Jan. 18, 2003

Recap| Box Score| Notes| Photo Gallery

Maryland Head Coach Gary Williams
Opening statement:
"The last two days we've been talking a lot about enthusiasm for the game, showing up every night, all of those vague things. The one objective thing we talked about was rebounding, and we worked very hard in drills and things like that, in practice, just pointing out every time someone needed to get to the ball. Today Ryan Randle, obviously, but I think everybody that came in had a rebounding sense about them. And against a team like Duke, you have to have that, because they are not just a 3-point team, they make their free throws and they are a well-rounded team. And so you try and match them in each area, you can't give them an edge anywhere. I thought tonight that our defense was outstanding the second half. And I thought the first half, when they shot 51 percent, that we played pretty good defense. I thought Duke made a couple tough shots. Our players were doing exactly what we asked them to do. But good players do that. We just tried to keep the focus at the half, that we were playing good defense. I thought in the second half our execution on the offensive end was as good as it's been any year against a quality team. We were able to get the ball where we wanted to, and when we did get the lead we had the patience to wait until we forced them into a couple of defensive situations where either we scored or they fouled us. That type of patience has been missing at times for us this year. But today we had it. The big thing for us is to keep it. We know we have to continue to work hard. There are a lot of tough ones ahead, starting next week at North Carolina."

On Terps' free throw shooting:
"It's hard to put a game situation into a free throw practice. You can't imitate the pressure. We just shoot them, and we were on our game today. It's amazing, when you play good defense and run your offense, how you shoot good free throws, too. It just seems like that's part of the package."

On Drew Nicholas:
"Drew came in considered a shooter, a decent player, that type of thing. He's had the fortune of playing with and behind Juan Dixon for a lot of his career. And that has certainly helped him, because he saw what to do. He just watched Juan work at 11 o'clock at night, shooting on his own, and Drew picked that up. You get that from other players who come back and help out. It helps for players to hear that from other players who have been through this, rather than just hearing it from the same coach all the time."

On team's preparation for Duke:
"I made the players work very hard on Thursday. We had gotten back [from Wake] at 3 a.m. and they worked very hard Thursday afternoon. They wanted to do that. In other words, their were no faces, no complaining about how come practice was so long. They knew we had to work on some things if we wanted to win today. And that's all about them. I can do those things, but unless the players want to do it, it doesn't matter."

Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski
Opening comment:
"Maryland played like a veteran team today, and we played like a young team. Drew Nicholas was sensational, and Randle I think had more rebounds than all of our big guys together. He got every rebound; he played a great game. They just played better than we did. They deserved to win. I don't think there was one turning point, or anything like that, I just think they played harder and better than we did. They should have won, and did. We had 43 points at halftime, and obviously we were getting good things. I thought we turned the ball over and didn't rebound. It wasn't so much they were stopping us, it was just them playing better. They got the rebounds and we didn't. They played better than we did, and they played harder."

On Nicholas, Randle:
"Nicholas scored a lot of points, and Randle just rebounded -- and scored too."

On Duke:
"We're concerned about everything. We've got a team that still has a lot of development, and this is not a good efffort on our part."

On Maryland:
"They started five seniors in both halves and they've been through it. They understand. I think they set the pace of the game, so when their younger kids came in they all contributed well. But they have a base, especially with their backcourt, with Steve and Drew. That's a great base, and those kids have been through a lot of big ballgames, and have won huge games, like the national championship. And that's a good mix. What Gary [Williams] does, he mixes them up because he is an outstanding coach. I don't think there was a key [to the game] as much as they played better than we did."