Quotes & Notes - March 8
Coach Scheyer Media Availability
After every game I always watch the press conference, read the quotes, and study the box score. Quotes & Notes is my wrap-up of Duke’s most recent game(s).
Quotes
“They’re a handful. You can’t just say you’re going to take away one person because they’ve all shown they all can go off at a given moment. It’s one of those games you have to be really solid, all five guys on the court, you have to guard all five players. The more simple it is, I think the better we are, the more instinctual we are. I want us aggressive, we’re going to play our defense and our defense means you have to have resistance…they’re explosive, obviously they get out in transition, they really hurt you on second shots. So, it’s really those details that translate to winning for me. Not just about ball screen coverage or all those things, we adjust game to game with that. But it’s more the mentality that I want us to have to defend a great team.”
- Coach Scheyer on defending North Carolina
“We’ve mentioned it but it’s not the driving force for us. I think in the beginning of the year, as a team and as a program - our players, me - we talked too much about what we wanted to do big picture, instead of focusing on the process and focusing on, everyday are you getting better? Everyday are you being present in being the player that you can be, the teammate that you can be? And we learned if we do those things, if we prepare the right way, those goals that we want kinda take care of themselves. And it’s the same thing with this, so we’ve hardly talked about anything external, not just for this game, but really the last couple of weeks. It’s been all about what we need to do to get better, what we need to do in order to win. And, like I said, I don’t think this game is about motivation…our guys are made for this, no question.”
- Coach Scheyer on using the ACC regular season title as motivation
“Yeah, it’s always important, that’s something he can do. He can really space our team, and when you have your five that can shoot with everybody else on the floor, we have a really good shooting team…if he’s open I want him to shoot those all the time. But when he’s at his best though, is attacking inside-out and attacking the basket. I think our last home game against Virginia was an example of that and overall he’s done that, especially here as of late. But his passing, his rebounding, he’s such an important guy for us and I know he’ll be ready to go on Saturday.”
- Coach Scheyer on the importance of Kyle Filipowski hitting outside shots
“It’s been about really trusting his work. It’s hard when you have those injuries, you can’t work the way that you would like to. That’s really since the day he got here, that’s what has separated him, and he’s gotten back to being able to do that the last month or so. And, you know Tyrese, he can do so many things on the court also. He can drive, he can play make, but he can really shoot…and the other thing is for him, like the second half of last year, he’s as good of a competitor as we have, bottom line. And he’s thrown himself into competing, defending, shooting open shots, and then really being aggressive on offense, which doesn’t mean to score all the time. It means getting downhill and creating for others. I think he’s found a recipe that works for him. And that’s it. When he’s open, we want him to shoot it because there may not be a better shooter, period. And then his defense has been a separator. We’ve had some really good perimeter defenders, but he’s as good as we’ve had, and he’s been doing that at a high level.”
- Coach Scheyer on Tyrese Proctor responding to injuries this season
“...I’ve learned as a player here, I’ve learned in my short professional career that I had, the only way to go about this is being really honest and having honest conversations. It’s not demeaning, it’s not anything other than that. Like our guys, I’ll give you an example with Mark. Mark is as important of a guy that we have. And he’s had some games he felt he should have played better, I felt he should have played better, he’s had a bunch of games he’s carried us. But when you have a chance just to sit down with a guy like Mark and just talk about alright, what didn’t go well from your mind? He tells me. Alright, here’s what I didn’t think went well from my perspective. And then you walk out of there, and I think he’s better for it, I think I’m better for it, and that’s just an example. But if you don’t have players that are willing to look in the mirror to want to get better, I don’t care what you do as a coach, you’re not going to be better. And so I give a lot of the credit to the core group we’ve had these last two years, of just sticking with it and putting ourselves in a position where I feel we can be right there with anybody.”
- Coach Scheyer on continuing to improve throughout the season
“I can’t tell you how proud I am of him…I don’t know if there’s a guy in our program’s history from the timing that he’s been here, and what he’s seen, that’s as important with the impact that he’s made. You think about the transition…you think about the first two years, the spectrum. You miss the tournament and there’s the pandemic with nobody in here, then you go to a Final Four the next year. You win an ACC Championship as a junior. He’s played with a lot of different players, a lot of great players, but seeing him grow. And from the first time I ever watched him play…he hardly scored. Literally, he hardly scored. He didn’t make any shots, probably had one of his worst games in his mind. But Coach K and I loved him because we saw his competitiveness, he picked up and defended full-court, his team won, he had other really good players around him that he made better. You could tell, you knew from his reputation, you knew he could shoot, you knew he could score. And from that moment, just obviously built a relationship through the recruiting process. Tore his ACL. Coach K, our staff, we just said we’re not going anywhere, we’re here. He’s been a great person for Duke, the timing of it all, and really proud of the four years that he’s had.”
- Coach Scheyer on Jeremy Roach
Notes
In Case You Missed It: Ryan Young, Jeremy Roach, and Spencer Hubbard got together for an episode of the The Brotherhood Podcast ahead of the regular season finale.
Thanks for reading, Go Duke!
Sources