July 19, 2002

Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski

On the 2002-2003 Team:

"We're going to have a young group, I think a really good group. We've got to figure out, once we start working with these kids, what kind of system we'll run...I think it's very important that when you have a young team not to restrict it too much but to keep it aggressive. Our practices will be even more fundamentally oriented."

"I think there is great discovering there for each youngster, and as we learn about that youngster and they show us who they are now and who'll they'll be in this environment. That includes Chris Duhon in a leadership position. It is basically his team to run, [and] how our veterans will react to different roles. We're excited about the emergence of Daniel Ewing as a sophomore and then where these young guys will go."

"We'll have a fairly deep team but we won't have so-called 'star power' starting out...I'm excited about it. I think we'll be a real good team and I hope we will be a team that improves a lot as the season goes on."

"Even though we have some veterans coming back, none of them have been in a leadership role. I think Chris is a natural leader, but the other guys have not done that, so that's a bit of a concern and how we bring our team along. In the last four years...we've had six kids go pro..and that's a lot to happen in a four-year period. So far what's happened is that we have still been able to maintain a high level of play, and when that other group left we still finished number one three years and won a national championship. If we can come close to doing that, that would be great."

"We'll try to split up the season a little bit, and by Christmas make an evaluation of the things that we've been doing. Is it good and to keep going with that or to make some changes?"

"I want to have a team that competes for a championships each year, so I'd like to figure out how this group in a very youthful stage might compete for something like that. If we don't, it wasn't because we put a limit on what we could do, somebody else did, somebody else stopped us."

On Chris Duhon:

"[Chris] is so energized. A good player knows if he's been really good or just good. A good player knows if he's had a great game, a great season, and that's why I like coaching good players because good players take responsibility for their actions, just like good people or good coaches. There are no excuses. Could Chris have played better last year? Absolutely. Did he play poorly? No. He had a good year, he didn't have a great year. Some of that had to do with just the nature of our team. Jason needed to have the ball. We really played four perimeter guys with Mike Dunleavy and so the ball was shared more, and also Mike, Jason, those guys made great decisions....it gave Chris a lot less opportunity to create things for them. They were kids who created it for themselves, or with a screen. It didn't lend itself to his strengths, and I think this team lends itself to Chris's strengths. I think Chris has got to be a very, very important guy to us this year."

On the Incoming Freshman Class:

"What I like about our class is, first of all, it is deep and we need a lot of players. Secondly, they are talented kids and they have a variety of talents- we have some big guys, we have shooters, we have ballhandlers. You can make a team with that group, and that's how we recruited it because we anticipated the position we would be in personnel wise so we tried to plan ahead. But, I think the two things I'm most excited about for this group is one, they are very eager and enthusiastic. They want to learn and they want to do well. Secondly, I think when you have a young group that makes up more than half your team, this group really wants to believe. There aren't temptations now, they have more of an ability to throw themselves into what the group is doing and I like that."

"The atmosphere, the environment for us to develop a good team is outstanding."

On Casey Sanders:

"Casey should be ready.. We're very optimistic about it. We tell our guys that each kid runs his own race. The sooner a kid can understand that, the better he will run his race. My feeling is where you do you finish your race? Casey is in the last quarter mile. Maybe this is his time, and I would rather focus on that then the process that it took to get here."

"The fact that he [Casey] has gone through three years of some really good production when we needed him for that run for the NCAA title to the frustrations of not building on it last year, he should be a better man as a result of doing that, as well as a better player. He won't be unless we let him start out new, and that's what we're going to try and do. Casey should be a really good player for us. I'll be shocked if he doesn't contribute greatly to our program."

More on the Freshman Class:

"This class is most similar to my first recruiting class....I think the jockeying for things is good. I think all these kids see opportunity. There's nobody to defer to, where if you had a bunch of upperclassmen stars...you already anticipate that there are certain positions, whether you tell them differently or not, they are going to anticipate that [certain players] are going to start. I think that type of stuff is really good.... The potential to see different groups- somebody might be real good for two weeks then slack off. One of the really nice things this summer is that a few of our upperclassmen are around, where they aren't just 'six freshmen.' It's not a team within a team, and it won't be. We don't want it that way and we won't allow that to happen."

On Dahntay Jones:

"Dahntay did a lot better than Roshown [McLeod] his first year after redshirting, and if he can do as well in his senior year as Roshown did, then Dahntay will be terrific next season."

On the ACC in 2002-2003:

"Instead of looking at next year as being something 'down,' next year for our whole league is a year of discovery. You have so many programs that can emerge, teams that can emerge. We're trying to be an emerging team in a program that's not emerging...There's so much newness in our league next year, predicting things will be very difficult."

On Daniel Ewing:

"Daniel was as good as any freshman in the league last year. Daniel Ewing is an outstanding player, he'll be one of our key guys, there is no question about that."

On Lee Melchionni's Status as a Redshirt Candidate:

"He [Melchionni] may not redshirt...now I think we have to see how it all works. Playing wise, he's a good enough player to be on our team and play right away, it's just a matter of trying to figure out what would be good for him and for our program over the course of time."