Duke’s Manny Diaz Responds to Team’s Setback

Despite the loss, head coach Manny Diaz does not believe this result defines his team long-term. The 51-year-old head coach relayed that message to the media during his postgame press conference on Saturday night.

Diaz's Thoughts

• "I think we have seen it all season, there's been some ups and downs," Diaz said. "The word you love to have is 'consistency'. You want to know that you are going to be the same team every week, and for the most part, I really feel like we have been. Today [Saturday] is the first time that there were parts of our game that looked out of place. It did not look this way for the previous nine games. That's something that I don't think defines us going forward."

A loss of this magnitude, with what the game represented in the big picture, could derail a team's focus for the remaining games, as the main priority was not achieved. However, Diaz feels that the next two weeks are monumental for his team's growth.

• "I told the team in the locker room, if I hadn't seen the fight in the fourth quarter, I'd be really concerned," Diaz said. "But watching the way that the guys played, even on the sideline, the way the guys were, the positivity when things weren't going great, I thought was there. There is something to build on going forward."

The Blue Devils' struggles in the first half set the tone for the game, but there was no sense of panic or despair in the locker room. Diaz explained the team's mindset during halftime.

• "When we came in at halftime down two touchdowns, we've done that before," Diaz said. "Being down two touchdowns and getting the ball out of the locker room, there was not a sense of panic. If we just raised our level of execution, we would be right there. [Virginia] started faster, but we felt like we had multiple chances to get ourselves back in the game."

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