Tre Jones: "I Let My Team Down"

Point guard takes blame for loss

Tre Jones scored 12 points with seven assists in Duke’s loss to Louisville. He also had three steals and drew four fouls as he attempted to drive the ball down the lane in an extremely physical ACC game. Jones said the rough play was one of the keys to Duke’s slow start.

“How they were guarding but also the physicality for sure,” Jones said. “It was a physical game. The refs were letting us play. There’s nothing wrong with that. It was just that we took too long to adjust to it. For myself, being the leader of this team, I let my team down.”

Jones had four of Duke’s 16 turnovers as the Louisville defense was active trying to strip the ball from players in the paint.

Duke has now lost two in a row after winning its first five ACC games. Jones said the team needs to look ahead to the home game with Miami on Tuesday night.

“Next game,” he said. “We’ve just got to move forward, learn from this game, see what we need to do and then prepare for Miami.”

Duke rallied from a 15-point deficit to tie but couldn’t finish the comeback, unlike last year’s win in Louisville after trailing by 23. Jones didn’t think last year’s experience helped the team’s attempt to dig out of another deep hole.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s a completely different year, different team, different players. This is completely different. This year, we were just trying to figure out what to do to come back. We knew it’s a long game. There’s many possessions in the game. If we’re able to take it one possession at a time we’d be able to get back in the game. Once we got there, we slipped up on defense, gave them a couple good looks, and they took advantage.”