftime, he said, 'remember our identity.' Our identity this year is not like most Duke teams. It is rebounding and defense. And he said, 'no matter what, don't forget your identity.' I would like to add, 'you are a really good shooting team,' to that. Skip down that yellow brick road. Until that happens, hopefully it will happen, the fact that they are able to maintain that shows a lot of character for these guys.”
Senior Brian Zoubek
On his big offensive put-back in the second half:
“That started a big series of plays. We got that three point play, and we hit another three right after that, and then a minute later another three. And they hadn't scored in that whole time, so we were up 11, and that's really disheartening for the other team, especially when they'd just made a run to come back.”
“I think it's a combination of things. I'm in the game more because I'm being smarter about fouls. A lot of times I would play pretty well, but then I'd get two quick fouls and I'd have to come out, and that's really frustrating. I'm just being smarter and doing the things I've been doing all year. I think it's probably a combination of me being smarter in terms of screening and then going right to the basket and right on the boards, and also being in the game a lot longer. I'm not in as bad of foul trouble as I used to be because I'm getting smarter. So I'm in the game a lot more, so obviously I have a lot more chances to get rebounds.”
On the rewarding senior season he's having:
“It feels awesome. As well as I'm playing, it feels so much better just to have our team in this position to take the top of the league. We haven't been there. I love all these guys, I'm having a great time, and everything's better when you're winning.”
Junior Nolan Smith
“They're a very good team, and clearly the standings show that. It was a hard-fought game, and we knew it was going to be a battle for 40 minutes. We didn't want to relax. When we get a lead, we try to build off our lead and get momentum, but a team like Virginia Tech, with a scorer like [Malcolm] Delaney and the scorers they have around him, anything can happen. So we just had to keep playing and keep making shots.”
On winning the game despite shooting 29% from the field:
“[We won tonight] the way we've been winning games all year, and that's defensive rebounding. Obviously we've shown this year that we can shoot bad – it's going to happen. Most years we might lose those games and let that affect our defensive rebounding, but now we're not letting that happen, so we're still able to win these big games.”
“Being in tough games like this will definitely help [in the postseason]. We'll play against a lot of good teams like Virginia Tech. Of course, they're going to be in situations to play against teams like us. Even though they lost, they're going to be able to fight back. They didn't quit. We knew they weren't going to quit. It was just a hard-fought game.”
On Brian Zoubek's key put-back in the second half:
“Brian's been making so many plays for us like that. When he makes those plays, it really gives us a lift and that's what happened from that play. We really got going. He's just playing tremendous basketball.”
Junior Kyle Singler
“Our defense [was key]. We played great defense, and we rebounded the ball well. I think another key to the game was we limited them getting to the free throw line. Malcolm Delaney usually gets to the line like 10 or 15 times, and I think he only got to the line like eight times, so we did a good job in that.”
On Brian Zoubek's play:
“Defensively and offensively, he's been huge for us. He's kind of our glue guy. He sets great screens for us. Defensively, he's a big body and rebounds, and he's very valuable for us.”
On Nolan Smith's performance:
“We've had a couple of games where it's been close and Nolan's kind of come up with some big shots for us.”
Virginia Tech Head Coach Seth Greenberg
Opening Statement:
“The game came down to our inability to rebound the ball on the defensive end and secure the basketball on our rebounds and then tight rebounds. [Brian] Zoubek gets eight offensive rebounds, which obviously gives them extra possessions. We took care of the basketball and we competed at a high level. I didn't think we were as good defensively early on getting through screens and helping off screeners. But really in the end it came down to our inability to rebound the ball in the defensive end. We got good looks. We missed some good looks. We had opportunities to attack the rim. We had a couple plays we didn't finish, but our guys competed at a high level. But that's not what we came here for. We came here to win a basketball game and we're at the stage of our program now that being competitive is not good enough. It's about winning. We play to win. We didn't do enough today to win in this environment. We got good shots. Both teams got some shots. We weren't as disciplined at times defensively off their shot fakes. More importantly we just have to rebound the ball better. It's just that simple.”
