Upcoming Event: Men's Basketball versus Countdown to Craziness on October 3, 2025 at 7 p.m.
/
7 p.m.
Men's Basketball
vs Countdown to Craziness
.png&width=24&height=24&type=webp)
Quotes: Duke 75, Elon 62
12/15/2014 11:27:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening Statement:
“I thought Elon played really hard against us. I think them coming off the Missouri game where they probably should have won it at the end, they keep building, they're getting better and better. Obviously I'm not satisfied with the way we played tonight. We didn't do hard things tonight. That comes from layoff, them playing hard, people telling us how good we are … We have four freshmen of nine guys. We've got a long way to go. We did not do hard things tonight. Hard things would be finishes. Hard things would be strong with the ball. Hard things would be to talk. Hard things would be to dive for loose balls. We didn't do those things, which is what we've been doing. And as a result, we have a real scattered performance. At times tonight we played great. We got the ball to Jah [Okafor]. He had an amazing game stat-wise. But we go 14-of-27 from the free throw line, 17 turnovers and 3-for-16 from three – obviously we're not sharp. That's what happens after exams, after a layoff and after you've played a great game because you're normal. And in order to be really good you can't be normal. Normal stays in the past and wants it easier after some great accomplishment. When you're not normal, you get hungry. We weren't able to pass that test tonight. We talked about it but human nature beat the hell out of us tonight. That's disappointing. The fact that we beat them, that's good. They're good. How we ended the game, a Duke team should never do that. We should never get a technical foul. Real young, we were real young tonight. That's not acceptable, how we ended that game.”
On whether rebounding has been more of a focus for Okafor:
“He's close to the bucket. He's just improving. For him to be at 20 rebounds, that's pretty darn good for anybody. Some of it, he got a number of offensive rebounds when they went to that 1-3-1. In the 1-3-1 you have a little guy on the baseline. We missed so many open shots. They're right there so no one's blocking out, and he went for the ball, which is great. He's got to hit his free throws because people are going to foul him. In a game like tonight, probably he gets two-thirds of the times he is fouled, which is great. I wish that happened every game. So then you have to punish people. The other thing is we didn't finish. They really are strong with their bodies, especially when they are around the bucket. So you can't take just regular shots, you have to power through and expect body contact right along the waist. That's what I mean about the tough things. You need to adjust. We didn't want to do those tough things tonight. Again, we were normal. Normal loses. Or they lose more than people who are not normal. If you want to be really good, you can't be normal.”
On whether Okafor's night softened the team's performance:
“That doesn't soften up anything. None whatsoever. In fact, it makes it worse because he covered up for a lot. It's like sweeping dirt under the rug – dirt's still there. He was a big rug. It's still sweeping dirt under there.”
On the challenge of getting a young team to stay intense through layoffs:
“It's tough with any team. Our season – college basketball – is built with interruptions. December is the biggest interruption – that's why you see all these so-called upsets. We gave our guys a sheet about 10 pictures of scores of games that you would say, 'They shouldn't have lost, they shouldn't have lost'. They all did. And a lot of it happens now because you don't have the discipline of that Tuesday, Saturday, Wednesday, Sunday, practice every day, school or whatever. You get out of whack. Our guys yesterday, the underclassmen have to move out of the dorms. So you move out of the dorms and into a hotel. It's different … In other words, there are a lot of different things that go in and you've got to be tougher. We talk about it and talk about it. We just weren't as good as we needed to be and as we're going to be and as we have been.”
On the leadership of the upperclassmen:
“They've been good. But the best way they can lead us is how they play. I didn't think they were sharp today. All of our upperclassmen have not been on a championship-level team. They've been on teams that have won 28 or 27, they've been on good teams. But they haven't won a championship. When you win a championship, that's different. And then you know the road and you can teach the road better. They're still learning the road too. I thought our team didn't play well. They didn't react well. That includes my upperclassmen. We didn't have the leadership. We didn't follow our game plan defensively to start out the game. Again, you get a little brain dead during this period. These first eight games our guys have been so good about following our game plan. And tonight we weren't.”
