I would say the OP original question was just a recruit or two in the next couple of weeks away from bbeing a moot point.
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I would say the OP original question was just a recruit or two in the next couple of weeks away from bbeing a moot point.
I guess the next thing you'll be trying to tell people is that the Boston Red Sox choked in 1978.
If I was to game plan against Duke I'd definitely pay attention to the 3 pt shooters in general. I then would have made it a priority to shutdown Mr. Rivers. As for having Dre stand in the corner, well if he chose to do that so be it. I wouldn't be to concerned about him until he showed me he was on.
You do realize that Dre had six games this past season where he scored ZERO points. His last six games were 0, 3, 0, 0, 0, and 5.
His scoring numbers for this season is nearly identical to his numbers from last season. Where was the improvement?
I hope that's serious enough for you.;)
Laying aside the actual outcome of the game for a moment, Duke's almost loss to Belmont in 2008 is far more shocking in terms of the final score than Duke's loss to Lehigh this year. Belmont was ranked 148 in Kenpom (after the game ended . . . I presume they moved up a couple of spots) while Duke was top 10. They were separated by 140 spots. Belmont was, at best, a perfectly average NCAA team. Lehigh, on the other hand, was one of the best 15 seeds ever, ranked at 81 (as was mentioned before, they were actually ranked above VaTech). This year's Duke team, of course, was ranked lower than the 2008 squad, hovering around 17 before the game and currently ranked 20th with a very inconsistent defense and a suddenly inconsistent offense. Now, I preface this by saying that no one involved with Duke basketball should be happy with the result in the game against Lehigh. It is absolutely fine for everyone involved with the program to be upset that Duke lost to a 15 seed. However, take seeding out of the calculation, take the names off the jerseys, and look how the teams matched up on paper. Team A is better than Team B, but the margin is nowhere near insurmountable especially given that Team A is missing a key player.
So, Duke shouldn't be satisfied with this result. No way. We all know how much Coach K hates losing and this loss has got to sting more than most. That being said, from a more detached standpoint, the loss isn't a watershed that illuminates anything we didn't already know about the 2012 squad nor does it say anything about the overall program's long-term health. The team will be very different next season. With guys who bring different physical skills to the table like Alex, Mike, and Rasheed entering the conversation (or taking a more prominent spot in the conversation as is the case with Mike), our defensive issues might be completely different than this past season. With Austin moving on, our offense will look very different (and as good as Austin was, he was not a notably efficient player). The 2007 and 2008 teams looked radically different even though the personnel looked almost exactly the same (sub Kyle for Josh). The 2013 team will have more new faces with very different abilities. I predict we'll see a completely different team.
I didn't say anything about improvement. I think I was pretty clear in admitting Andre played poorly down the stretch. As you note, he barely scored those last six games. But that doesn't mean defenses sagged off him and ignored him, because they didn't. I guarantee you opposing coaches gave their charges explicit instructions not to leave Andre open. They've seen tape of his explosions, and they know as well as we do those explosions are impossible to predict.
Look, Andre remains much the same guy he was last year, but the guy he was last year can have a monster game from deep at any time. Because he has that ability, defenses will always respect his shot and hang near him. If you can point to a game where he was ignored BY THE DEFENSE (and not our offense) while he was on the court, I would love to hear about it. Having a great three point shooter on the court helps spacing, even when he's not hitting. There are limits to that usefulness, but it's folly to pretend it doesn't exist.
It's not how many over the course of a season, but when. Dawkins got off during a number of games and at times that Duke desperately needed it. Those moments incloude when Duke had a lead that had all but slipped away or did, towards the end of games when they needed his shot, or towards the end of a half. I think one could say that Dawkins got it done in a number of games that might well have gone the other way if he had not.
If Duke was not loaded with guards and another three shooter, Dawkins probably would have gotten more playing time, say if Duke had not landed Rivers. In fact, there might have been plays like the ones set for JJ, if necessary several times on a single possession and often sometimes with all sorts of multiple screens having been set. JJ wasn't putting the ball on the ground very often in those games, if I recall correctly. Fsekind likrwise didn't put it on the ground very often either, but, if I recall, he did pretty well when he did. Maybe Dawkins also would have been greater leeway to find his shot than he was allowed this year. If Dawkins missed two off the bat, he almost always was taken out immediately.
As for the last six games, no one can dispute that Rivers occupied the ball more and more, for longer times. Some have speculated that that threw the offense even more out of whack than it had been all season. Maybe Dawkins had difficulty dealing with it, had difficulty finding his rhythm. Usually, when you sit watching, you get a feel for how and when you can fit in with the flow of the offense to be effective. Other things might have happened to throw him off that it would be inappropriate to even suggest as a possibility without some evidence in support.
Who knows, maybe nothing or no one but Dawkins had anything to do with his inability to score the ball in the shortened minutes he got, even after Kelly went down. Maybe he just was in a shooting slump.
If K decides next season to go with an offense that features Curry running off screens aka JJ, I should think that Duke would not need to change a thing if Dawkins came in as Curry's backup.
I actually heard Hubert Davis and Jay Williams while they were analyzing one of Duke's games that they think two most athletic guys who are underused on this team are Andre Dawkins and Michael Gbnije. And that both need to develop slashing skills which would highly complement their athletic ability. And which is why some of us are high on MG.
I certainly respect the opinions of a future Duke Hall of Famer, Jay Williams. I wonder what he saw in Mike that would cause him to posit that he was underused. If K knows they are short on athleticism; why doesn't he develop/play/cultivate and give some OJT to a kid who actually has it? It's a mystery to me; but one that has many baffled. I have never really seen Mike play; just clips from his highscool days. Sad, considering our weaknesses this year. I'm getting used to this. it is what it is.