MBB: Duke 66, Boston College 65 (ACC Tournament) Post-Game Thread

[mr. synellinden]

That's all that March is about. Win and you keep playing.

The difference in the second half was making 7 of 8 three pointers. That being said, during the last five minutes, we started to stand around a bit and watch Henderson who had some forced possessions and we settled for outside shots, when we had a lead and they were over the limit. In those situations you have to put pressure on the defense by taking it inside and forcing them to foul or give a close shot. That's exactly what K drew up on the last possession. As someone else said, I don't know why we don't run offensive sets like that more often.

Exhale.

Survive and advance.

Oh, and 6 blocks for Singler? He had a Battier-esque game.

[roywhite]

Biko Paris---you can wake up now.

[InSpades]

cause if he had gotten a third, he would be on the bench or ineffective until about the 10 minute mark of the 2nd half or later. It was the right decision.

The same could be said no matter when you bring him in. If you sit him most of the 1st half and he gets an early foul in the 2nd half then what? You sit him until 10 minutes left in the 2nd half? It's silly. Let him play. Gerald rarely fouls. In 23 of his games this year he has had 2 fouls or less. It's not like he is Hasheem Thabeet who has to block shots and go for offensive rebounds to be effective. He's perfectly capable of being effective and avoiding fouls, he's done it all year (mostly anyway).

[rsvman]

Sitting Gerald was the right move.

If he had played and picked up another foul, or fouled out of the game, and we had lost, everybody would criticize K for playing him (remember the Final Four game against UConn, anybody?).

I guess if you're a coach, you can't win for losing. Even when the team wins. Sheesh.

Just be happy with a victory in a very hard-fought game that could've gone the other way. My only complaint with the team tonight was free-throw shooting. I've noticed Scheyer missing free throws at the end of games for the past 5 games or so, and Gerald missed a bunch, too. We have to tighten this up.

Otherwise, I thought it was a great game against a very good, well coached team.

[karmacoma]

Since my last couple of posts dwelled on the negative, here's a big positive IMO -- since the loss at Wake, our in-bounds play defense has gotten much, much better. Tonight, the Scheyer steal was clutch (can't believe he stayed in-bounds!), and we forced BC to start way higher than they wanted to on that last possession.

[weezie]

Yikes...these games are not good for my beauty sleep. EWill's defense was superb, locked down. Kyle was super snappy, most fantastical with that late 2nd half under-the-defender-toss in.

I also think our team is composed of the best looking guys in the NCAA. BC just looked goofy.

[HDB]

or did BC get more than their fair share of fortunate bounces and tip balls in that game? There were numerous times that I thought we played great d only to tip the ball to another BC player or straight out of bounds.

Glad we got the W in the end.

[CBDUKE]

The tourney will be wide open, I'll give you that. I can't imagine all four #1 seeds will meet in the Final Four again this year. Anyone can beat anyone.

But I'm not talking about single games, I'm talking about the ability of this team to win 4 or more consecutive games relying too heavily on too few. For my money, those missed free-throws at the end of the game were all about fatigue, and I don't see that getting any better.

Look, I'm going to pull like crazy for our guys. Like the other 64 teams, they'll have, in theory, as good a chance as any. I just think a deep run will require more from the supporting players than we saw tonight.

Can we give the minutes played a break. We must be the most out of shape team in the country. Three UNC players were in the high 30 minutes and we played the same number of players as they did. What about the Syracuse players, and the won in overtime tonight.

[feldspar]

IMO, when it's the post-season, I stop worrying about how close wins are, because everyone brings their A-game 40 minutes per game this time of year. Anything can happen, and the only thing that matters at the end of the game is the final score.

We survived this game and will learn from it. Kyle was solid tonight and carried us on his back. The defense got the job done in the last 30 seconds, and that's what is most important for me. Jon's not going to miss clutch free throws like that very often.

Good...no, GREAT win for Duke tonight. I'm proud of this team.