Duke Junior Amile Jefferson
“This is a group that's very different from last year's team, but sometimes we're young and we were a little young tonight. But we still had the fight – our guys still fought. We got up a little bit and they made big runs and they made big plays. They have good players. We fought the entire game, but we definitely have to get back to doing what we do to make us a really, really elite team.”
“Sometimes shots aren't going to fall, and we struggled from the three-point line tonight, and then I think having that 12-day layover, guys were really, really anxious to play. Even myself included, we kind of were making the play in our mind before we were making it physically. That kind of messed us up, travelling, ran into some charges, weren't sharing the ball as much. We'll get back to it in practice. I think these next couple of days are going to be really important for us as a unit to get better, to get back to our fundamentals and our principles of what make us a really good team.”
On what Duke has to do to turn around and prepare for the upcoming matchup against UConn:
“We have to have really good practices, starting tomorrow. [Tonight was] a really good win, and we beat a really good team, but after tomorrow it has to be in the back of our mind. Guys have to come tomorrow ready to work and ready to fight. We should have a really, really, really tough and really, really good practice tomorrow, and guys need to be ready for that. We've got to get mature as a team.”
Duke Junior Rasheed Sulaimon
“Elon was very physical, but it was just one of those games. We'll bounce back and we'll get ready for UConn on Thursday. We're not going to make any excuses. We didn't play to the level that we could've. There at the end, I lost my cool and that's unacceptable, regardless of what happened. We'll just be better and we'll correct all the mistakes that we had tonight.”
On the performance tonight by Jahlil Okafor:
“First of all, happy birthday to Jahlil. Second of all, it was a helluva performance. Through the ups and downs that we had collectively as a team tonight, he was our one bright and shining spot. He was consistent, rebounding the ball, scoring the ball, and just overall creating offense.”
On the upcoming matchup against UConn:
“UConn is, of course, the defending national champions. They have great players, a great coaching staff, and we're going to have to play a helluva lot better than we did tonight to go up there and compete against them. We'll be ready. We'll get back to it.”
Duke Freshman Jahlil Okafor
On whether it's hard to stay focused and sharp with an 12-day layoff since Duke's last game:
“It is tough but we were all excited to finally get a chance to go back out on the court. We were excited to come back to Cameron and play against some new competition. But it was hard to stay sharp, and we played sloppy today. Tomorrow in practice we're going to try to get better.”
“I wouldn't call it a wakeup call – we did win. But just overall, we're not happy with our performance and neither are the coaches. We just need to get back tomorrow and get back to work.”
“This is the worst we've felt all year after a win. I think this is the one game where we weren't happy with our performance, so we just have to bounce back tomorrow. We weren't there mentally. There were a lot of mental mistakes today, and we were just not playing the way we've been playing. But we'll get better and we'll get ready for UConn.”
When asked if he was at least pleased with his own performance:
“Actually, no I'm not. Just the feeling in the locker room right now, even though we won, we're all just not happy with our performance. We did win and I'm happy about that.”
Elon Head Coach Matt Matheny
Opening Statement:
“We reflected coming into the game on our experience last year playing against Duke in Greensboro Coliseum. Our players understood that in order to successful in any way, shape or form, we had to play with an aggression. I think we did that particularly in the second half. I love coaching our team. I think we have some really tough kids, some really competitive kids. We make a lot of mistakes. I think my hair is going to fall out. Our coaching staff is going to all turn gray because we make some of the silliest mistakes, but we keep fighting. I think that was reflective in the way that we played down the stretch in the second half. Duke's very, very good and probably a little rusty after the 12-day layoff. We wanted to be competitively tough and I thought we were for the better part of 40 minutes.”
