GEORGIA TECH COACH JOSH PASTNER
“Not much other to say than that we got our butts kicked tonight. The way Duke was shooting, it’s like they were standing on a pier shooting into the ocean tonight. You’ve got to give them credit.”
“Obviously, the stars aligned with their energy and having Grayson Allen back and Coach K’s final game before his leave of absence. They just played with great fire, great energy and they were absolutely terrific offensively.”
“There’s many areas we didn’t do a good job tonight. That was one of them – transition defense. Listen, they were on fire. So whether it was bad defense us or great offense Duke, they were on fire tonight and I don’t know how many teams would have beat them tonight the way they shot the ball. I don’t know what team in the country would have beat them tonight.”
“I had assumed (Allen) was going to play. I had just assumed he was, not for any other reason than I was thinking he was going to play, but I had found out officially when they (named) their starters 15 minutes, 20 minutes before the game time.”
DUKE COACH MIKE KRZYZEWSKI
“We played really well. We played more like we practiced and we’ve been able to practice. The group and how we had is more like what we wanted to do since October but we’re doing it now in January. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to postpone my surgery for a few days, to move to this point to get us moving the right way where Grayson [Allen] could be at point, Frank [Jackson] also … the two of them together.”
On ending Grayson Allen’s suspension
“Talking with (athletic director) Kevin White and there were things behind the scenes that we’re doing. I think it’s appropriate what we’ve done. We feel like it was appropriate.”
On impending back surgery
“I’m all right. Obviously I need surgery. I feel like a guy who is all right and who needs surgery. I’ll be happy when it’s done. This has been about a month. You try to beat it and you can’t beat it. I do know how to beat it. You have to get surgery and I have the best guy, (Duke University Medical Center surgeon) Allan Friedman, so we’ll do that. And I won’t be in a hurry to come back until I’m ready because I made that mistake in my younger days. I’m too old to renew that mistake. I do feel confident about the direction we’re going. Obviously I feel really confident in my staff. Jeff [Capel]’s been a head coach and a very successful head coach. He could’ve been a head coach the last couple years at a number of places.”
