Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski tried to give Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan the benefit of the doubt after his sharp criticism of the game’s officials following Monday night’s national championship game.
"Sometimes, if you just hear a remark — you don’t hear the entire press conference — you react," Krzyzewski told Mad Dog Sports Radio. "That’s happened a lot to me in my career. I don’t know all the things Bo said. I do know it’s tough to lose those games and to then go up there and have people try to nitpick at everything you say."
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The five-time NCAA champion credited the Badgers for forcing his team out of its comfort zone and getting the Blue Devils into foul trouble.
"We were fighting fouls the whole game," Krzyzewski said. "We had no continuity. Wisconsin did a couple things to get us into foul trouble, like (Frank) Kaminsky drove on (Jahlil) Okafor, just like we were trying to get them into foul trouble. We drove the ball on matchups we thought where we could get fouls. That’s part of the game. They did that to us, we did that to them."
Despite pointing out that Wisconsin had only been called for two fouls prior to halftime, Krzyzewski had plenty of praise for the officials in the NCAA Tournament. He even called for fewer games, more pay and greater benefits for officials.
"It’s easy for me to say this because we won the tournament, but I thought the officiating was as good as we’ve had," Krzyzewski said. "I wish we had this national agency for at least the five power conferences and maybe the Big East where officials will only do games in those conferences so you’ll have better officiating."