On Jahlil Okafor:
“He's good. He's really good. They've had a lot of good players, a lot of great players. Been coaching for a long time, he's a guy that we didn't know whether to double right away, double on the dribble, or play him one-on-one. He's a very difficult matchup. He's very difficult to game plan for. We did everything we could to corral him and to be quick to our double. I thought we did it well at times, but the toughest thing is how big he is and for us to get rebounds.”
On his team's mistakes:
“I didn't think we started well. I thought in practice yesterday and in shootaround today and in the early part of the game we were a little … frightened's not the right word … we were a little frozen by the stage. We have a young team. It was interesting for me because we played here several times before and we played in big games, but Duke's different. It's just different. Cameron Indoor is different. I could tell in our preparation that we were a little frozen and I could see it in shootaround. I thought we made some mistakes like [Amile] Jefferson does a great job of hiding on the baseline and we lost him two or three times in the beginning of the game. Those are mistakes you can't make because they're so talented with the ability to score when you play good defense that when you lose guys, it makes it even more difficult to guard them.
On his team continuing to play hard:
“I think that comes from our players. In this short season already … it's amazing how quickly it's going by … we're down 19 to Morgan State and we came back and won game. We were down 19 at Missouri and came back and had a shot to win it. Tonight, we didn't start well. Duke has a tendency to bury teams. They've done it for years and done it this year. I told our players in the locker room after the game I think we're calcifying. I think there's a calcification developing. The credit goes to our players the way they thawed out.”
On Christian Hairston and Collin Luther:
“Christian, his play in the last three or four games has been sensational. He has improved. We had, I think, 18, 19 rebounds the other night offensively at Missouri. The way he's attacking the O-glass and the energy he's playing with, but the thing I like the most is he's technically right a lot. He's in the right place a lot. He's been our most improved player over the last three or four games. I mean, Collin Luther, we very rarely practice him in some of the situations we put him in in the game. It's unfortunate that we put him in some tough situations, but he's tough and he played pretty well in a little bit of time.”
Opening Statement:
“I thought Elon played really hard against us. I think them coming off the Missouri game where they probably should have won it at the end, they keep building, they're getting better and better. Obviously I'm not satisfied with the way we played tonight. We didn't do hard things tonight. That comes from layoff, them playing hard, people telling us how good we are … We have four freshmen of nine guys. We've got a long way to go. We did not do hard things tonight. Hard things would be finishes. Hard things would be strong with the ball. Hard things would be to talk. Hard things would be to dive for loose balls. We didn't do those things, which is what we've been doing. And as a result, we have a real scattered performance. At times tonight we played great. We got the ball to Jah [Okafor]. He had an amazing game stat-wise. But we go 14-of-27 from the free throw line, 17 turnovers and 3-for-16 from three – obviously we're not sharp. That's what happens after exams, after a layoff and after you've played a great game because you're normal. And in order to be really good you can't be normal. Normal stays in the past and wants it easier after some great accomplishment. When you're not normal, you get hungry. We weren't able to pass that test tonight. We talked about it but human nature beat the hell out of us tonight. That's disappointing. The fact that we beat them, that's good. They're good. How we ended the game, a Duke team should never do that. We should never get a technical foul. Real young, we were real young tonight. That's not acceptable, how we ended that game.”
On whether rebounding has been more of a focus for Okafor:
“He's close to the bucket. He's just improving. For him to be at 20 rebounds, that's pretty darn good for anybody. Some of it, he got a number of offensive rebounds when they went to that 1-3-1. In the 1-3-1 you have a little guy on the baseline. We missed so many open shots. They're right there so no one's blocking out, and he went for the ball, which is great. He's got to hit his free throws because people are going to foul him. In a game like tonight, probably he gets two-thirds of the times he is fouled, which is great. I wish that happened every game. So then you have to punish people. The other thing is we didn't finish. They really are strong with their bodies, especially when they are around the bucket. So you can't take just regular shots, you have to power through and expect body contact right along the waist. That's what I mean about the tough things. You need to adjust. We didn't want to do those tough things tonight. Again, we were normal. Normal loses. Or they lose more than people who are not normal. If you want to be really good, you can't be normal.”
