MIKE KRZYZEWSKI OPENING STATEMENT -We're excited to be here. Our team is healthier than it has been over the last two weeks, and we're in spring break right now, so that's helped us as far as travel, practice, getting rest, and so we're excited to play. We know our opponent is a championship team. They play an exciting style. You can tell that they're really a together group, expect to win and play hard and well together. So we know that the game will be a difficult one for us, but we're also excited to play it.

After the grind of the ACC Tournament and the whole season, do you almost have to reboot a little bit when you come into the NCAA Tournament?
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI: Well, we had to in the last couple weeks of the regular season because we had that -- in certain conferences, sometimes the conference schedule just goes at even a higher level. And we had like Louisville, Virginia, Carolina, and Louisville, four in a row, when we were 6-4, and we were able to win three of them and almost won the fourth one. That took a lot out of our team.

But it also did a lot for our team because when you play that level of team and fight and are successful, you get a level of confidence that then really made us an NCAA team. People would say, well, you should always be an NCAA team. Well, at 6-4, we were not an NCAA team. We had to earn it, and we did during that time. But we got beat up a little bit, just because you give so much.

I thought we were tired even the last week of the regular season. I thought we were refreshed again up to a point of the ACC, and we played about 70 minutes of good basketball, and did not play well in the last 10 minutes against Notre Dame. Matt was still not there, and then he was getting sick, and that night he wouldn't have been able to play if we had won against North Carolina the next night because he just threw up and was in bed for 24 hours.

We've gotten over a lot of that stuff, and none of that is happening now. Again, because they're young, they can get refreshed quicker. Like for me, I need a long time, and it may not ever happen. But for them, I think a few days and no contact -- we gave them off Friday and Saturday, no contact on Sunday -- and had a good workout, I think it's helped us.

Coach, you've obviously coached so many pros through your career, and a lot of guys recently have been some of the one-and-done type of guys. Brandon Ingram might fall into that category this year.
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI: Yeah, he will.

Did you ever talk to him about the pressure specifically for you guys to win? Do you have to talk about him managing the pressure of this moment and almost not think about that?
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI: We talk about -- not so much the pressure, but the opportunity and that if things go the way they should go, this will be his only time that he can play in the tournament. That's opportunity, not so much what it does for your draft. He's not going to be affected that much one way or the other by it. But he will be affected by the memory of what he does in the tournament. In other words, this is your one shining moment. This is the one time you will be in the NCAA Tournament, and to make the most of that opportunity.

In saying that, Brandon has been consistently good, consistently outstanding the whole year, and the games where he didn't play well, as well, are usually games that he got in foul trouble. That's a key to our team is keeping him out of foul trouble and Plumlee out of foul trouble. When those two kids have been out of foul trouble, they've played well, we've played better, and we've won big.

He's in a good place. He's in a really good place. He's having fun, and he's a beautiful kid to coach. He's what I call a no-maintenance guy. There's never couch time. There's never you have your mind on other things -- he loves playing basketball. He loves being coached, and he loves being at Duke.

You were talking about your short rotation, obviously. Is there a comfort, though, with that, that they're all sort of -- we're it, and they know that, and they sort of circle the wagons?
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI: Well, they've done it since Amile has been out, so they're accustomed to it. I think one of the very best things that can happen to a player is that he knows he's going to play, and he knows when he's going to play and how he's going to be used and who he'll be on the court with. Our guys have had that opportunity.

Our starters know that they could play 40 minutes, and they like that. The new thing for us is that Jeter has played well the last few weeks, and so he's on a real upward swing, and the guys have really loved that. It's given him even more energy. And Sean Obi, his knees have been better, and he came in and gave us a few minutes against Notre Dame. They feel good about it, and they know how to -- I don't want to use the word pace. They know how to play. If they start pacing, then that's not going to be good. But they know how to play significant minutes, and we've been -- and I hope we don't get into this -- but we've played with serious foul trouble where guys had to play 12 minutes at the end of the game with four fouls, play eight to ten minutes in the first half having two fouls, that type of thing. So hopefully those experiences will help us in the tournament.

