March 17, 2012
DUKE QUOTES
Saturday, March 17, 2012
HEAD COACH JOANNE P. McCALLIE
Opening statement…
“We are just so excited to play. We really enjoyed our practices coming up to this game and the hospitality has here has just been tremendous. Vanderbilt has been an absolute terrific host site. They have taken great care of us already and we haven’t even been here that long. So, we’re just excited to just play and are ready to go.”
On coaching on Vanderbilt’s unique court…
“I think my own personal comfort is there having my experience as an assistant at Auburn and then of course, coaching at Duke. I am not really sure if that matters much. You always say, any place, any where, any time, under any condition, you want to compete at the highest level. I think that’s really fun to see if our team can measure up to that given that’s what we say all year any way. I guess more motivation if there could be more.”
On how the ACC tournament performance helps leading into the NCAA tourney…
“When you talk about the performance in the ACC tournament, you have to go back to the weekend before. We were playing Miami at home and traveling to North Carolina and closing out the regular season title. I think we did an incredible job doing that but I think we had a hard job restarting in terms of our energy. I want to say I am incredibly proud of this team with such low numbers to win the regular season outright was huge but the difficulty was the tournament comes quiet quickly you know. I don’t think fundamentally we were just completely ready to play. Not because we didn’t respect the opponent but what I think what we had gone through. I think it kind of cashed in on us relative to a few items not to mention the team we played heartfelt and all those things.
To get to your question, it’s a great lesson. Obviously one we hope to never forget because we had those four straight championship appearances and perhaps you can take that for granted. You assume just because you put that jersey on that’s where you are going to be and that’s not at all the case under any circumstances. I think it was very hard, very difficult. We went and practiced at the same time we would have played had we played through. We had some pretty ferocious practices to finish and then we had a small four day break after that. You have to remember the average age of our team is 19 years old and probably our two most formidable players are a freshman and a sophomore. We are very, very young and then on top of that we had adversity beyond measure relative to some of the things that had occurred with injuries and otherwise. So there has been extraordinary number of seasons for us. This is another new season for us but we have had a lot of new seasons.”
On keeping a young high-seeded team motivated…
“Well we don’t care about seeds. We don’t talk about numbers. None of that means anything really. I know they have to use the numbers to seed the tournament but as soon as that is accomplished, there you go. If we haven’t learned that lesson, we are not very bright. Going off our ACC experience, we have had some hard lessons already and we just know when you play, just come ready to play. The urgency piece are huge.”
On Duke’s strengths…
“The balance.We have a lot of different people that can put up the points if we are focused. We have great quickness down the floor particular in the post. I’m looking at Chelsea (Gray) connecting with Elizabeth (Williams) quiet frequently. We can be an incredible rebounding team but we have also been an average rebounding team so we have kind of gone back and forth there a little bit. Defensively, there are a lot of things we can do but most importantly ball pressure will be important against a great Stanford team.”
On Sanford’s strengths…
“They’re tremendous three point shooting team. I don’t think I have ever seen a team shoot so many threes from so many spots on the floor with so many different players at some many different times. They are extremely well coached. They have great tournament experience. I am concerned about their bench players. They are like starters especially 4 and 20. They play well together and use the clock well.”
On using Duke’s men yesterday’s loss as a motivation…
“Really I don’t want to talk about it. It just really hurts. I don’t know what to say. You don’t use it, I think that is inappropriate. I don’t use it but it really hurts. I guess what does hurt do? Hurt motivates usually. We all know and saw what happen and that’s all we need to know.”
On this season’s adversities…
“It’s an interesting group. We have nine, eight scholarship players and a walk-on player. We started the season with twelve.”
DUKE PLAYERS
Chelsea Gray
On the length of time since their last game and the effect of that…
“It’s been about a couple of weeks. We just have to come out there with the mindset that we had before we left for break and tighten up any loose ends that we had during that practice time. It’s been awhile, but we are excited to get back on the floor.”
Shay Selby
On the length of time since their last game and the effect of that…
“It has been a little while. We are not used to getting this long of a time between games. I think during the season we had two days off at most before the next game. I think we can say that these two weeks have been some of the best practices that we have had this season. Everyone has been going hard, everyone is focused, and everybody is in the right mindset to go out there and do what we need to do.”
On the strengths of Samford…
“We know we are going to have a hard time contesting. They have five people that can shoot at any time. I don’t think that we have had to deal with any teams that have done that, run a five-out. I think it’s going to be interesting to see how well we can do contesting the three-point shot.”
On the unusual setup of Memorial Gym…
“It’s a little odd. We have seen it on TV. We had a scrimmage the other day and coach had us set up our bench at the baseline as opposed to the sideline to get used that. I think the key for us in going to be communicating on the floor because we are not always going to be able to see or hear Coach P (Joanne P. McCallie). I think communication is definitely going to be key for this venue.”
Haley Peters
On if the extended time off will affect their timing…
“I think practices have been competitive and we have been playing a lot of two-on-two and three-on-three, kind of emulating games and in-game situations, so that has been helpful. I think they have been some of the most competitive practices that we have had all year. We won’t know until tomorrow if it has affected us at all, but I don’t think it has at all.”