What was said after UNLV’s loss to Duke

What was said after the UNLV basketball team lost 94-45 to No. 5 Duke on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena:

Coach Marvin Menzies

“We will be fine. This is one game. It’s tough to swallow with all the hoopla around it and all of the promotion of the two brands connecting after 25 years. But it is what it is. This game is over, so we can move forward to growing, to getting better. We have great kids. I love my kids to death.”

“I told (the players) this is one game. I told them these are valuable lessons that they just got. They got their tails handed to them, and they need to understand what they need to do to compete at a higher level within our own practice environment to try to grow.”

“This thing’s about competing in conference. We want to keep our eye on the prize, which is getting better and getting better and getting better. We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again.”

Guard Jalen Poyser

“Getting into guys in practice, we have to turn it up a notch, obviously. Really keying on boxing out, rebounding, taking care of the ball, being able to play with pressure. … We will come out Wednesday (against Incarnate Word at the Thomas & Mack Center) and try to perform better than we did today.”

Guard Uche Ofoegbu

“Moving forward, we need to take it to another level. We’ve got big games coming up.”

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski

“Our guys played really well today. What a great crowd. An honor to be here. I’ve been in Vegas a lot with the U.S. team, and actually played in the arena with our U.S. team during the summer. It’s a beautiful, beautiful place. To see this crowd for this game was tremendous. We prepared well. We prepared to try to beat a really good team.”

On showing Duke’s 1991 national semifinal victory over UNLV on the flight to Las Vegas: “We actually set up the game, not with commercials, just for them to get the flavor of a high-level game — none of them were alive when the game was played — and to let them know they were going into a game where we’re playing against a very proud opponent that has accomplished a lot.”

Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.