Postgame Quotes - Duke 79, Wake Forest 71
2/29/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 29, 2012
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Postgame Quotes
Wake Forest 79, Duke 71
February 28, 2012
Joel Coliseum - Winston-Salem, N.C.
>Wake Forest Head Coach Jeff Bzdelik
Opening Comments...
"Yes, we certainly could have played better, especially to start the second half when I think Duke either scored or got fouled on nine out of the first 12 possessions. But let me say this--I am extremely proud of my basketball team, and the young men that we have on the basketball team in terms of their character, effort, desire and passion to do well. They're getting better, they're competing individually and collectively, they fought hard, like I said, yes, we need to play better, we're working on that. There's a lot of fight in them. I can't say enough about our seniors. Not only Nikita and Ty, but also Brooks, Ryan and Aaron. Every day they work hard to make our players who play better. They work hard to prepare our team for our opponents and they do so without any fanfare whatsoever. They represent Wake Forest in a great way and the community as well, so hats off to Ryan, Aaron, Brooks, Nikita and Ty. You can see Nikita battles. He plays his heart out and always had, so there's a tremendous amount of respect that I have for him."
On his decision to call timeouts early in the second half...
"I just think that we just needed to get down and defend, have some stops and go and we weren't doing that early on, I just about exhausted all of my timeouts in the first 3 minutes or so in the second half, but I had to. When the light went on and we got some stops, we got ourselves going. You need to get stops."
On the team's scheme for tonight's game...
"We had our schemes in place and we just needed to do it better, plain and simple. Defense is just a lot of getting down and dirty and being in proper position. There were certain times where we didn't close our properly and our positioning wasn't what it should be. We talked about that--that's it."
On team `fighting' throughout the season as seen in tonight's game...
"We've had other efforts like that. Like I said I'm just really proud of our players. It's not about moral victories. Please don't misunderstand me, it's just that they fought all the way."
On staying defensively assertive...
"We just haven't learned to defend with great intensity the way we do it, with passion and energy on every possession throughout the course of the year. In the Miami game, it was 44-43 in Miami in the second half, and they went on a 12-0 run. We just defensively didn't have everybody engaged."
On the team's progress this season...
"It's the journey, not the destination. I've been through this before. It's not easy, and they're going to follow my lead. Like I said, I need to encourage, motivate and teach, and we've got a talented group of young players, and we're not very deep and that catches up with us throughout the course of the game. We talk about these moments, and it's not because they don't want to. I think when you exhale and take possessions off, you can't do it at this level, especially in the ACC. You can't let your guard down. You exhale and you don't block off on time and you're a step out of position--you pay the price, you do, and lack of depth sometimes catches up with us. We have a great majority of our team coming back, invaluable experience, and a great recruiting class of 6 players to add depth. It's the journey that will take us to the destination that we want to get to."
Junior Guard C.J. Harris
On the fight of Wake Forest in the second half...
"We didn't want to give up, regardless of how far we were down. I'm really proud of our guys for not folding when we got down. It shows the heart that we have and how mature that we've become over the years."
On the lessons that the team can take away from this loss...
"If we play like we played in the stretches where we were dominating the game tonight and put a whole game together like that, we really showed how good we can be."
On the spark behind the team's comeback during the second half...
"Tony (Chennault) really picked his game up. He started getting into guys on the defensive end and scoring on the offensive end, and we just fed off his energy."
Sophomore Forward Travis McKie
On the changes that occurred during the second half for Wake Forest...
"We just fought. The crowd got into it, and I think we just really started fighting. If we lock down defensively and rebound, then we can compete with anybody, and that's what we showed tonight. When we cut the lead to six, I think if we had hit one more shot, we could have had a great chance to win the game but we came up short."
On the growth of the team after the previous two games...
"In the past, we would have just died. But I think we've learned from our mistakes in the past, and now we've continued to fight. We locked down defensively and we were close in the game. They (Duke) were very worried."
Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening Statement....
"Well I am proud of our guys. I think they came here with a good sense of purpose. We knew we came here to face a good Wake Forest team that was going to be ready to play and I think that Jeff and his staff have done a great job of keeping their heads up and they are coming off of their best performance. I thought we played well and we got the lead, and I thought we let up just a little bit and they never let up. They got like three and-ones, fast breaks and we were a little bit sloppy with the ball. It becomes a game where Mason Plumlee's three-point play was a huge play and Ryan Kelley's drive when they got it down to six a couple of times. Those two plays were key plays and I thought we handled the pressure at the end well and hit our free throws and didn't give up threes. Good win for us, it was our eighth road win. We talked about it as a team it's only the fourth time in ACC history that a team has gone 8-0 on the road. Three of our teams have done it, and we haven't done it since 2000. For these kids to go 8-0 on the road is really unbelievable."
Comments on teams in the ACC....
"In my 32 years here in the ACC I have found that the coaches and players love this conference. They love their schools, and there is a brotherhood among all ACC players and coaches over the years that I think is above anyone else's. That's why it's an honor for me to be a part of this conference. The moment I am going to tell you about is shaking hands with their team. The last guy I'm shaking hands with is (Nikita) Mescheriakov. I know it's his last game and he's got tears in his eyes. It just made me feel good and I spent a moment with him. Here is a kid, his team has got a losing record, and they are in a re-building program. Their staff must be doing something right for that kid to feel that way, in his last game. I just think it's one of the really beautiful things. I am so glad that kid could feel that way. I hope our guys feel that way."
Comments on Duke's performance all year long...
"I just think winning is important. I think people have graded our performance all year instead of grading our record. This team has done a great job. To be in position to play in such a big game Saturday is unbelievable for this team, it's unbelievable. We are 26-4, 13-2 in the conference, and people want to nitpick that you didn't play well for these four minutes and you only won by this, instead of saying they've did a great job. We hope that we can do that Saturday. To play in a game of that magnitude before the tournaments is huge. It is such a good opportunity. I think Carolina is the definitely the most talented team in the conference and maybe in the country. We had a heck of game with them in Chapel Hill and I hope we can play as well. I know they will play well because they are veterans and they are so well coached. They have so much talent especially in that starting five."
