Krzyzewski: Blue Devils searching for consistency

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has a sore throat and his voice was more raspy than usual Monday on the ACC teleconference.

Nonetheless, he stressed that a lot has gone right for this year’s Blue Devil team, even if  they are not quite as consistent as he’d like. Heading into Thursday’s home game against N.C. State, Duke is 21-4 and 8-2 in the ACC, balancing perplexing efforts against Miami and St. John's with strong wins over North Carolina and Maryland.

“You’d rather have it more stable,” Krzyzewski said. “But every team in the country is somewhat inconsistent. That’s why every team in the country loses games. Even some of the great players in our country have a bad game.”

Miles Plumlee was the latest Duke to have his moment in the spotlight, grabbing 22 rebounds in the Blue Devils’ win over Maryland on Saturday. That was the most rebounds a Duke player has had since Krzyzewski arrived and the ninth-highest total in program history. 

In the game before, Austin Rivers was the star, scoring a career-high 29 points in Duke’s win over North Carolina.

“With our team, we’re lucky enough that enough guys have done a good job – and then we’ve done a good job in parts of enough games to produce the record we have with the schedule we have,” Krzyzewski said.

“Really, overall, I think these kids have done an unbelievable job. Coming from the base that they had – none of them were star players for us last year.”

-- Jack Daly