Last Thursday after the Notre Dame game, guys were very disappointed the way it turned out. You mentioned the physical rest they got. How about the mental recovery from that, and what have you learned from that experience?
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI: Well, in some respects, it's good to come into the tournament losing a game that you should have won, where it's a tough loss. Even though you're excited about the tournament, you're not giddy. You're not like, we just won and -- no, no, we just lost, and we lost a game that we feel we should have won. So I think you grow up doing that. The extra rest is good for us. We didn't try to lose the Notre Dame game to get it. Notre Dame beat us.

I think mentally we're good. I think we're good. We're ready to go. We're ready to go. Whoever this team is, it's as good as it's been all season right now except -- since Amile. And that's where you want to be at this time of the year. They're a good group. They're a tight group. Let's go.

Mike Pressler is a guy that you were a colleague with for a long time, and he's done some pretty impressive things as a school just north of this city. I was wondering if you could speak to any relationship you've had with him over the years?
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI: Yeah, they're great friends. You know, Mike and Sue are great, great friends. They were coaching at Duke -- even the last part, we were really close. My oldest daughter Debbie -- two of my daughters are with me, and we have seven of our nine grandchildren here for the game, and hopefully games -- and I know Debbie has talked a lot to Sue. They were great friends, and just a beautiful family, and a heck of a coach. I'm glad that he -- it doesn't surprise me what he's done because, even since leaving Duke, he's been our national team coach for the U.S., and they're just a great team, the two of them, Coach and his wife. They know what they're doing. We love them.

 It's inevitable that players when they're as talented as Brandon get compared to other players who have come before them. What do you tell a player when he's facing consistent comparisons to guys who are playing at the next level?
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI: To enjoy it. To realize, though, that they're not that good at that time. You know, kids are in the moment. That's just a compliment, and he doesn't try to pattern his game after anybody. And we don't have -- just like with our team, we don't try to make Grayson Allen like J.J. or Brandon like whoever. I don't know, there's not a guy -- he's kind of unique. In other words, find out who you are. During the time that we have the honor of coaching you and you being at Duke, let's develop who you are, not try to make you into something that someone else thinks you are.

That's why every year we try to -- not only try, but we do -- we personalize our offense for those guys, and then we change as the year -- like this year, we've changed our offense a number of times because the kids continue to get better, Brandon and Grayson in particular, and then Luke has come on, and then Marshall. Instead of putting them in the same recipe, so to speak, we try to devise something new for them. And Brandon is going to be in a growth spurt for a number of years, not just physically, but game-wise. He's got a great future ahead of him.

Coach, you are very experienced in first-round match-ups like this where you have your team and then you're going up against a mid-major team like UNCW. What's different about UNCW compared to other teams that you've faced of this competition level in the 1st round?
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI: Well, actually most of it is there's no difference. The common thread is always that they're champions. You wouldn't be a so-called mid-major or someone from a one-bid league unless you've won a lot, unless you're good, unless you're together, unless you're well-coached. Those are all the things that Wilmington has. They're right there. I mean, they're right there.

And then that team can beat you. The realization is that sometimes they have and sometimes they haven't. We advanced a lot more than we haven't. It's pretty obvious. But can they beat us? They can definitely beat us. We prepare for them with that level of respect and preparation. I mean, I've watched maybe six games of theirs, and in every one they have a good verve. They play to win. They play to win, and they have a style that fits their personnel really well.

You just touched on Brandon a second ago. Can you give a sense of his arc this year of development? He's come a long way since some struggles early and just how you've seen him improve and adjust to the college game.
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI: Yeah, well, the chart of improvement is just going to keep going because, first of all, he wants to. Secondly, he's a really hard worker, loves the game. We keep learning more about him, so we keep changing things -- I'm not saying big-time, but subtle changes -- to use his abilities, and it's going to keep growing. We hope that during this tournament, because it'll be his only time in the tournament, that he takes it to as high a level as he can right now. That's all I've talked to him about is just take advantage of this moment.

He's not worried about -- like he's not thinking about the pros -- he knows the pros are going to be there. He loves Duke and he loves his guys. He's been -- he's very similar to the guys from last year. They loved where they were, and they love where they are now. But they also love the fact that they did their best in the tournament, and that's what we want Brandon to experience.