With a UNC win and a win by Florida State Duke needed a win at home to keep pace, and with the last two conference home games being losses, nothing was certain. Expected after the extreme high of the Carolina last second win was a bit of a let down for the Devils, and the first half provided that a bit with MD taking the early lead on Dukes home floor. The culprits for Dukes slow start were turnovers and shot selection. It allowed MD a bit of a cushion as the Devils made their run to even the score before eventually taking the lead at the half 32-29.
Duke, in the second half began to assert itself on the glass finishing with a rebounding advantage of48-33. Miles and Mason Plumlee were the BIG reasons behind the advantage with Mason pulling down 10 rebounds and Miles Plumlee a career high with 22 rebounds. Along with his 22 boards Miles Plumlee scored 13 points, Mason was second on the team in scoring with 16. Mason was also able to shoot 60% from the free throw line going 6 out of 10.
Austin Rivers, despite only having 11 points in the game was aggressive from start to finish, Rivers also was able to find his teammates to the tune of 4 assists. Offensively the story for the Devils was Seth Curry who seems to have broken out of his mini-slump. Seth scored 19 on a variety of shots. Curry was 3 of 6 from 3point range and 7 of 15 overall, and kept the Devils scoring at a steady clip.
Defensively Duke is still not doing themselves any favors, MD was able to keep the game close mostly due to easy buckets in the lane, and mental mistakes by the Devils. Once again, however, Duke was able to dominate other facets of the game in order to keep the lead and put enough offensive pressure on the Terps to maintain the advantage.
Maryland was without sophomore guard Pe’Shon Howard who Thursday tore his ACL in practice leaving Maryland short its best ball handler. It was a valiant effort by the Terps who had to platoon the responsibilities between leading scorer Terrell Stoglin and Nick Faust. Stoglin had an off shooting night going 4 for 16 with 2 turnovers and Faust while shooting 50% and scoring 15 points had 4 turnovers and 1 assist.
QUOTES:
Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening Statements:
“We are very pleased with beating a very hungry and determined Maryland team. They had a setback obviously with [Pe’Shon] Howard going down and Mark [Turgeon] is a terrific coach and his kids played us so hard up there that we knew they’d be ready for us. I thought they played really well defensively against us in the first 10 minutes, actually throughout the first half. In the second half we started running some things with more efficiency. In the second half, the story is more rebounds and no turnovers. We had eight turnovers in the first half and only one in the second half. We did a great job on the board and Miles [Plumlee] was fabulous. That’s the most rebounds any player has ever had that I have coached in 37 years in a ball game, and I told Miles, I have coached some pretty good players. He ends up diving for the ball, and I think for the first time in his life when he dove he threw the ball to his own team, so he was on a roll, literally and figuratively. To get 22 rebounds in a basketball game is phenomenal, just phenomenal. Mason [Plumlee] got 10, so the Plumlees have 32 rebounds, and that was the difference in the ball game. I thought Seth [Curry] really came through for us in tough situations. When they got it down to four, we called a time-out and called a set up where he would get a shot off or fouled. He hit both free throws. A big week for us to come back after that huge game in Chapel Hill on Wednesday, the crowd was great and packed and to get these two wins is terrific for our team.”
On watching film:
“What we did was try to show them two things, one was getting over something big so we showed them a little tape of UNLV in ’91, where to me, one of the biggest things in my career is that team not only winning the national championship but winning the national championship after our fans thought we had already won it by beating Vegas and cutting their streak. I think that’s what separates people. A lot of people overcome adversity a little bit, but overcoming a big event is huge, it’s tough. In order to be a champion and be exceptional, you have to go onto the next thing. While we did that, we showed what that team two years ago did on this weekend against Maryland which kinda pushed us in a really good direction where a youngster went from being good to being great. I’m not going to put that on Miles but he was great today. I don’t know if he can keep doing that, but the fact that he’s done it is a nice turn, it’s not like he’s played poorly, he’s done a really good job, just like Brian had done a good job and from that day on Zoubek was great and we won a national championship. I would like to think we could take a step up after these two games.”
On week’s transition:
“I don’t know if our team was feeling too much pressure playing at home felt that today, initially, they wanted it too much and they were into themselves a little bit more than being on outward and we finally kinda got outward. It was easy to do Wednesday on the road in front of 25,000 people against you and you have to be together and you have to talk or you’re going to get annihilated. We used a little different approach for that game than we did for this one. We’ll continue to try and use approaches as we go forward. They are two big wins. We got our eighth conference win and getting conference wins is the most important thing.”
On Austin Rivers:
“I thought his defense and rebounding were there. He wasn’t as sharp offensively, when you go 6-for-10 from three, we’ll show him, but he had a huge three. That was one of the bigger shots of the games because they were coming back. I talked to him briefly after the game and just said you played well defensively and rebounding wise. It’s really difficult to come back after doing that and the whole world is talking about your shot.”
On Rivers’ role:
“Yeah, real comfortable, I think the guys love him and we have grown greatly as a unit. They are really for him. Our team is close. He’s not a freshman anymore, it’s not like we have babied him. We’ve been really tough with Austin and he’s responded all the time and his teammates see that. You can’t give a kid the respect of his teammates, you have to earn the respect of your teammates which I think Austin has done that. We, as coaches, we have to give kids the opportunity to do so by coaching them hard.”
