DeMarcus Nelson Quotations

We have to get better. We have to establish that edge and fire in each and every one of us. People put out there that we're invincible and each loss out there kind of hits us over our head.

We have to get better. There are a lot of things we can do to get better. This feeling that this team is feeling tonight. This hurt and this pain has to motivate us this coming week to get better and to prepare and get refreshed for the ACC tournament. We really have to come out in the ACC tournament and really have an edge and a fire in each and every one of us.

Losing is never an option. Every game we play, we want to win. We put everything we have into winning, and, you know, it hurts.

If a team leaves me open, I almost feel it's an insult and I'm shooting that ball with confidence. All of our guards have been drilled and prepared to take those shots and we're ready for them.

He was very aggressive and sneaky fast. He caused some problems for us driving to the basket and making buckets.

That's the kind of shot we want him to take. He makes that shot all the time in practice, so why not shoot it in the game? When he took the shot I was fairly confident the shot was going in. Any shot he takes I'll run with.

You always want to go into March, the most important part of the season, with a lot of momentum, a lot of confidence.

We have more depth this, we're healthier and I feel like we're not drained physically and emotionally. Last year by the time we got to the Sweet 16, all games through out the year banged us up and we had two very tough games in the early rounds and it just wore on us. I felt like we had nothing left in our tanks by the time we got to the Sweet 16 last year.

Any team we play, you might as well throw their record out of the window because they're not going to play like their record against us. But that's what makes each win for us even more special, because we really have to go out and fight each game.

They score in a lot of different ways, and it seems like that never goes away. They can score in large spurts. They had a prime example of that in their last game. We didn't want to relax or let up because we knew they were capable of running off 10, 12 or 14 points in a matter of a few minutes.

They got a lot of easy buckets in transition, either getting rebounds or steals. They just got a lot of run-outs, and we didn't get back and we didn't play Duke defense. We didn't play like our normal selves on the defensive end. That made a big difference in this game.

They're a very, very hungry team; they're scrappy. In Johnson and Thornton, they have two very athletic big men who really go after it hard, and they have good shooters around those two guys. And they're a very athletic team.

It's a bad feeling we have to leave here with.

It put us under the microscope. We concentrated on Duke and how Duke can be better.

It's unusual to play a team like that this early (in the tournament). I think it helps us and gives us more confidence. They had the best (regular season) record in the NCAA this year.

All I wanted to do was make him take tough, contested shots.