Jan. 31, 2004
Recap?|? Final Stats
– Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski
“Just a terrific basketball game. I’m not sure you could find two teams playing harder against one another. We feel very fortunate to have won. I really thought a big part of the game was Duhon’s presence when everything was kinda crazy there in the first half and Georgia Tech got into a great start and we were turning the ball over and they were getting past us and then all the disruption that occurred. I thought Duhon did a great job of just keeping us together and then the individual kids played very well. They had to because the Georgia Tech kids were playing really well. Sheldon and Shav were big and that was Luol’s best game. For a freshman to do that and get a double-double here was sensational. I thought Ewing’s three pointer when it was 72-70 was one of the big shots of the game. They tried to wear us down with their subs, and we were tired and that shot kinda lifted us up and then down the stretch we were able to execute a few things and play good defense and we won. We feel fortunate to win, I think we earned it, but Georgia Tech could have sat here and said they won and that they earned it. Both teams played with good efforts, but I’m proud of my team for coming up with the victory today.”
On the play of Schenscher: “From the tapes that I’ve watched, I thought today he was the best. Today he finished plays and he was a defensive presence there. When he was out of the game, it helped us because he was playing so well. He’s the last kid that I shook hands with and I told him, ‘Son you played a great game today’. He was really good.”
On the defensive pressure on J.J. Reddick: “Well, he sat 14 minutes in the first half, that was the best defense against him. What you have to understand is that JJ doesn’t have to score points to produce points for us. When he comes off of things, we’re not only looking for him, we’re looking for two people to be on him and somebody else open. A couple of the dunks that we had were as a result of him looking for the open person. I think Georgia Tech’s a very good defensive team – they forced us into 21 minutes and I think they did a good job on JJ, but keep in mind this is also the least amount of minutes that JJ has played in a game this season.”
Georgia Tech head coach Paul Hewitt
“I thought our crowd gave us a really good lift. Our students were great and we had a loud building. They gave us a really big lift at the beginning of the game. I just wish we could have given them more at the end. In my mind it was simply a case of having a lot of opportunities that we didn’t cash in on, and then they took advantage of that. In the second half, I thought we did a much, much better job on the boards. We got back to doing the things on the glass that we know we are capable of. Offensively, we moved the ball pretty well and got good looks, mostly off the dribble, but we just didn’t make enough of the opportunities that we had around the basket. I thought Luke played tremendous, and Jarrett and Will played well. We just didn’t have enough at the end to pull away.
[Incident in first half] “I don’t know. I think it’s one of those things where had we gone on a run, people would have said that it sparked us, and if they go one a run, it sparks them. I’m not sure what effect that had. What I saw is that they made some shots and we didn’t make some shots. We had a lot of looks in the first half. We had a lot of looks around the basket. But give them credit. They’re an excellent shot-blocking team. You’ve got to give them credit for playing good defense.
[On Bynum] “He’s a competitor. And he’s a guy that when things bog down, he can create scoring opportunities. I thought he did a good job of that tonight.
