March 10, 2002

Recap | Box Score

2002 ACC Tournament on TheACC.com | All-ACCess

Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening statement: "We played so well today. To play so well in a championship game is very gratifying to me as their coach. I knew before the game that they were going to play really well. They had gotten themselves up for the game. When I went into my pre-game talk I said I better not say too much. I love that because that is the maturity that has developed over the lat couple of weeks. We are playing very well right now. I think we had a little bit of an advantage today. State is so good. To beat Maryland... Maryland is so good. They are our regular-season champions and they are as good as any team in the country. They could win the whole thing. N.C. State came up with an amazing effort yesterday to beat them. That had to knock something out of them. It reminded me a little bit of my 1984 team when we beat Carolina who was undefeated and then we had to play Maryland. We just didn't have it in the second half. I thought they (N.C. State) got a little tired. They are a terrific basketball team."

On Mike Dunleavy's performance late in the first half: "Mike actually said get me the ball. I love when a player says that. He hit one and said get me the ball. So we called a couple of more things for him. That was probably the key part of the game. Any of these guys will do that. Jason will do that. Carlos will not do it as much, but he probably thinks it should be obvious."

On winning another ACC Championship: "Each one is incredibly important. Each one puts a banner in Cameron. Each one has a different heart of its own. I think when you get out of it or you are on the beach on the summer you look back. I really enjoyed watching my team play today. When kids have fun and make daring plays in championship games I love that. You can't coach that. That comes from them.

Carlos Boozer
On incentive to play as well as he did today: "I think right now we want to concentrate on how Duke is playing. We want to be the best we can be at every moment. We are still getting better right now. People are coming off the bench and playing well. It is exciting for us right now."

Did you need to win this tournament to be successful in NCAA's? "We came here to win the tournament. When you win, you can learn from winning. You don't play a perfect game everyday. When you win and learn from your mistakes, that is when you can get better. We just have to stay focused. We came in here with a lot of energy and won the tournament. We are on a high right now."

Jason Williams
On play of Mike Dunleavy: "Mike has been on all year. He has made big shots at big moments. He and Carlos have been stepping up to the plate, especially during tournament time. This is a time where a lot of ballsy plays are made. For Mike to take those shots and make them was really gutsy of him. Mike is a clutch player and does a lot for us.

On play of Carlos Boozer: "I think he does a great job of calling for the ball. He has been doing that a lot lately where us guards will be driving down the lane and Carlos will just yell out. When you yell for the ball you give yourself more energy to go out and finish the play."

NC State Head Coach Herb Sendek:
Opening Statement: "I certainly would like to congratulate Duke on the championship. They certainly maintained all along that they're an awesome basketball team and I think we all saw that again today. Every word and accolade has already been next to their name. We really had no adequate response or answer today. I think we all saw a great basketball team in action."

On defending Carlos Boozer: "We tried to change defenses a little bit more than we had in the past, maybe to create some imbalance. We didn't have any time to put together any strategies so to speak or work on it. We tried to change things up a little bit more than we had in the previous two games."

On switching to a zone defense: "Whether you play a man or a zone, you're still going to run the same kinds of things. You just want a piece of that puzzle to keep them off balance a little bit. I thought Wake had some success yesterday after being down 27-7, but that obviously wasn't the answer."

On if the loss will affect tournament play: "Absolutely not, when I was an assistant at Providence, we lost to Georgetown by about 30 points in '87 and ended up going to the Final Four. It's always the next game, the next play, when you're a competitor. We wouldn't have lost by 30 today if we would have lost yesterday to Maryland. When you're a competitor and you take the court, you always have the chance that you're going to lose. Sometimes, when you're outplayed like today, you're going to lose by a lot, but it beats not playing."

On how Duke shut down NC State's offense: "They just really played hard, they had a great physical presence at all positions. They keep pressure on the basketball and contested passing lanes. With Boozer's presence inside, it's difficult to get one close. They're just very solid."

On why State's offense struggled today: "(Duke's) defense was very good. We squandered some opportunities ourselves. I can think of a turnover where we threw it and nobody was looking. A few plays like that -- I don't think we made as many of any in the first two games. That being said-us not being as polished as we needed to be today-I thought their defense was outstanding. I really did.

Archie Miller:
On Duke's answer to NC State's first-half run: "Once we cut it to about five or six, we felt like we were getting a little more confidence just crawling our way back in it. I think that was a key to the first half. At one point, it was just us crawling back in it and getting ourselves in position to where we could make another run late and really get it tight. I think those last four minutes, they really broke it back open to finish the half and that was a big part of the game."