Mike Krzyzewski Quotes (197 Quotes)

We're fresher than we were last year. We're better than we were last year at this time.

Our team showed spirit after we lost the lead. It was the kind of spirit that I thought we had, but we had to show it. Carolina has done wonders with their team. It was an honor to be in this game.

I think we beat a really good team. And we may see them again because I would think they'll be in the NCAA tournament and they'll be a tough out for anybody. I would say they're ready for Patriot League competition now. As long as they don't pick on Army too much.

We can put up a lot of points, but we can't hang our hats on that. That's why we've been tested these last couple weeks. How good are we going to be on the defensive end of the court, whether we hit or not We were tested with that today.

We went into him more today down the stretch than we've done ever.

Playing sport was somewhat frivolous, but I liked it. I rebelled a little bit, and wouldn't go to music lessons and things like that, but I would go and play ball. My parents learned to love it because they saw how much I got out of it.

So let's talk about Duke basketball.

I've always been impressed with Herb's teams. He's a terrific coach and person. His kids don't have attitude problems they have a team attitude and they're very unselfish on both ends of the court. With this team he has all veterans and that's a plus. He has a good thinking team they think together and they work hard and they can play with anybody.

We also have coaches of different ages, which should give us the ability to teach and communicate well with a team of the best players in our country. We want to develop the team to produce gold medal-winning performances in 2006 and 2008.

It was a great individual accomplishment.

That's another thing, we made up games. We didn't have equipment. When it snowed, we would play slow motion tackle football. We would play hockey, but we wouldn't skate. We just made things up. I loved doing that.

We don't pretend to be some kind of great team. We're a good basketball team that's trying to get better. That's the way I'd like to keep focused on it.

They have invested in Duke and the Durham community in a number of ways. We were fortunate to have their talents on the court, and we are just as fortunate to have them still be a part of our program.

I didn't miss any games, but Coach (Bobby) Knight came out and spent three days with my family in Chicago when my dad passed away. I came back and played and it was good therapy for me. Having a basketball family and a coach who understood and actually became like a father figure for that time was comforting to me, and I'm sure that will be comforting to Coleman.

I think Roy's done as good a job as anybody in the country with his team.

You have to let your best players touch the ball and have those opportunities. You shouldn't be afraid to lose shooting your best bullets.

To break any record like that, you have to have endurance. You have to play well in a lot of games. He has talent, exceptional talent, but he has great endurance and a great commitment to play. He's really taken good care of himself.

First of all, what happens is, when you're good at something, you spend a lot of time with it. People identify you with that sport, so it becomes part of your identity.

For two freshmen to step up like that was big. Greg played like a veteran point guard today and Josh anchored us inside.

I've always believed we should have a governance agency for college basketball, under the NCAA umbrella, that would be focused on it on a day-to-day basis, 365 days a year. It's not to say the NCAA hasn't done a good job with the current structure they have, but our sport is too big to be run by committee.

After winning a big game against N.C. State in the conference, we were not emotionally up to par to meet Georgetown's challenge, and it showed in our inability to communicate on the court. And so in the last few days, we decided to make some changes in how we positioned some guys and how we're rotating.

Parents can really help, but they can also really hinder the development of their youngsters.

This is a really good basketball program.

We thought we could really deny passing lanes tonight and our kids did, and that was something we really exploited right from the get-go. That was set up by Paulus' pressure on the ball.

Josh really kind of turned the momentum for us. I thought Greg played well defensively, and offensively, he was a little too cautious.

It's not like we have not had close games. We've just been able to win them, and as a result, the reality sometimes doesn't set in that you're weak in certain areas or you're not doing certain things well. ... When you win, sometimes it overshadows a poor performance.

Basketball was not my main sport in grade school, or even the first year of high school.

BC is a truly amazing team. So many teams would have wilted after we had that lead, but they came back. To our kids' credit, we came back after they took the lead.

Everybody wants to take responsibility when you win, but when you fail, all these fingers are pointing.

This staff encompasses all the areas that need to be addressed. We have NBA experience. We have international experience. We have backgrounds to teach different styles of basketball, including zone offense and defense.

I'm fortunate now that I coach at Duke University and we've won a lot. I have some kids who haven't failed that much. But when they get to college, they're going to fail some time. That's a thing that I can help them the most with.

We overcame one of the great performances of an individual that has been done here in the last five years. Thornton's performance was nothing less than spectacular.

I'm still not a great reader, but my wife is and my daughters are, and I envy them. I think I got into a bad habit of trying to do something all the time, instead of trying to sit down and take my time a little bit.

The person who has inspired me my whole life is my Mom, because she taught me commitment. She sacrificed.

I thought (Greg's) play and Josh's play really sparked us. To have two freshmen step up like that was big.

This team has had its share of unbelievable problems. You would think that some of the nerves are skin-level, and some of those things can just happen. ... We have great empathy for them.

In the second half, once we got organized and played better in the half court, our defense was excellent.

When I was in sixth grade, I wanted to become a priest.

J.J.'s been incredibly efficient. He had 30 points on 15 shots. A couple of weeks ago, he had 40 points on 13 shots. He has been incredibly efficient especially for that high level of scoring. A lot of people when they score much, they're volume shooters. J.J.'s not that.

When I was growing up, there weren't any Little Leagues in the city. Parents worked all the time. They didn't have time to take their kids out to play baseball and football.

It's like a business that is dominating the market, ... Sometimes they don't have plans, and the business doesn't do so well down the road.

I have been worried about this game for a couple of weeks. As soon as the BC game ended I told my staff that nobody would know it, but this would be one of the toughest games we play all year.

I don't think it's anything about the game, it's about the opponent. As you advance you're going to face better people.

I think part of it was that we thought it was going to be easy, and this tournament is not easy. Hopefully, we learned that lesson.

My parents didn't really understand too much about sport. At that time, we were in a Polish community in the inner city of Chicago, and I was the youngest of a bunch of cousins. Polish families are real big, with cousins and aunts and uncles.

Greg showed a great deal of toughness and resolve playing through the injury as a freshman. The surgery was a success and we look forward to a full recovery. Greg had a great year for us as a freshman despite the injury and we are anxious to have him back and at 100 percent.

We don't know if it's the same injury or not. Our hope is that it's not the same. Of course, if you just spent six weeks with that injury, it's going to scare you. It scares me.

We lost, and that's the main thing that went wrong,

Now this is really important, and I hope you believe this. He plays every play in practice hard. And that's the best way to stay in shape. If it's a one-on-one drill and he got a hand on it and the ball's going out of bounds, he would run after the ball and get it. He keeps putting himself in the positions you would put yourself in a ballgame.

He set the tone for our defense. I thought Sean was as important as anyone on our team.