Head coach Mike Krzyzewski gave his players some unusual advice Monday afternoon—he told them to stay up late.
"When he said it, we all kind of looked around at each other. We didn't believe it," Mason Plumlee told reporters congregated around the Duke bus. "But it was a good point, there is a time difference."
In order to adjust to the three-hour time difference in Anaheim, Calif., Krzyzewski told his players to fight off sleep Monday in order to actually feel like going to bed after a late meeting on Tuesday night.
"Usually you don't have to tell them [to stay up late]," Krzyzewski said with a smile. "But we [want to] try to get them into that time zone as soon as possible."
Duke will play Arizona Thursday at 9:45 p.m. and could face San Diego State in the regional final. Krzyzewski denied, though, that the favorable location of the games for the West Coast teams will make much of a difference.
"You know, I don't look at favorable or unfavorable in this tournament. It's about opponent," he said. "You know, in that last minute against Michigan, I don't think that was a favorable opponent, because we were facing a team that thought they could win and had the capability of winning. We're going to see that again on Thursday."
In other news:
As we previously reported on Twitter, Krzyzewski denied that Kyrie Irving will start Thursday, but he did say the freshman will play a good amount Thursday.
"Kyrie will play significant minutes, whereas going into Charlotte he was expected to play limited minutes," he said.
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