The watchword at Duke on Monday was “consistency,” and no one -- not the players, not coach Mike Krzyzewski -- had an explanation why the Blue Devils have been so inconsistent this year. At least, they were consistent in that respect.

“I don’t know, but we have to figure it out,” Duke forward Mason Plumlee said, two days before Duke visits North Carolina in the first meeting between the teams.

From the state of his current Duke team to the Blue Devils' rivalry with Maryland, Mike Krzyzewski touched on a couple of different topics on Monday’s ACC teleconference.

Here are some of the highlights of what he had to say.

On his team: “Overall, our team has done a good job, being 19-4. In our league, we’re two possessions from being undefeated and we’re two possessions from being 4-4, on the other side. These games, especially in conference, turn out to be attention to detail where you have to make a play. Yesterday’s game still boiled down to you have to hit a free throw. When you win a number of games, sometimes your attention to detail is not where it needs to be. The games where we’re involved in now it will be for the rest of the year.”

Two days after expressing disgust at Duke’s second-half effort against St. John’s, Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski was more sanguine Monday in his assessments about his team.

Krzyzewski was most explicit when discussing Duke’s defense.

“Overall, we’ve had to play pretty (darn) good defense in order to have the record we have against the competition we have,” Krzyzewski said. “I don’t care what stats there are out there.”

DURHAM -- Based on the tenor of Mike Krzyzewski’s press conference after Duke’s uninspiring 83-76 win over St. John’s on Saturday, it seems a safe bet the Blue Devils will feel the reverberations of their lackluster second half for days to come.

While putting this game in perspective, it’s worth remembering this game could have lasting effects for the upcoming weeks. Here are three final thoughts:

1. Is this year’s Duke team wearing Coach K out?

There are a lot of words one could use to describe Krzyzewski’s mood when he talked about Saturday’s game, but the most apt one might be “fatigued.” Krzyzewski almost seemed to be at the end of his rope, saying that he’s tried all the things he can think of to improve the team’s defense and intensity to no avail.

Quinn Cook’s recent issues with his knee are not related to the trouble he had this summer, when Duke doctors shut the freshman point guard for the better part of three months.

Instead, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said Cook’s suffering from a knee bruise that he sustained in practice last week.

The freshman point guard only played one minute in the Blue Devils’ 76-73 loss to Florida State on Saturday.

After Florida State’s Michael Snaer hit his game-winning 3-pointer, Austin Rivers crumpled onto the Cameron Indoor Stadium court. Seconds earlier, it looked like he’d hit the shot that would send Saturday’s game between the Seminoles and the Blue Devils into overtime.

Instead, Snaer’s shot ended Duke’s 45-game home winning streak and left Rivers feeling worse for wear.

As the drama of the game subsides, here are three things to take from the Blue Devils’ loss:

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.

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).