Gary Williams Players Quotations

I thought our players did a great job the way we started out today, with everything that's going on around this particular game.

It becomes very important that you have as many players as possible.

Winning is what you have to do this time of year. Nobody says how you have to do it or how it looks, so that's what I was about today. I was going to try to win that game somehow, and the players felt the same way.

Duke's done that for quite a few years now. Players know their roles. You don't have a lot of guys sitting on the end of the bench who think they should be playing.

The players are responsible for whatever way we're playing right now, because it's their attitude and their effort in practice that allows us to play like this. To the players, you can say all the right things, but if the players don't have the fortitude to get it done, it doesn't mean anything as a coach.

I know what it takes to win, and it's up to each individual player to make that happen. We have to earn the right to be a good team. We have several returning players that got a lot of experience as sophomores and juniors, and we have four new players coming in that want to get things done. Hopefully, that will be infectious.

I know I've worked hard, and I know the players have worked hard this year. We've had to overcome some things, and I hope that's good enough. We're going to be just like everybody else: we're going to wait and see what happens Sunday. That's all we can do.

It was a really good team effort tonight. Obviously, this has been a tough week and it's been pretty hard to keep my focus, so it must be for the players also.