Mike Krzyzewski praises team for bounce back win following Virginia upset

After suffering a 69-68 upset loss to an unranked Virginia team on Monday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Duke got back on track Thursday – going on the road and recording a dominant 82-64 win over Clemson to improve to 20-4 overall with a 10-3 mark in ACC play.

After not playing up to their usual expectations against Virginia, the Blue Devils returned to their consistent ways at Clemson – building an 11-point lead at halftime, shooting 49.2% from the field, making nine 3-pointers and winning the rebounding category 42-33, all key statistics that lead to success. While Trevor Keels led Duke with 25 points off the bench, Mark Williams (16 points), Paolo Banchero (15) and AJ Griffin (12) each finished in double figures.

Following Duke’s bounce back win on Thursday, Blue Devils’ head coach Mike Krzyzewski met with the media for his postgame press conference and praised his team for the way they got back on track after Monday’s disappointing loss to Virginia.

“For us, it was a great response after a difficult loss against Virginia,” Krzyzewski said. “They were tough-minded. [Clemson has] lost some really tough games – close games – and we knew that they would be ready and the crowd. I like the way my team responded to them. I thought our defense was very good. The second half, Trevor took over. Wendell Moore did a great job of leading our team. He had eight assists and no turnovers, and was more like he’s played in the early part of the season.

“We’re moving along. This is a heck of an eight-day stretch with Carolina, Virginia, here. We’re going to get on a plane tonight and we’ll get to Boston at about three in the morning and play there 26 hours later. We knew this would be a tough stretch, but getting this win was big.”

After its win over Clemson, Duke is back on the court Saturday to take on Boston College at 5 p.m. ET on the ACC Network.

Krzyzewski bats away specific excuse as reason for upset loss

As it’s a good possibility – and would make complete sense – that the Blue Devils didn’t have much energy coming into Monday night’s game against Virginia with just one day off in between, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said he doesn’t think that’s why his team lost to Virginia.

“I don’t think it’s exhaustion,” Krzyzewksi said. “We’re not in the desert or on a forced march or whatever. … I call it ‘not having a rearview mirror.’ You can’t look back. It’s one of the reasons I’ve tried to do this season the way I’m doing it so I don’t fall into that. I’m 74 years old – I’ve been through it where I’ve made my mistakes and hopefully won’t make many more.”