"They came back last night, they’re used to doing that," Hood said. "They’re playing with free money, they’re playing on our home court. No pressure on them, all the pressure on us."
“They were going man, so we have scorers and guys that can make plays when they get in the lane. And then they went zone and kind of stood us up,” said Cook, who finished with 14 points and 10 assists. “We gutted it out at the end, and we needed this learning experience.”
The hot shooting did not last. Duke made just 16 of its last 46 shots, including plenty of looks around the rim. The vaunted 3-point assault was also lacking, as the Blue Devils were just 5-for-14 overall from downtown."When we did get close to the bucket, we couldn’t finish the play tonight," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "And then all of a sudden, [the Pirates] stay in there, and they’re playing really well, and there’s an incredible amount of game pressure. You can cut it with a knife. And I’m proud of my guys, we responded."
"We were playing tight, as far as passing around the perimeter," Hood said. "Me and Jabari took it upon ourselves to get in the middle and get to the basket. We got a couple fouls, got in the 1-and-1 and hit our free throws.... Once we got in the middle, good things happened."
"Jabari’s play full-court really kind of broke the ice for us,” Krzyzewski said. “It was like a statement play. It made all of our guys respond better. We’ve all been in situations where for moments we’re not as confident about something that you’d normally do in a confident manner. And you need to break through it. Our guys were able to break through it while they were playing, instead of talking about it afterwards after congratulating East Carolina on a win."
“We practice [free throws] more, but you’ve got to be careful not to talk too much about it because you don’t want it to become ‘a thing,’" Krzyzewski said. "Sometimes when you lose a game like that… it hurts, so you shoot a lot more."
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