Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski

On coming away with two ACC victories in the last three days:
“We’re really pleased with the win. To play two games in about 42 hours and come away two wins is not an easy thing to do, especially against two hungry teams like N.C. State and Miami.”

On how Duke overcame a shooting drought in the first half:
“The one thing that is never consistent is shooting. From the free throw line and near the basket, we must have missed half a dozen shots, including the last play of the first half. It’s very very frustrating and sometimes when you’re missing those, you get to the line and you want it even more, and I thought we put some pressure on ourselves. I thought our defense though was good enough to give us the lead though. I just told the guys at halftime ‘Don’t worry about offense. If you worry about offense, you’ll continue to miss shots. Worry about defense – that’s the consistent part of the game. Our defense might get us some offense.’ And it did. We got some fast breaks, and DeMarcus (Nelson) was sensational in the second half. Those three three-pointers by Kyle too were huge, and our kids were able to find him and get him the ball. That gave us the double-digit lead and that was the story of the game. And we were 16-of-19 from the foul line in the second half and hit our layups. I’m proud of the win and another ACC victory.”

On the team’s improvement in the second half:
“There weren’t that many wrongs in the first half – wrongs being missed free throws and missed layups.  If you get to the line that much and if you miss that many shots inside, you’re doing good stuff. I wanted to get that across to them. I actually thought that was the best first half we’ve played in the last three games, it just didn’t show in the score. At halftime, instead of doing a lot of yelling and screaming, I told them to settle down and keep playing hard. When a team’s not shooting well, you don’t yell at them. When they’re not playing defense, you do a little more of that.”

On the difference in the defensive performance between the first and second half:
“Our defense didn’t force live turnovers in the first half. In the second half, it did. Overall, I thought we played really well. I thought they played well. Both teams were in foul trouble, so both teams had to have a lot of different guys in there. I thought Dave and Taylor really helped us a lot. Both of them had really good minutes for us.”

On how Duke is able to consistently match opponents in rebounding:
“We know who we are. Bobby Hurley didn’t have to rebound defensively very much, but Greg Paulus and Nolan Smith do. It’s just a matter of need. The last two ballgames, we’ve outrebounded our opponents and that’s good. We kind of have to hold the fort in that stat. If we can be around even, maybe we can beat them in the other areas.”

On the play of senior DeMarcus Nelson:
“This kid’s having one of the best years of any of the seniors I’ve coached. He hasn’t had a bad game, and in the conference, they’ve all been great games – not just good ones. I’m using him everywhere, offense and defense. He’s been a rock. There’s no more valuable player for us than him. It’s not even close.”

Senior DeMarcus Nelson

“In the first half, we left a lot of points on the board.  We missed about probably six or seven layups and about 12 free throws.  So our offense was moving well and we were getting great looks and great shots.  We just didn’t convert well.  Our defense was good.  We held them to, I think, 31 points in the first half.  In the second half we wanted to come out and continue to do the things we were doing defensively and just play a little bit looser on offense.  I think we were putting too much pressure on each and every shot.  That’s what Coach [Mike Krzyzewski] stressed to us at halftime – just to go out there and take our shots.  Make or miss, just take the shots because those are the shots we practice everyday.  And defensively just continue to be tough.”

On his start to the second half:
“[I was] just going out there and trying to set the tone for us offensively and get guys going.  I missed some easy shots myself in the first half.  It was just the flow of the game where I was able to get some good looks. My teammates found me in transition and just turned some defense into offense.”

“They came out in a zone.  We knew that they could go zone, but we didn’t think they’d start in it.  I think that in itself might have slowed us down a little bit and kept us out of transition a little bit.  Our job was to just try to force tempo a bit and turn our defense into offense.”

Freshman Kyle Singler

“It was very exciting.  We came out [strong] in the second half – seems like that’s kind of been our M.O.  It was a good start to the second half, kind of put them down, and we just sustained that for the rest of the 20 minutes.”

“A lot of people say we’re not really big or don’t have a big man, but for some reason sometimes we do out-rebound teams.  It’s one of the pluses.  At the end of the game, if we find ourselves out-rebounding teams, it’s definitely a plus.  That’s something special about our team – mostly our guards get the rebounds, so we’re just out there trying to get a piece of our man and wherever the ball goes, it’s a fight for position and go grab that ball.”

“Definitely on both sides of the ball there wasn’t really any dirty play.  When it comes down to it, we’re just college kids playing a game that we love.”

“We’re definitely playing good basketball right now.  We can’t get over the top of ourselves though.  We just have to keep doing the same things that we’ve been doing, practicing hard in practice and we have to stay humble.”

Junior Greg Paulus

“We’ve had a couple different situations, like Maui, and then we’ve had a couple games where it’s been two games in three days, so hopefully this situation can happen sometime – hopefully we can advance far enough.  But we’re not even thinking about that right now.  We’re just trying to take care of business and that’s what we did.”

On Jack McClinton:
“We tried to make him work.  He’s such a great shooter and he’s got such deep range that it feels like a couple of steps inside half court you have to guard him.  We just wanted to make him work and try to run different guys at him because he’s one of those guys who can get 10 straight points in a couple of possessions and completely turn around a game.”

Miami Coach Frank Haith

Opening Statement:
“I was really proud of how hard our kids fought—I thought we competed for the whole game. The first half defensively we were really good. For the most part I thought we were really good the whole game. Duke made some threes in transition that we gave up but for the most part I was really proud of how hard we played. The only thing that really I thought hurt us particularly in the first half was their ability to offensive rebound and our inability to rebound the basketball. I thought that was the difference in the first half. You play a team like Duke—a great basketball team—those are things you can not allow. I thought that hurt us but like I said I was really proud of how hard our kids competed.”

On Duke’s rebounding ability and how they outrebounded Miami 41-36:
“Sometimes rebounding isn’t all about height. I know the past couple of years, we weren’t particularly big – we played with three guards – but we were one of the better rebounding teams in the league. It’s about determination and going after loose balls, and they got a lot of loose rebounds. They shot a lot of threes too, and when you shoot a lot of threes, a lot of those are long rebounds. When that happens, you have to stay with your block-out and we were in zone, so we didn’t block great, or as good as we should have.”