There will be a feature story on Duke’s Jeff Capel running in Thursday's newspaper. During the reporting for that story, Capel talked extensively about how he’s enjoying being back at Duke. He also opened up at what happened at the end of his time with the Oklahoma Sooners.

Not all of Capel’s quotes made it into the story.  Here is what Capel had to say about a couple of topics that weren’t written about as extensively as they could have been:

Clemson was in the midst of making Duke’s life uncomfortable, having cut what was a 13-point Blue Devils lead to six points with a little less than 2 minutes remaining when Austin Rivers threw up a difficult 3-pointer with some 15 seconds left on the shot clock.

Rivers’ 3-point attempt missed badly, and the Tigers came down the court and scored on a jumper by K.J. McDaniels to close within four points.

Duke went on to win Sunday’s game 73-66, of course, but Rivers’ attempt provides insight into the freshman’s mindset.

It’s game day for the No. 8 Blue Devils (14-2, 2-0), who travel to Clemson tonight to face the Tigers (9-7, 1-1) at 6 p.m. Duke has won 25 of its last 27 games against Clemson and 10 of its last 11 games at Littlejohn Coliseum.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind once the game tips:

DURHAM -- A few final thoughts and observations after Duke’s 61-58 victory over Virginia late Thursday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium:

1. The Plumlee brothers were critical in Duke’s win

After Virginia’s Mike Scott dominated the Blue Devils in the first half, Duke switched its defense and put Miles and Mason Plumlee on the Cavs’ forward. Both brothers tried to put a body on Scott at all times, and the result was that Scott only had seven points in the second half.

“The Plumlees, I thought, were the key to the game,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Their physicality and then our defense – we played much better defense on Scott in the second half. That was both Mason and Miles.”

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski will be honored with the Wayman Tisdale Humanitarian Award in April for his contributions to college basketball and the Durham community.

The board that helps choose the receipent of the award cited Krzyzewski's charitable contributions, including the Emily Krzyzewski Center, which is a community center in Durham that provides athletic and educational opportunities to economically disadvantaged students. In addition, Krzyzewski's work with the Duke Children's hospital, the Children's Miracle Network and the V Foundation for Cancer Research were all cited.

Dick Vitale was presented with the original award. The award's namesake, Wayman Tisdale, died in March 2009 after a two-year battle with cancer.

The award will presented on April 16 at a ceremony in Oklahoma City.

After holding on against Georgia Tech on Saturday for an 81-74 victory, Duke’s next game is an interesting one.

The Blue Devils (13-2, 1-0) will host Virginia (14-1, 1-0) on Thursday night at Cameron Indoor Stadium (ESPN, 9 p.m.). While the Cavaliers didn’t have the most rigorous non-conference schedule in the country, Virginia did manage to beat Michigan, Oregon and LSU while losing only to TCU.

With its slower tempo, Virginialeads the conference in scoring defense, yielding 50.5 points per game. The Cavaliers are also in the top three in the conference in field-goal defense (38 percent) and 3-point percentage defense (27 percent).

ATLANTA – When it was suggested to Mason Plumlee that Duke looked a bit fragile during stretches of Saturday’s 81-74 win over Georgia Tech, the Blue Devils’ junior forward didn’t disagree.

“I would just say it’s part of having a young team,” Plumlee said. “I wish I wasn’t still saying this now, but the more we’re in these situations and close games, the better we’ll get at it. We’re getting better.”

Easy to overlook after Duke’s 78-73 loss to Temple on Wednesday is the fact that this Blue Devil team is still a relatively young, inexperienced team. In addition to the underclassmen who are playing key minutes, juniors such as Ryan Kelly, Seth Curry and Mason Plumlee have all taken on more expanded roles than in years past.

Updated 4:52 p.m.

ATLANTA – The most public of the consequences from Duke’s dreary effort against Temple on Wednesday night fell on junior forward Ryan Kelly.

While the entire Blue Devils team shared in the loss, Kelly was one of two players to be benched for Duke’s ACC opener against Georgia Tech, replaced in the starting lineup by Miles Plumlee. The other lineup change – Quinn Cook for Tyler Thornton at point guard – had as much to do with Cook’s ascension as anything Thornton did or did not do.

So while it might be convenient to say Kelly used his sudden status as a reserve as the impetus for his career-high 21 points in fifth-ranked Duke’s 81-74 victory over the Yellow Jackets on Saturday, Kelly said his motivation came from within.

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Duke is heading to Atlanta this afternoon for Saturday’s ACC opener against Georgia Tech (ESPNU, noon).

While the Yellow Jackets have been underwhelming so far this season – Georgia Tech has lost three games in a row, falling to Mercer (ouch), Fordham (double ouch) and Alabama by 25 points – the game will be an intriguing one for the fifth-ranked Blue Devils (12-2) after Wednesday's loss at Temple.

PHILADELPHIA – One of the refreshing things about Duke freshman Austin Rivers is the fact he’s unafraid to speak honestly.

Sometimes that means Rivers might come across as brash.

Other times it means Rivers will offer assessments that are critical of himself and, if one conceives them broadly, his teammates.