Coach K: People Overreacted to Losses

Duke's recent losses could have easily been wins, Coach K points out.

Duke opened the final week of the regular season with an 88-69 win over NC State, snapping a two-game losing streak and getting a win in a game that had some breathing room for the first time in over a week.

“That was a big win for us, obviously, after losing two one-possession games,” coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “I was telling Jay Bilas today that our league—there’s been so many one-possession wins and losses and you can’t overreact either way. A couple weekends ago we won a game that Carolina played better than us in, and we won by one-possession. Then we won by one-possession against Florida State. It could easily be two losses—just like the last two games we played could easily be two wins. So what happens at times people overreact and now everything is wrong, whereas, if you just won by one-possession—everything was right. It’s neither one.”

Duke has a young team that doesn’t have the finished, NBA-ready prospects of recent seasons, which means there will be setbacks.

“People say we’re developing,” Krzyzewski said. “We are developing. By the way, if you don’t continue to develop throughout the year, then it’s going to be sad for you. We have a lot of young guys. Tonight, they really played hard, and the fast break coming out of the zone was terrific. We won a big game.”

The zone was a defensive twist Coach K brought out to try to prevent NC State’s guards from getting into the lane. Krzyzewski said he’d planned on that heading into the contest.

“In my mind, I did,” he said. “We didn’t practice (it). We only had limited preparation for this game. When you play Saturday night in Charlottesville, and as hard as that game was you can’t do much on Sunday except walk through. What we walked through defensively, we did not do at the start of the game. Markell [Johnson] is magical with the ball screen. You cannot defend it alone. You have to defend it with five guys, and we weren’t doing it. The only thing we could do was try to keep them out of our paint—not just him, but the whole team, and that worked for us. The other thing it did, we rebounded well and it gave us a fast break. You can really fast break out of the zone. It also gave us the opportunity to play four perimeter guys, where you’re not matched up on two bigs.”

Krzyzewski also got a lift from some role players who aren’t usually at the top of the box score.

“Justin Robinson was terrific,” he said. “His two threes were amazing. And [Jordan] Goldwire. Those two kids gave us a boost.”