Coach K on Duke's Defense: We Couldn't Stop Them

Duke was able to mount a first-half rally at Miami when the Blue Devils switched to a zone defense. The Hurricanes struggled to adjust, and Duke seized the lead, although a Miami rally in the second half sent the Blue Devils to an upset loss.

“We couldn't stop them,” Mike Krzyzewski said of the reasons behind switching to zone. “Our man-to-man was horrible. The zone really was effective. We got the lead and we probably should've been up four or six points. That petered out in the second half because we weren't playing it with the aggressiveness that we need to play. It didn't matter what we played, we didn't play it well, but the zone helped us for a little bit."

Duke came out flat in the game and struggled with its intensity much of the night. Coach K was asked if the loss showed some of the same issues as ones earlier in the season.

"It is similar, but we're also older,” he said. “At that time, they had not won like that. Lessons to learn. The best teacher is experience in anything, and you have to learn from your experiences. Yeah, we brought that up like don't be happy, be hungry. I told them, we do the job, be happy on Tuesday. Just take Tuesday and be really happy and giddy. So none of that worked. None of that worked. Again, that's on me and I'm not just saying that. It is on me to get your message across. I was not able to get my message across.”

Down the stretch, Duke hit shots, but the Blue Devils couldn’t stop Miami from scoring.

"They just executed their stuff better,” Krzyzewski said. “They're good. They got older guys and [Isaiah] Wong and [Kameron] McGusty are two of the better players in the league. Not so much X’s and O’s. They beat whatever we were trying to do. A couple times when you get a one-possession lead, if you are really fighting this game, you get a stop. We did not get stops and a couple times just gave them the ball, where they got something free. That helps.”