Blue Devil captains Quinn Cook and Amile Jefferson met with the media Friday after practice ahead of Sunday's tilt against St. John's at Madison Square Garden in New York. The 2 p.m. contest against the Red Storm is a departure from the ACC slate for the No. 5 Blue Devils, and also serves as Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski's first chance to earn his 1,000th career win. Here are the highlights from Friday's player press conferences:
Junior forward Amile Jefferson
On any added pressures of Sunday's game: "For our guys, this is the most important game—we're trying to get win No. 17. We're playing in the Garden, all our guys love playing in the Garden. It's kind of like our second gym.... It's going to be an amazing moment if we can get this win for Coach. Our guys have the drive and the passion to win this game because we need it, and we need every game. This is our biggest game because it's our next game."
On the team's approach to Sunday's game: Coach knows that at some point he's going to get his 1,000th win.... It should happen this next game because this is our next game and we need to win it. His message to us was to not fall into everything else that's going on around [it] but to get this win because it'll be win No. 17 for our group. It'll be a huge win because it'll be against a really good team and it'll show that we're on the right track as we get back into the ACC."
On how old he would guess Krzyzewski is if he met him for the first time: "If I met him on a day when we were at practice, I would think he's in his thirties or forties, the way he's moving around, the energy he has, the fire and passion he still has for the game. But if you just heard him talk, you would know that he's an older guy because he's so wise. There's no way somebody who's even in their forties could know this much because they just haven't lived long enough."
On what it means to him to be on the team that will win No. 1,000: "I'm extremely humbled just to be on a team that Coach K has coached, his amazing legacy. This 1,000th win is more than just our team, it's every player he's ever coached. All the ups, all the downs, everything that Coach K has accomplished throughout his career, it all comes together once he gets that 1,000th win. It's a milestone, it's a landmark—it's something no coach has ever done. It'll be huge to be part of that moment when it happened."
On whether the team appreciates winning more after the two-game losing streak: "Definitely. After losing those two games, it was like your season can go one way or another. You start to see how big each win and you start to see how each week in the ACC is really like its own chapter. That last week when we lost two games, it was a bad, bad chapter. It helped us to see that we have to take each game one at at time and survive each week."
Senior guard Quinn Cook:
On preparing for Sunday's game: "We all know, if we win, what happens in history, but we're trying not to put a lot of pressure on ourselves. The last time we played up there against St. John's, none of us were here, and we lost.... We're a 'younger team', a lot of our guys are younger, so it'll be a good chance to prove to everybody that we can beat an older team and be successful."
On going through similar hype for Krzyzewski's 903rd win: "I just remember we played a great Michigan State team, and I remember Coach not talking about it at all. Obviously, you know what's going on, on TV there's always something being shown about it on SportsCenter, so we all knew, but Coach didn't mention anything about it. Obvioulsy, it was a big event, the Champions Classic, first annual at Madison Square Garden, you had a lot of former players there, there was the NBA lockout, so we all knew what we were doing and going into but Coach didn't say anything about it and we wanted to get it for him. To see the joy on his face and his family's faces after was great. Four years later, at the same venue, we can make history again."
On the team's mental state after the two straight losses: "After two losses, we couldn't really hang our heads and feel sorry for ourselves just because of the magnitude of the game. When you drop two games to N.C. State and Miami, it's easy to feel bad for yourself and question 'Are we good anymore?' Coach told us we're still good, we're still a great team, we've played against great competition. Going into a hostile environment in Louisville with our backs against the wall, I thought we responded, and then coming back two days later I thought we responded against a great Pittsburgh team... When we play with that chip on our shoulder, we're a dangerous team."
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