When you're being interviewed every day, and you're tired, you can make mistakes and say the wrong things, especially when you're young. When you're young, you don't realize everything, and you're a little naive.
If you are not a Dukie, and Duke is having a lot of success year after year, you might get tired of it. They might not like your competing personality or competing persona, and if you are not a Dukie, or you don't love Duke or Christian Laettner, then I can understand the hating on me.
I always played my best when I respected my opponent and was a little scared of them because they could beat me. Every game I played in college, that was the case.
For my entire Duke career, people were gunning for us and hating us and wanting us to lose, so I got used to that right away. Every team is going to give you their best shot. Everyone wants to beat you.
I made three visits during my senior year of high school to Duke, UNC, and Virginia. If I hadn't gone to Duke, I would have went to Carolina, just like a lot of Carolina players who, had they not gone there, would have went to Duke.
Being a physical specimen doesn't mean you're any good at playing inside. Positioning, using your head, the mental stuff - that's my game. That's what makes a good inside player.
When I was 15 years old, the Duke-UNC game looked like the funnest game in the world to be a part of. So I chose to make sure I was a part of it for four years, and when I was at Duke, it exceeded all my expectations.
Honestly, the Carolina games I played in every year were more intense than the national championship games I played in - they had a better environment.
My senior year was crazy. We were defending champions, we were on national TV just about every weekend, and we were winning. Teams always brought their best when they went up against us, and we always matched it.
My whole freshman year at Duke, it was drilled into me that nothing was given to you, and you have to earn it, and this is a dog-eat-dog world, and blah blah blah, and blah blah blah. And you buy into it, 100 percent. You end up loving it. That's the way it should be, right?
Basketball is a non-aggressive game. So when emotions are high, there's a very low chance to get angry or yell. So that's why it never happens out there.