Quotes: Duke 80, Shaw 66

Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening Statement:
"This was a really good game for us. [Head coach] Cleo [Hill Jr.] does a great job with his team. That pair of guards is really good - [Malik] Alvin and [Antonio] Smith. They could play for a lot of teams in Div. I. They're older, experienced, can really handle the ball. I think they'll be really good in their league. I thought we did a much better job on them in the last 24 minutes of the game. Our ball-screen defense became very good. Our big guys stepped in aggressively, made an adjustment on our ball-screen defense. I thought Austin [Rivers] really played Smith well in that second half. I think Smith's good, really good, and Austin, for a freshman, is wanting to play defense. He's supposed to be this great scorer. I thought it was a big half for Austin. I thought we left a lot of points on the floor with our free-throw shooting and our inside play. It was good, but we've got to complete more plays. I thought they played well and I thought we played better than the score, whereas against Bellarmine I don't think we played as well as the score. I thought we played much better tonight than we did against Bellarmine, even though we didn't hit shots. The fact that we did get to the line and we did get the ball inside - those are good things. Now we have to hit when we're on the line and we have to hit inside. We played a lot of guys. So overall I thought it was a good night for us against a very well-coached team with two outstanding guards. If you have good guards, you're going to give people some problems because you can control the tempo of the game."

On the play of freshman Austin Rivers:
"I thought he played like a very mature player tonight. I was very impressed with his game. He took what was there offensively and instead of saving his energy on defense, he used his energy on defense. That's a big growing-up game for him."

On the roles of his players on offense:
"Seth [Curry]'s got to be our point guard. He and Miles [Plumlee] are our two key guys who have to play a little bit better. They didn't play poorly tonight, but they've got to play a little bit better. They have to have more of an impact on the game. We started Tyler [Thornton] primarily for defense, not for ball handling. So we still want Seth to be out on top, but if Tyler got the ball and brought it up, then you can move Seth up. But I want Seth bringing it up most of the time. Seth can do that. He'll be more effective doing that."

On defensive adjustments made during the game:
"We started keeping people in front of us, but when they did the ball screen, instead of what we would call a contact show where you try to stay with the big man too. We basically left the big man and stepped in more aggressively and had the guard become third man - the ball handler, the big and then our third guard. That was better. Our ball screen defense became much more aggressive. They had three or four shots right at the end of the clock, three's. I thought our defense the last 24 minutes of the game was very good against a team that wants to penetrate a lot."

On the shooting of Andre Dawkins:
"He's a veteran player. He should play well. He fits in like a veteran player should. He can start or come off the bench or start in the second half. They went zone and that was right in his wheelhouse because we went to a couple sets. It should get us good shots against the zone. You can get good shots, but a kid's got to knock them down, and he knocked them down. He should have had that one with a 16-point lead in the second half. We had a three-on-two and we didn't pass the ball strong enough to him. It should have been a 'boom boom', 19-point lead. Our kids have got to learn that. We've got to grow with that. He spaces the court well."

On how he gauges his team's effort:
"Austin really played hard tonight. Before seeing it, you feel it. You feel how hard a kid is playing. And then if he's talking off the ball and he's animated, that's playing hard too. I thought Ryan [Kelly] did a good job too. I thought he played very hard. We played hard. We played fine tonight. We've just got to be more efficient. And we played against a different type of team with those two guards spreading you and driving you the whole time. We made good adjustments and held them to the low 60s. With a lot of guys playing, we just should have scored a few more points."

Duke Junior Ryan Kelly
"The way our team is built, we have a lot of talent and different guys can step up at different times. We certainly need that consistency from everyone, but you never know who's going to be really on in a specific game. I think that's a good part to our team - a lot of different games can certainly help us."

Duke Junior Andre Dawkins
On his shooting tonight:
"I've just been getting a lot of extra shots. I had been before that, but Saturday night [versus Bellarmine] things just didn't fall. I think that was because I didn't take the best shots. Tonight I had a better shot selection. That helped."

On his first half performance and getting the second-half start:
"I was just able to get a couple of open looks [in the first half] and knock them down. My teammates were looking for me, and Coach [Mike Krzyzewski] started me in the second half."

"I can't just be an offensive player. I have to be able to do things on defense too. That's what I've been working on. I've just been trying to throw myself into everything on both ends of the floor, and I think it's starting to pay off a bit."

"I don't know if 'role' is the correct word. I think everyone just has to come in and play as hard as they can. That's all Coach [Mike Krzyzewski] wants out of us. Our roles would show up just as we play. Coach wants us to be a team. He doesn't worry about who is scoring, as long as the team is scoring and the team is getting stops. I think if we can focus on that instead of each guy being like, 'What am I supposed to do?', I think we'll be better off that way."

Duke Junior Mason Plumlee
On coming close again to a double-double:
"I keep coming close. I have to get my rebounds. You know what the coaches say - you're allowed to be selfish about rebounds and free throws. I've got to do that."

"I think what's exciting about this team at this point is that we have a lot of guys that can put the ball in the hoop. I know the last couple of years, the majority of our scoring has been done by a couple of guys. But you become hard to guard when you have four, five, or six guys who can put up double digits every night. That's a big deal. That's what I'm looking forward to. I hope we're going in that direction."

Shaw Head Coach Cleo Hill, Jr.
Opening Statement:
"Defensively, we were strong...They imposed their size on us a little bit. We had to pay more attention than we would have liked to their post guys. Dawkins played well. He shot the ball well from the outside. I think that was the difference. They shot 53 percent because they were getting really good shots. We are proud of the effort. I am definitely proud of the effort."

On the backcourt:
"We think that our backcourt is one of the best in the country at any level. We are very pleased at what our perimeter guys can do, more offensively than defensively. Defensively, they are solid, but they are very good and quick off the dribble. It is what we wanted to focus on going in, penetrating moves to the basket or dump-offs like you said.

On how pleased he was with the team meshing:
"Well personnel-wise, we are a lot different than last year. Rahim Smith was a very good player and playing professionally right now. He is different than Malik in the combination of Tony and Rahim. It is different than Tony and Malik. This is Malik's first game. He did not have any scrimmages leading up to this game, so we are feeling our way through that right now in this first game. We are kind of feeling our way through that. We are pleased with how they played together. "

On being pleased overall with execution:
"Overall, I thought so. We wanted to really get out in transition. Duke is a very solid transition team. We were pleased in what we carried out. I just think in the end, size made a difference."

On what a game like this does with the confidence for the team:
"I think it will have a positive impact as soon as all of our players get on the court. We have a couple of players injured. I think knowing that we can play with a team with a history like Duke and lose by 14 will help them...I think this will prepare us. We can always go back during the season and kind of take a look at this game and say you are not going to play against anybody in our conference with the kind of size one through 15."

Players Mentioned

Andre Dawkins

Ryan Kelly

Mason Plumlee

Duke information