KRZYZEWSKI: "We Were Not Competitive Tonight"
Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski met with the media following the Blue Devils’ 88-66 loss to NC State Wednesday night.
NOTE: Click the video in the player above to watch Krzyzewski’s press conference.
“They played great. It was a superb performance by them. They knew they needed it, and they got it. We were not competitive tonight, and in order to beat them tonight, we’d have to be extremely competitive. Sometimes, when you’ve eaten a lot, you don’t keep eating. Our kids have won 22 games and 12 conference games. You have to stay hungry while you’re winning at that level because we’re not a team at that level; we’ve just won that many games. Tonight, we were not competitive. That happens to a team. I like my team a lot. That was our worst game, but they made us look bad, too. They played great. [Devon] Daniels, right away from the start, was just such an aggressor. He had 14 or 16 points, 12 of them really early. With Markell Johnson, when he plays like that, they’re an elite team because he’s an elite guard. Their whole team played well. Their crowd was great. Congratulations to them. We didn’t give them a very good game, and that’s on all of us.”
“They were just at a different level of competitiveness. In order to take us out, we would have had to be in, so we weren’t in to be taken out. I’m not trying to be fun. It’s not like we were hunkering down and whatever. We were never there. That’s on all of us. I’ve been doing this a long time. This happens. It happens to good teams, and this time of the year, the conferences are playing against really good teams that need wins, and our team obviously felt tonight they didn’t need the win. This team was unbelievably hungry for their win, and they got it. They deserved it. Hopefully, we’ll be competitive on Saturday and then the rest of our games, but tonight we were not. They were at a high level. That’s on me. Even if we were there, they were an elite team tonight.”
“They listen. We’re not that good. We’re good, and we’ve accomplished very good. We don’t have the consistency of really good with every player. They listen, but they also have won. Of all the maladies you can have, winning would be the best one, but it’s still a malady. Tonight, it was a horrible sickness. They were really good. They ran their offense with such precision. They had great energy. I thought the crowd was great, but I thought they were greater than the crowd. They made the crowd even better. It was a superb performance by NC State.”
“The next two times, we didn’t run anything. I think we got back when we showed heart and some guts there, but we needed to put smarts with it. We used a lot to get there. They were not going to be denied tonight. They kept their foot on the pedal pretty hard which they should. Their guard play and perimeter play was outstanding. [D.J.] Funderburk got a lot of and-ones. They converted offense rebounds. We got offensive rebounds, and we didn’t convert them. It’s stuff like that which shows we weren’t at the level of competitiveness that they were at.”
“I was trying to win. There wasn’t a big plan in the sky. I was just trying to do what we’d done for the first 25 games where we’d won 22 of them. It wasn’t a strategy game. There are just some games that you’re involved in that’s not strategy. It’s not strategy.”
“I think we didn’t come in really ready to play. We missed some before where we were tired. I thought that our guys, especially in the first half, took the play that was just played into the next play. They were trying to make up for the play they didn’t make, and they hurried. We weren’t in sync. You have to have amnesia. Whatever just happened doesn’t make a bit of difference. It’s what’s happening, and we were at least a step behind tonight.”
“I don’t pay attention to anything like that. I don’t know my records anywhere. I know we’re 22-4, I know I’ve won over 1,100 games, and we’ve won five national titles. I know that crap, but I don’t even know the exact numbers. When you start paying attention to records at places and things like that, you lead a sad life. Not that you do, but that’s not going to be on my wall or anything.”
“[Kevin Keatts] was just saying that they were going to storm the court and just to be careful. They were great. They were all great. I wish we were and that we’d come to the dance a little bit better.”
“They were just playing hungrier and better than we were. This isn’t an Xbox game. This is a human being game. That Xbox thing doesn’t have human nature in it and all that. That’s why a lot of people play it. This game is about human nature and human beings. Sometimes, when you eat too much, you’re not as hungry. When you need something, you’re really hungry. When those two meet, a lot of times, the team that needs it the most kicks the other team’s butt. That’s what happened tonight."