Duke
Taina Mair: "It definitely builds a lot of confidence"
Duke guard Taina Mair says beating a team like Florida State in the way that they did helps the young Blue Devils to build confidence.
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Duke guard Taina Mair says beating a team like Florida State in the way that they did helps the young Blue Devils to build confidence.
I mean, obviously the big, the big story line tonight is the job Duke did on defense of Florida State came in averaging 83.5 points a game and couldn't even get to 50. You just talk about how locked in Duke was on defense. We emphasized defense um throughout our preparation for this game because we knew on their high school team they're gonna keep coming at us the whole game no matter what the score is. So we just made sure that we were always in the right spot and we just continue, you know, to communicate with each other and just being in the right spot on defense led to a great defensive game and, and you're coming out of the game at Reynolds Sunday, were Duke's defense? Was it? What were a customer saying? What changed from Sunday to tonight? I mean, we didn't play like ourselves um on Sunday. So we knew that we had to come out and throw the first punch and just play like ourselves. You seemed about as comfortable as I see. It seemed like you were really in control of the game. You talk about your comfort level out there tonight. Um, I mean, I just, I just play my game. That was really, it, I mean, nothing really changed for me. I was just playing my game. That was it a t you guys allowed the least points out of any quarter in the fourth quarter, only six points. You can talk about what allowed y'all to stay locked in throughout the whole game, especially in the fourth quarter. Yeah. Um, we knew that third team that's never gonna stop coming at us. So, um, coach emphasized that, you know, we just got to keep playing, we gotta keep playing defense and there's no, let know, no matter what the score looks like if it was flipped around, you know, nobody would stop, you know, so you just gotta keep playing like that. Uh I, I know you all wanna, you know, run and get out there, but it really felt like you were executing the fast break, uh, you know, as well as you have in the past few games. I think it was 21 to 7 was the difference. Um How, uh, how potentially, you know, lethal can this offense be when you're playing with that pace? I mean, playing with pace is our best offense. I mean, we go out there and we're running the lanes and we're getting layups and we're just doing it continuously. So I just feel like, um, just keeping our energy high and I feel like also defensively it starts, it starts from the defense, you know, we get, we get a rebound, we push it, we take it out, we push it so just continue and uh to keep it up on the defensive end and then offense open up for us t a great game tonight. This being your first year at Duke. What's it like playing AC C games in Cameron? It's super fun. I mean, the en the energy and the vibes are, are definitely there, you know. Um Yeah, I I love fun here. It's, it's, it's been a great experience to me so far. This t what's the key to making sure this is the new normal that you, that you maintain this level um as the season progresses and going into March, uh just stay consistent. That's really what it is for us. Um especially like our preparation, uh continue to be locked in as a team um through our practice um and bringing it to the game. That's really the big key for that for us. Ok. Uh Coaches talked a lot about, you know, you all being such a young group, gaining that experience to see yourself play to this caliber. What, what does that do in terms of like the memory bank and the experience that you all are, are getting, uh definitely builds a lot of confidence uh for our team, especially for us being young and everybody kind of like, no, but it's like you know to be top 25 teams. Um So, yeah, it's definitely like a confidence thing. We know that we could do it again against any other team.