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NCAA MEN'S REGIONALS SEMIFINALS & FINALS: INDIANAPOLISMarch 31, 2013Seth CurryRyan KellyMike KrzyzewskiMason PlumleeINDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Louisville – 85 THE MODERATOR: We will begin with an opening statement from Coach Krzyzewski and then we'll go to the student‑athletes. COACH KRZYZEWSKI: We want to congratulate Louisville on winning this regional championship. They played a great game. They played so hard. We tried to match them, and we couldn't match them. And they wear you down. Their two guards just set an amazing pace, Siva. I don't know if he‑‑ didn't look like he was even sweating today. He just was so smooth. And then Smith is terrific. We feel so bad about youngster Ware. I don't know the extent of his injury, but Godspeed to him. I hope he's going to be okay. But congratulations to them. I love my team. I wish we could have played better today. We needed to play a great game to win, and we couldn't do that. I've had a great team, and my three seniors, my three seniors have been the epitome of Duke basketball seniors. Winning 124 games over their four years, just representing us so well, and it's been a joy every day to be with them, and for all except one team, it's going to be a sorry‑‑ it's a tough ending, and so it's a tough ending whenever it comes, and today's the day it came. Q. Seth, could you address the quickness of their guards and their ability to get to the basket? SETH CURRY: Yeah. I mean, they just come at you for the whole game. I mean, they're attacking you and putting pressure on you. You try not to put them on the line, the foul line. If you do that, they're going by you. So they're a great back court, and it was a tough test today. Q. Either of the athletes, just from where you were standing just when Ware went down, what did you see? MASON PLUMLEE: I was on the other side of the court. I didn't see anything. RYAN KELLY: I just saw him, obviously, in some pain. I didn't see what happened. SETH CURRY: I didn't see anything. Q. Seth, you seem kind of passive first half, much more aggressive second half. SETH CURRY: They were throwing two bodies at me. I was trying not to force it. My teammates were getting good looks in the first half. And like I said, I wasn't trying to take bad shots and force anything. But they did a good job in the first half of just being conscious of where I was at at all times and switching a lot of stuff. Credit them. Q. Ryan, you got off to a really good start, and then got into foul trouble and spent 12 minutes on the bench. You just didn't seem to have that same rhythm in the second half. How much did that long stretch on the bench the first half kind of change things for you? RYAN KELLY: That's part of the game. It happens. I certainly didn't want to be on the bench, but that happens and I don't think that affected my performance whatsoever. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, fellas. COACH KRZYZEWSKI: Great job. Q. Mike, is that the best team you've seen so far this year? COACH KRZYZEWSKI: Again, I don't watch all of college basketball, but it's the best team we've played. And they're obviously better than we played in the Bahamas. What they do, and Rick's done an amazing job with them, because they have depth and they keep coming at you, but they make you have multiple decision‑makers. You have to have more than one guy making a decision out on the court. And in switching their defenses and their quickness and their athleticism, you have to‑‑ it's tough to run plays. You have to make plays against them. And we were doing that when we didn't turn the ball over in the first half. The thing with Seth, which we tried to change and did at the start of the second half, he was bringing the ball up too much. We needed he and Mason to be finishers for us, and that's how we started the second half. We got that. And then they played well, and then we missed some shots, and then they just spurted. And then the game changed. I thought we had a chance there, and then boom. And that's what they do to teams. They can boom you. They‑‑ whatever. My vocabulary isn't very good, but you I hope you understand what I mean. It's a positive thing for them. Not for us. And Rick's done a masterful job with this team. He's as good as they get, and this team's as good as we've seen. Q. Coach, as a defense in particular just exceptional? Is that the best defense you've seen in a while? COACH KRZYZEWSKI: Well, it's a different defense. You don't see it on a day‑to‑day basis, because it's not just running a zone press. They run multiple defenses. But all of them are played hard. They're all played really hard. They're very athletic. They're more athletic than we are. They were terrific today. We would have to play great to beat them today, and we were playing pretty well. And then, boom, there's that. Now I'm going to say that for the rest of my life. Hopefully, we're booming somebody else next year. Again, I've been doing this for a long time. Man, they were good. Bottom line, they're really good. And they were good. They were terrific today. I love those two guards. And then Dieng has become a great player. Not a good one, he's become a great player. So you get a lot of great players out there, it's going to be tough to beat them. And it has been tough to beat them. The only way to beat them is to take them to a fifth overtime. I think that's the only way to beat them, and we weren't going to do that today. Q. Mike, the injury that the Ware kid suffered was so gruesome‑‑ COACH KRZYZEWSKI: We didn't see anything. Q. I was going to ask you how it would have affected your team. COACH KRZYZEWSKI: We didn't see anything. The only thing we said, take as much time. I deferred to Rick, like if he wanted the teams to warm up again or whatever. Whatever decision they made was going to be okay. I mean, I could not feel worse that a kid gets hurt in a game. For us or for them. And, again, I have no‑‑ I don't know the extent of the injury, but obviously it was horrible because they had to‑‑ took so long and they got a stretcher. So, again, our prayers are with him. Hopefully, if he's not going to be able to play this year, that he'll be able to come back. Q. Despite all the turnovers and Ryan's foul trouble and the fact that Seth and Rasheed had not scored, you were still only down 3 at halftime. Did you feel pretty good at your chances at that point? COACH KRZYZEWSKI: No, we did. We felt that‑‑ you get in a little bit of a frenzy when you're playing them. And here‑‑ and we're going to get the ball to start out the half. We just made that one adjustment to try to get Rasheed to bring it down more with Quinn, and that got Seth some shots and it got Mason some. But then it was I think at 42‑42, and we had that under out of bounds and Seth either blocked it or whatever, and whether he got a piece of him or blocked it, and, boom, the game changed from there. And we missed a couple inside, and they just kept scoring. When you're not‑‑ when you don't score, you have to prevent them from scoring, or else these games get away from you. We weren't able‑‑ our defense was not able to do that. Q. Coach, on an inspirational level, how do you think that injury kind of changes the game? Does it spur on Louisville? COACH KRZYZEWSKI: Yeah, I think you should ask them. I don't know how‑‑ they played hard the whole game. I don't know. Rick and their kids would be able to answer that. Q. Mike, you pointed out that only one team's going to end this thing happy. Can you just sum up‑‑ you've had teams go farther; you've had teams go shorter‑‑ how you feel about this team and what it accomplished? COACH KRZYZEWSKI: Yeah. I think we've had an unbelievable season. I didn't like our season last year, not just the way it ended, I just didn't like it, even though we were 27‑7. I loved this season. I love my three seniors. Every day‑‑ at the end of a year you do this, there can be a little bit of you that wants it to be over and you fight it. And in some years, every once in a while, not too often, you just want the damn thing to be over. And there's not one part of me that wants this season to be over. I'm fresh. I love my guys. They were terrific, and they won 30 games with an unbelievable schedule. We got beat by a better team, and we beat a lot of really good teams. I just think that they did a great job this year. I'm proud of my team. Let me just say one last thing. I really would like to thank all the people in Indianapolis, all the volunteers and the committee and how they set‑‑ this cannot be run any better than what they do. I don't know how you in the press feel about it, but the people here have done an amazing job in making it just a first‑class event. So from our program, we want to say thanks. And, again, for Rick and his kids, congratulations. Great, great job. I'll enjoy watching them now that we're not playing them. And, again, I want to thank my seniors. Thanks very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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