College-Basketball Notebook: Krzyzewski discusses Obama statement; Greensboro games sold out

■ Mike Krzyzewski's off-the-cuff remark Wednesday about President Obama and those who fill out NCAA Tournament brackets drew more national reaction than Krzyzewski imagined. So yesterday, Krzyzewski tried to put the story in context.

"A lot of you were here," he said during Duke's news conference at the Greensboro Coliseum. "We were all laughing, and really it was kind of a throwaway line. Not that I would throw away anything about the President.

"I think … people want at some times to create news, they don't want to report news. And in their zest to create, they tell quarter stories or tenth stories or 25 percent instead of telling the whole thing."

Krzyzewski said that his wife, Mickie, and other family members were more concerned about the attention the comments drew than he was. Mickie sent a text message to Reggie Love, a former Duke player who is now Obama's personal aide.

"Mickie texted Reggie and said just in case -- not that he should know, we weren't presuming that he should know what Coach K said in Greensboro -- because an AP reporter decided to give a sentence instead of the whole story. And she said, ‘Coach didn't mean that. This is what he meant, and I hope he (Obama) wasn't offended.'

"And Reggie texted back and said ‘He wasn't offended, though some of the staff was concerned because they always have to be concerned. President Obama thinks Coach K's all right.' Then she texted back and said thanks."

Krzyzewski's original comment Wednesday was in response to a question about Duke not being picked to reach the Final Four by some. First, he said he didn't have time to fill out a bracket and didn't have time to worry about others' brackets.

Then midway through his response, he said, "Really, it doesn't matter at all what anyone predicts, it's what you do. Somebody said we're not in President Obama's Final Four. As much as I respect what he's done, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably, more than the brackets. So why would I care about that?..."

■ Greensboro Coliseum officials announced yesterday that all tickets for today's two second-round games have been sold. North Carolina will play LSU at 5:45, and Duke will play Texas at about 8:15.

■ J.J. Redick called Tyler Hansbrough late Thursday to congratulate him on setting the ACC career scoring record.

Hansbrough, a North Carolina center, broke the mark set in 2006 by Redick, a Duke guard.

"He called me and congratulated me and wished me the best of luck," Hansbrough said. "He told me it was a big deal for him when he broke it, and he thought I'd break it before the year started."

Redick, now playing for the Orlando Magic, called Duke athletics officials last week and asked them to locate Hansbrough's number.

"The Duke thing, everybody kind of talks about that, but I respect the guy," Hansbrough said. "He's a good player and he's done a lot in college basketball."

■ Here's a sure sign of how bad the economy is right now.

Neither North Carolina's afternoon game nor Duke's night game on Thursday on home turf was sold out.

UNC drew 20,226 against Radford, and Duke drew 20,001 for Binghamton. Both crowds were about 3,000 under capacity for the Greensboro Coliseum.

ACC officials said yesterday that both of today's games have sold out.

■ Bobby Frasor laughingly said yesterday that no one in the program knows exactly what is going on with Ty Lawson's injured big right toe.

"He'll say anything," Frasor said. "He's a character. He said (Mike) Copeland pushed him into the basket. I still don't believe that Cope pushed him when he hurt his toe."

Danny Green will also say about anything, according to Frasor, with one difference.

"Danny won't know what he's saying," Frasor said. "Ty actually knows what he's doing. Danny will say something and the next day get in trouble for it. He'll say, `Oh, I didn't know I shouldn't say that.' "

■ UNC has a 26-1 record in NCAA Tournament games played in the state, but Coach Roy Williams said he thinks the advantage of playing in front of a predominantly home crowd is minimal.

"I was sitting on the bench with the `1,' " Williams said.

Williams was an assistant at North Carolina in 1979 when it was beaten by Penn by one point in Raleigh on March 11 at N.C. State's Reynolds Coliseum. Duke played the next game was upset by St. John's by two.

The day is still known as "Black Sunday" in the state.

■ There are fewer NCAA logos on the Greensboro Coliseum playing floor this season, which Williams considers a sign of sanity by the governing body.

Players from all teams in Raleigh last year were slipping and falling after running across the logos, whose surfaces proved to be slick.

"It was a lawsuit waiting to happen," Williams said. "It was a very unsafe thing. Or more importantly, it was an injury waiting to happen."