Coach K: It's a Long Journey
Coach Mike Krzyzewski was encouraged by the way Duke fought back after being down 15 in the first 10 minutes against Louisville, even if the end result was a loss.
“Our guys fought,” he said. “We wouldn’t be in the game if we didn’t fight like crazy. Jack White didn’t have a lot of points, but he’s fighting. Jordan Goldwire... Our kids did a really good job in those last 30 minutes. It’s a disappointing loss.”
Duke singled out Louisville leading scorer Jordan Nwora for attention on defense, making sure he didn’t beat them. Louisville coach Chris Mack said that opened things up for other players, but Coach K saw a different key to the game.
“You should have attention to Jordan Nwora,” Krzyzewski said. “But they had 15 points on turnovers. It was more of us turning it over than our attention to him. We weren’t strong enough with the ball, and they had runouts, where they had a numerical advantage on fast breaks, and I thought that hurt us more than an advantage. They probably made adjustments based on how we were guarding him to get other people shots. But we don’t turn the ball over, they’re not going to score 42 points in the first half.”
Louisville and Clemson were more experienced than Duke, which caused the Blue Devils problems.
“The last two teams we played... we just have to get older,” Krzyzewski said. “I’m really up on my team. It’s a long journey. I’ve never told you that we’re great. It’s a process for us, playing these two experienced teams, getting beat. We have to learn from it and move on. It’s a long journey.”
