Duke Postgame quotes and interesting stat.

[DanesRGood]

I'll start with the stat that I thought was interesting about Tim Ambrose's performance. This is all from http://www.goduke.com/ :

 

Duke’s bench scored 48 points, the third-highest total of the season. Albany’s bench scored a Duke season high 39 points, including 24 from Tim Ambrose. Ambrose’s total marks just the 40th time in Duke history a player has scored 20 or more off the bench against the Blue Devils. His total is also a Duke opponent season high and he is just the second player to score 20 against the Blue Devils this season.

Here are some quotes from Coach K and Coach Brown:

 

Coach K:

 

“I thought our kids played well. Coach [Will] Brown is a good coach and he’s got a good program there. They run good stuff and they do a good job of fighting to get passes. They were adamant about running their offense and I thought they did a good job. For us, I think the effort was really good. We obviously shot well. I thought it was a physical game and when you’re away from that for a little over a week, you forget about that. I think it affects you a little bit on the free throw line, too. I thought Albany played hard the whole game they made it difficult for us to defend them. We just got those run and when you hit 15-of-26 threes, life is good. We miss Lance [Thomas]; he’s still very questionable for the game against Pitt but he’s coming along. He’s been an important guy for us.”

 

Coach Brown:

 

Opening Statement:

“We knew coming in here this was going to be a tall order for us. For us it’s all about matchups--- we’re not the quickest team. We’ve had issues turning the ball over this year. Our defense has been much better than what it was tonight and we knew if we turned the ball over against Duke they were going to get a lot of easy opportunities and they thrive off of those easy opportunities. We turned the ball over too many times early in the game--- we let them get in a rhythm. When you break down against Duke, especially this Duke team, they make you pay. They have so many guys that can put the ball in the basket. They’re bringing guys in off the bench that are getting 17 and 18 in [Taylor]King and [Jon] Scheyer. They just make you pay for every mistake. We were rattled a little bit by their pressure. I thought they did a very good job defending us. Watching film on this team I was very impressed. I know that Lance Thomas didn’t play but I thought that this was one of the deeper Duke teams that I have seen in recent years and if this team sticks together a little longer--- it might be this year--- there will be another national championship banner hanging up. They play the game the right way, they play with a purpose and they’re all very unselfish. I just wish they were a little kinder to us tonight.”

 

On whether they practice five-on-seven in practice to get ready for Duke’s pressure:

“We should have practiced 5-on-10. Not only is their pressure tremendous, they’re doing it with long, good-sized athletes. Outside of [Greg] Paulus, and Paulus is a decent size kid and he’s a tough kid--- he was a great football player in high school--- but when they put the young kid Nolan Smith in, he’s long. They’re all long, they’re strong, they’re quick. One of the things that’s a weakness of ours that I noticed about Duke that impressed me as well is communication. On both ends of the floor they do a tremendous job of communicating, talking to each other. It’s tough enough to get your team to talk defensively but they do it consistently on both ends and it’s quite impressive.”

 

On how hard it is to guard this Duke team when they can have four guys on the floor that are legitimate three-point shooting threats:

“Our biggest fear was that they weren’t going to play [brian] Zoubek much and they were going to play [Taylor] King and [Kyle] Singler up front and sure enough they played Zoubek decent minutes and he killed us. We knew we would have no answers if they played King and Singler up front. I’ve said and I’ll say it again--- Coach K[rzyzewski] probably doesn’t want to hear this--- Singler’s a first round draft pick right now. He’s impressive--- he can do everything out there. King--- I watched him on film get a rebound right under the basket and have a wide-open layup and I watched him--- some of you guys probably saw this--- dribble it out to the three-point line and all in one motion turn and shoot a fade-away and just start running back like he knew it was going in and sure enough it went in. I don’t know if it was Wisconsin or Michigan, but they just have so many weapons. And Zoubek’s really good, I just think the pace of the game--- the way they play--- is so fast it’s hard for him to keep up. But in a half court set, he’s got a great touch and he’s a big kid. So that’s why I said when they sub, there’s no let down, there’s no drop off and they play the same for 40 minutes--- they pressure you, they get in you--- and that’s the tough thing. Usually when you go 6 through 10 there’s a drop off at some point. Scheyer averaged double figures I think last year starting for them, now he’s coming off the bench. Just a good basketball team.”

[danefan]

I'm rooting for the Dukies the rest of the way!

 

While we got our a$$ handed to us, at least we can say we hung 70 on the Blue Devils. Not a bad thing.