On whether Okafor's night softened the team's performance:
“That doesn't soften up anything. None whatsoever. In fact, it makes it worse because he covered up for a lot. It's like sweeping dirt under the rug – dirt's still there. He was a big rug. It's still sweeping dirt under there.”
On the challenge of getting a young team to stay intense through layoffs:
“It's tough with any team. Our season – college basketball – is built with interruptions. December is the biggest interruption – that's why you see all these so-called upsets. We gave our guys a sheet about 10 pictures of scores of games that you would say, 'They shouldn't have lost, they shouldn't have lost'. They all did. And a lot of it happens now because you don't have the discipline of that Tuesday, Saturday, Wednesday, Sunday, practice every day, school or whatever. You get out of whack. Our guys yesterday, the underclassmen have to move out of the dorms. So you move out of the dorms and into a hotel. It's different … In other words, there are a lot of different things that go in and you've got to be tougher. We talk about it and talk about it. We just weren't as good as we needed to be and as we're going to be and as we have been.”
On the leadership of the upperclassmen:
“They've been good. But the best way they can lead us is how they play. I didn't think they were sharp today. All of our upperclassmen have not been on a championship-level team. They've been on teams that have won 28 or 27, they've been on good teams. But they haven't won a championship. When you win a championship, that's different. And then you know the road and you can teach the road better. They're still learning the road too. I thought our team didn't play well. They didn't react well. That includes my upperclassmen. We didn't have the leadership. We didn't follow our game plan defensively to start out the game. Again, you get a little brain dead during this period. These first eight games our guys have been so good about following our game plan. And tonight we weren't.”
Duke Junior Amile Jefferson
“This is a group that's very different from last year's team, but sometimes we're young and we were a little young tonight. But we still had the fight – our guys still fought. We got up a little bit and they made big runs and they made big plays. They have good players. We fought the entire game, but we definitely have to get back to doing what we do to make us a really, really elite team.”
“Sometimes shots aren't going to fall, and we struggled from the three-point line tonight, and then I think having that 12-day layover, guys were really, really anxious to play. Even myself included, we kind of were making the play in our mind before we were making it physically. That kind of messed us up, travelling, ran into some charges, weren't sharing the ball as much. We'll get back to it in practice. I think these next couple of days are going to be really important for us as a unit to get better, to get back to our fundamentals and our principles of what make us a really good team.”
On what Duke has to do to turn around and prepare for the upcoming matchup against UConn:
“We have to have really good practices, starting tomorrow. [Tonight was] a really good win, and we beat a really good team, but after tomorrow it has to be in the back of our mind. Guys have to come tomorrow ready to work and ready to fight. We should have a really, really, really tough and really, really good practice tomorrow, and guys need to be ready for that. We've got to get mature as a team.”
Duke Junior Rasheed Sulaimon
“Elon was very physical, but it was just one of those games. We'll bounce back and we'll get ready for UConn on Thursday. We're not going to make any excuses. We didn't play to the level that we could've. There at the end, I lost my cool and that's unacceptable, regardless of what happened. We'll just be better and we'll correct all the mistakes that we had tonight.”
On the performance tonight by Jahlil Okafor:
“First of all, happy birthday to Jahlil. Second of all, it was a helluva performance. Through the ups and downs that we had collectively as a team tonight, he was our one bright and shining spot. He was consistent, rebounding the ball, scoring the ball, and just overall creating offense.”
On the upcoming matchup against UConn:
“UConn is, of course, the defending national champions. They have great players, a great coaching staff, and we're going to have to play a helluva lot better than we did tonight to go up there and compete against them. We'll be ready. We'll get back to it.”
