Tre Jones: We Began Preparing for FSU After Getting Off Bus From UNC

Duke had one day to prepare for FSU

Duke relied on some players who hadn’t had much playing time in recent games to beat Florida State on Monday.

“Someone else every single night is playing a big role for this team,” Tre Jones said. “Matt Hurt (12 points) tonight played huge for us, after a couple of games not being out there. We have different guys every single night. It doesn’t matter. I feel like our depth is really big for us. ,,, We did get contributions from everybody tonight, which was huge. It didn’t matter who was coming in off the bench tonight – they were bringing something. If it wasn’t hitting shots or things like that, they were fighting on the defensive end. We knew we needed everyone tonight. We kept talking like that, talking to one another, staying in each other’s heads that we needed one another because it was going to be a long and tough game.”

Duke was worn down after playing UNC on Saturday night, 48 hours before FSU.

“I personally think they were trying to wear me out throughout the game,” Jones said, “but I was trying to do a good job to keep my composure, knowing that it’ll be a long, tough game and trying to save some for the end.”

Duke was able to win both games in dogfights.

“I think that shows the mental toughness that this team has,” Jones said, “being able to put that game behind us Saturday night Coach [Mike Krzyzewski] said it right when we got off the bus here. We were happy, celebrating, but we got off the bus. Everyone was doing recovery in the cold tubs, things like that. We were all moving on to the next game. We came in Sunday, prepared, and everyone was in the right space. No one was on a high anymore, celebrating, messing around, giddy, and things like that. We all were focused on this game, knowing how big it was for us, how big of an ACC game it was. And I think it just shows the mental toughness that this team has.”