Everything Coach K, Brad Brownell said about David Collins flagrant foul

CLEMSON — Late in the first half of Duke’s 82-64 victory over Clemson Thursday night at Littlejohn Coliseum, Clemson’s David Collins and Duke’s Wendell Moore Jr. were involved in one of the scariest plays you will ever see on a basketball court.

Moore stole the ball from Collins with about 3:05 left in the first half and raced towards the basket for a break-away dunk. Collins chased after Moore and ended up colliding with him as Moore went up in the air.

Moore went flying and landed awkwardly under the basket, while Collins was assessed a flagrant 2 foul and ejected from the game.

Neither Moore or Collins were made available for postgame interviews, but both Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and Clemson coach Brad Brownell discussed the play following the game. Here’s everything they said:

Mike Krzyzewski on David Collins-Wendell Moore play

“He was parallel to the ground, eight feet up in the air. That’s one of the most dangerous plays I’ve ever seen. I’m not knocking Collins, don’t get me wrong. Just I’ve never seen a player like that. Scary.”

On the apology from David Collins being unusual:

“Well, Brad is unusual. He’s so damn good. Brad’s an old school, damn good coach. And good guy. He’s good people. And his kids are good people. And again, we didn’t want that to escalate. So the fact that he brought him and we did some interaction, I think that was really good and we put it behind.”

“Brad apologized after and I said, ‘ Please, let’s just move on.’ Wendell’s good. I hope he’s good. We’ll see tomorrow after a plane ride and all that, but it was best to move on.”

Brad Brownell on David Collins-Wendell Moore play

“Obviously we take a lot of pride in how we do things in our program, from how we play to who we are on and off the court. So, it was certainly a situation… the ironic thing is the same play happened to David in the game against North Carolina. He got fouled hard and there was a Flagrant One. He just had that happen to him. I thought he got hurt.

“He was very emotional with it. He’s a very competitive player. I think he thought he got fouled on the play down there. He was fighting like crazy to get back in the play and then he makes the wrong play. We have a lot of respect for Coach K and Duke and their program. The last thing we’re trying to do is hurt anybody. It’s just the right thing to do to take him over there and make sure that since he’s leaving the court, that he has to stand up and apologize himself. That’s why we did it.”

“We haven’t talked about it a lot. I know from talking with [Clemson SID Ben Winterrowd] that he’s already put something out on social media apologizing. The kid did it during the game. He feels awful. Not only does he make a bad play that puts somebody in danger, but he also isn’t there for our team. So if you’re his teammate, we don’t have you for the last 26 minutes and now we need him.”

“We need him to guard Trevor Keels and Griffin and big-bodied guys. We’re out there with our little guards and guys like that. It’s a problem. He apologized to our team, too, for letting us down. But it’s a teaching moment. It happens.”

“I don’t want that to be the story of the game; the story of the game should be how well Duke played. Duke played very well tonight. Their kids deserve credit for their execution, preparation, and all their hard work. A tough environment, they came in and played very good basketball. Pulled away from us in the last 10 minutes.”