On what Virginia Tech did differently at the end of the first half to stop Duke:
“I think they missed some shots. We went zone a couple of possessions to kind of survive in terms of our foul trouble. We secured some rebounds and got some things in transition. We bought ourselves some time with the zone. The second half we showed our resiliency by finding a way to take the lead. And once we took the lead we had opportunities to score to create some separation and we just didn't make enough shots. We didn't make enough plays. We got some stops and had some opportunities. We just didn't seize those opportunities. We got a couple of close shots, we got a really good look at a pull-up jumper and we just didn't finish them. I can't fault our effort. I think the kids were very ready to play, not because it was Duke, but because it was the next game and it was a chance to separate ourselves. We break the season into parts and these teams you only play once become that much more valuable because they are tiebreaker games. I think that our team played really hard, but we didn't play well enough to win on the road. We didn't make the right couple of decisions I wish we had back. We've got to rebound the ball. You got to secure the basketball. You can't give your opponent that many extra possessions. We did a great job of taking care of the ball in the second half. We were strong with the ball. They took us out a little bit in the second half. They did a good job of playing the ball and making it hard for us to get into the flow of it.”
On Brian Zoubek's play and his three-point play late in the second half:
“He's a mountain masquerading as a man. The guy is a huge human being. He gives you a little pop and he creates space to rebound the ball and he's not too far from the basket once he rebounds it. We fouled him on that play. I'm not sure if he fouled us first, but we sure fouled him the second time. It was just a hard-fought game and I think that our kids compete hard. But that's not why we came here. We didn't come here to compete hard and we didn't come here to be a team that played Duke closer than the other teams had come in this building. We came here to win a basketball game. That was our mindset. Now our mindset is to fix some things and get ourselves ready to play a very good Boston College that is coming off of beating North Carolina.”
On whether he wished they had done something better against Jon Scheyer, Nola Smith and Kyle Singler:
“I wished we would have hit some ball screens a little bit hotter. I thought on their curls we were a little late and they created some separation on those curls and we weren't disciplined on some shot fakes and even on that last play on Nolan [Smith] we didn't have enough of a sense of urgency getting there.”
On Virginia Tech's foul trouble:
“It's part of the game. I think our concept of what we tried to do in putting their bigs in ball screens conceptually was good. But that's the game. It's difficult, but that's what happens in a basketball game. Some guys get in foul trouble and some guys don't.”
On the team's offensive in the final 10 minutes:
“We missed some shots to be quite honest with you. We got the ball to Jeff [Allen] a couple times around the rim. That last one he got hacked pretty good. Malcolm [Delaney] had a pull-up roll out. We missed some shots. They're shots that I would take. I don't mind Jeff attacking the basket and I sure don't mind Malcolm pulling up. They're a good defensive team. I'm not sure there were a lot of uncontested shots for anyone tonight. We had the game at the ugly quotient, we just couldn't finish it. ”
On whether he felt defensively the team did enough:
“Part of defense is rebounding the miss and we didn't do that very well. There is a reason those three guys score a lot of points, they're good. There's a reason my guys score a lot of points, they're pretty good too. We had one more field goal tonight so that's something positive, but again 10 of their 18 field goals were threes. We have to do a better job defending the three.”
On the effect Brian Zoubek had on the game:
“He's just huge. Where he effects the game is that he is a screener and a shaper and when the ball is shot he gets rebounds. He doesn't move too far to get them, but he gets them. He's a big physical body and he has good hands, he really has good hands.”
On what they could do differently rebounding:
“Be more physical on the block-outs. We had to make them make a call. If you just went right through the guy's chest and weren't worried about rebounding the ball, but came through his chest, then maybe they call him over the back. Maybe we weren't as physical as we needed to be blocking them out. But those guys are also helping on the screens and rotating back off the ball screens, so sometimes it's hard to get back to them.”
Players Mentioned
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