Duke Freshman Jahlil Okafor
On whether it's hard to stay focused and sharp with an 12-day layoff since Duke's last game:
“It is tough but we were all excited to finally get a chance to go back out on the court. We were excited to come back to Cameron and play against some new competition. But it was hard to stay sharp, and we played sloppy today. Tomorrow in practice we're going to try to get better.”
“I wouldn't call it a wakeup call – we did win. But just overall, we're not happy with our performance and neither are the coaches. We just need to get back tomorrow and get back to work.”
“This is the worst we've felt all year after a win. I think this is the one game where we weren't happy with our performance, so we just have to bounce back tomorrow. We weren't there mentally. There were a lot of mental mistakes today, and we were just not playing the way we've been playing. But we'll get better and we'll get ready for UConn.”
When asked if he was at least pleased with his own performance:
“Actually, no I'm not. Just the feeling in the locker room right now, even though we won, we're all just not happy with our performance. We did win and I'm happy about that.”
Elon Head Coach Matt Matheny
Opening Statement:
“We reflected coming into the game on our experience last year playing against Duke in Greensboro Coliseum. Our players understood that in order to successful in any way, shape or form, we had to play with an aggression. I think we did that particularly in the second half. I love coaching our team. I think we have some really tough kids, some really competitive kids. We make a lot of mistakes. I think my hair is going to fall out. Our coaching staff is going to all turn gray because we make some of the silliest mistakes, but we keep fighting. I think that was reflective in the way that we played down the stretch in the second half. Duke's very, very good and probably a little rusty after the 12-day layoff. We wanted to be competitively tough and I thought we were for the better part of 40 minutes.”
On Jahlil Okafor:
“He's good. He's really good. They've had a lot of good players, a lot of great players. Been coaching for a long time, he's a guy that we didn't know whether to double right away, double on the dribble, or play him one-on-one. He's a very difficult matchup. He's very difficult to game plan for. We did everything we could to corral him and to be quick to our double. I thought we did it well at times, but the toughest thing is how big he is and for us to get rebounds.”
On his team's mistakes:
“I didn't think we started well. I thought in practice yesterday and in shootaround today and in the early part of the game we were a little … frightened's not the right word … we were a little frozen by the stage. We have a young team. It was interesting for me because we played here several times before and we played in big games, but Duke's different. It's just different. Cameron Indoor is different. I could tell in our preparation that we were a little frozen and I could see it in shootaround. I thought we made some mistakes like [Amile] Jefferson does a great job of hiding on the baseline and we lost him two or three times in the beginning of the game. Those are mistakes you can't make because they're so talented with the ability to score when you play good defense that when you lose guys, it makes it even more difficult to guard them.
On his team continuing to play hard:
“I think that comes from our players. In this short season already … it's amazing how quickly it's going by … we're down 19 to Morgan State and we came back and won game. We were down 19 at Missouri and came back and had a shot to win it. Tonight, we didn't start well. Duke has a tendency to bury teams. They've done it for years and done it this year. I told our players in the locker room after the game I think we're calcifying. I think there's a calcification developing. The credit goes to our players the way they thawed out.”
On Christian Hairston and Collin Luther:
“Christian, his play in the last three or four games has been sensational. He has improved. We had, I think, 18, 19 rebounds the other night offensively at Missouri. The way he's attacking the O-glass and the energy he's playing with, but the thing I like the most is he's technically right a lot. He's in the right place a lot. He's been our most improved player over the last three or four games. I mean, Collin Luther, we very rarely practice him in some of the situations we put him in in the game. It's unfortunate that we put him in some tough situations, but he's tough and he played pretty well in a little bit of time.”
Players Mentioned
F
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's BasketballJon Scheyer Press Conference: Summer 2025
Tuesday, July 08
Duke vs Houston: Press Conference
Sunday, April 06
Duke vs Alabama: East Region Champions Press Conference
Wednesday, April 02
Duke vs Arizona: Duke Press Conference
Friday, March 28