On Tyler Thornton:
“Tyler, in these two games has been terrific. He’s very mature as a sophomore and very comfortable in his role. He’s got good discipline. He’s our toughest kid. He’s a Duke Basketball player. Our former players love Tyler.”
Duke Senior Miles Plumlee
“I know I have the potential to be a great asset to this team. I just have to be consistent and play strong every night, and that’s something I can do.”
“Once I knew where I was, I was trying to get every single [rebound]. It wasn’t just me though. We stayed on that end of the floor for two minutes or something with the offensive boards, so the fact that everyone was rebounding with such intensity, it really sealed the game for us.”
“We played with energy, we played hard, and when we do that, we’re going to play good on defense and on offense. It just showed up in the little things – we got loose balls, offensive boards, and just kind of put the game away.”
Duke Junior Seth Curry
“When our big men are scoring in the paint, they get a lot of attention and they kick out, and [we] get some good shots. Miles [Plumlee] did a good job on the boards, getting put-backs and second shots for us. We just played a good team game today.”
“We were just being efficient with the ball. We weren’t making too many risky plays. We just took what the defense gave us, and we were getting good shots. And when we got good shots and we missed, most of the time we got offensive rebounds so that was huge.”
On following up the win over North Carolina with another win today:
“Coach told us to be a mature team and not let one win lead to a loss. We tried to move on fast from [the victory over North Carolina], and I felt like we came out ready to play and did what it took to win.”
On the performance by Miles Plumlee:
“He did a great job. He got himself put-backs and got us second and third shots. We took good shots, for the most part, and he was able to get on the other side of the glass and get rebounds. That’s what happens when you run your offense well.”
Duke Junior Ryan Kelly
On Miles Plumlee’s 22-rebound performance:
“He went hard at every ball, and when you do that you’re going to come up with a lot of them, especially with the type of body he is physically. It’s an amazing accomplishment.”
On following up the win over North Carolina with another win today:
“It’s big, but in general it shows some maturity on our part, after a huge game, to come back. Obviously we knew this was a huge game too, and to protect our home court the way we did against a really good team, it shows that we’re growing.”
On what this win means for Duke going forward:
“It’s something we can look at moving forward and say we did some really good things.”
Maryland Head Coach Mark Turgeon
Opening Statements:
“I think it is pretty obvious. You don’t need me to come up here and tell you why Duke won the game. The Plumlee brothers were dominant. Their big guys kicked our big guys’ tails all day. I don’t know how many rebounds we got in the second half. Especially free throws, I felt like we weren’t getting any. It is something we talk about every day. I’m not used to getting my tail kicked on the boards. But with that said, our defense was really good. In the first half, our defense was really great. Our game plan was good. They missed some open scores to help, but we were right there, 53-49. We just didn’t finish the game. I hate how we do this. The score didn’t really indicate how close the game was, but we are adjusting. I thought Nick [Faust] played well. We lost our point guard. We knew for sure on Friday. It was a quick turnaround playing at Duke. I thought Nick played well. I thought Mychal Parker played well. Some encouraging things out there, but bottom line is Duke’s big guys were just a lot better than ours today.”
On Terrell Stoglin’s performance:
“Well, they just weren’t going to let Terrell beat them. That’s the reason [Coach K] has won 900-something games. He is no dummy. They weren’t going to let Terrell beat them, and he can’t handle it. Then, we get frustrated because he throws out of the double team, and guys aren’t making plays. So he gets frustrated. His shot selection wasn’t great. It was hurting us. We cut it to four without him, so we took him out. We’ve got to learn from it. We can’t shoot shots like that and be a good team on the road, but he has carried us. He has carried us. So, it is just one game. Hopefully we will learn from it and be better on Thursday.”
On shooting 1-for-14 from behind the arc:
“With our team, it is just so up and down. We’ve had our best game – Clemson. It could be who we are playing to if we are pretty good. I thought we settled for too many jump shots to be honest with you. We were in the one-and-one early in the second half. We were nine to five on team fouls, and they were in the double bonus before we were in the double bonus. We just settled for bad shots instead of driving the ball. I though we shot too many of them to be honest with you, but this is two games in a row where the team has shot about 15 or 16 more shots than we have. Just rebounding and hustle plays.”
On how exactly Pe’Shon Howards’ injury came about and if today’s game was a reflection on the importance of a point guard:
“Yeah, how did he get hurt? He was just spinning and dribbling. He spun and went down not in contact. It wasn’t like he was jumping or anything like that. I don’t know how we are going to do point guard to be honest with you. We are going to try Terrell, and hopefully, he can do a better job. I don’t want to play Nick there, but Nick was pretty good tonight. I tried Arnold [Richmond] for a minute. Arnold plays point guard every day in practice, so he has a feel. We couldn’t even run a play. Terrell will defend most of the two. So we couldn’t even run a play. It was tough. It was tough out there. It was amazing how we sort of grinded and stuck around out there until we couldn’t get a rebound.”
On Nick Faust’s performance:
“I thought Nick was very good. I thought he took on a challenge defensively. He made a couple of mistakes. Our big guys had something to do with that too. I thought he was good. He drove the ball. Passed the ball pretty well. I think he had one assist and four turnovers. I thought he was pretty good to be honest with you. There were some good things out there that happened tonight that hopefully we can learn from it and get better.”
