Cassius Stanley: When Coach Gives You the Talk, You Turn It Around
Duke responded to its loss at NC State with a focused effort against Virginia Tech on Saturday night. While the feedback from the loss to the Wolfpack wasn’t pretty, Cassius Stanley said that the coaches didn’t tell the team anything they didn’t already know.
“We already knew that was unacceptable,” Stanley said of Duke’s effort in Raleigh on Wednesday. “When Coach (Mike Krzyzewski) gives you the talk that he did, there’s no other way but to turn it around. We all saw it. We all knew we had to change up, because that’s not who we are.”
Stanley led the way in Duke’s win over the Hokies, hitting two early three pointers to help the Blue Devils build a big early lead. Stanley finished with a team-high 21 points and hit five of seven shots from three. He said the attention Virginia Tech devoted to Duke center Vernon Carey helped him get good looks from outside. Carey finished with 16 points and nine rebounds despite being the focus of the defensive attention from the Hokies.
“We knew from the first time we played them that they were going to give us open shots, that they were going to leave us open to double or triple Vernon, so it was kind of go into the game with the mindset of we’re going to catch it and shoot it and make it to keep them honest on the defensive end.”
Stanley had made just 5 of his last 22 threes and 6 of his last 29 heading into the game.
“I was just putting in work,” he said. “I put in more work, got some more reps in the past couple days, and I guess it worked.”