[dukelifer]

Maryland will be playing game number three in three days tomorrow. Fatigue may begin to be a factor them. They'll need lots of energy to play at the pace needed to beat Duke.

Usually-it sets in during the 4th game- but Duke will try to take advantage.
They also just played a great game- hard to play two of those in a row.

[RepoMan]

but why do you want to go to Greensboro with 10,000+ UNC fans? I'd much rather have, say, Philly.

At least it ain't Charlotte

[Greg_Newton]

You have to wonder if Smith's concussion affected his eyesight. He moved well but he missed some easy shots.

Yeah, I hope he's alright. I'll be interested to see how he does tomorrow, because he didn't look like himself today. The layup, the rejected fast break finish, the turnover when he got trapped under BC's basket, the foul on the and-1, he just... well, he looked like someone who was still affected by his recent concussion, and a step slow mentally. He really reminded me of a guy on my old HS team that had to come back from several concussions... you could just tell he was a little off. Nolan about gave me a heart attack when he slammed full speed into the pad under the basket just before halftime.

I also hope that Lance didn't re-aggravate his ankle. When he turned it over at the top of the key and sprinted back to try to strip Trapani's layup, it looked like he came up gimpy. I saw him limping a couple times after that, and he never was quite the active presence he was early in the game when we looked so impressive. I think him playing close to 100% is EXTREMELY important to this team.

E-Will did a phenomenal job on Rice, as (I still maintain) he did on Lawson last game. The cheap fouls continue to plague him, but wow, what a fast-twitch athlete and what energy and in-your-face competitiveness.

And lastly... I hate to keep coming back to the abundance of little opportunities to put teams away that we keep missing, but it's pretty unsettling to watch Syracuse make 20 of their first 22 FTs in OTs 1-6 last night (AFTER their legs had gone through 40 minutes of play) and then watch us make only 13 of 22 FTs throughout the entire game today. Our strengths are supposed to be our poise, shooting and fundamentals...

But hey, it feels great to escape with a tourney win against a very good team when you only played subpar. I bet we'll see some solid intensity tomorrow... as far as poise and shooting, well, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[sagegrouse]

Ze Sagegrouse of Routt County, who has probably been overindulging in locoweed, has a few comments on ze game:

1. Henderson started ze game like he was determined to score 80 points, have 25 steals, and 30 blocks. Not surprisingly, he lasted less zan 30 seconds after committing two dumb fouls. Uh, Gerald, be quick, but don't hurry, and play wit-in yourself. You almost cost us ze game.

2. Any team that was truly ready to play would make more zan 60 percent of its FTs. I look for a much better effort tomorrow.

3. Shutdown defense saved our butts in ze last minute and kept us in ze game in ze first half.

4. Or else, Al Skinner hates the ACC tournament and was trying to lose at the end. What ze heck is the explanantion for zree timeouts in the last 30 seconds, except to disrupt his own team and prevent zem from getting a decent shot?

5. You live by ze zree-point shot or you die by ze zree-point shot. In our case, we died in ze first half, but we pulled a Lazarus from ze zree-point line in ze second half.

Sagegrouse
'Seldom right but never in doubt'

[InSpades]

Sitting Gerald was the right move.

If he had played and picked up another foul, or fouled out of the game, and we had lost, everybody would criticize K for playing him (remember the Final Four game against UConn, anybody?).

I agree. Sitting him is the way to avoid criticism because sitting a player who has 2 early fouls is what is the norm. I also think it hurts your team terribly. Do you honestly think K cares about criticism?

Sitting your best player because he has fouls accomplishes nothing. You sit him so he doesn't foul out? The downside of him fouling out is him sitting! If Gerald is going to foul out in 10 minutes of play then does it really matter if those 10 minutes are in the 1st or 2nd half?

Wake sitting James Johnson possibly cost them the game earlier in the night. Was that the right move? He sat his most effective player more than he needed to and his team fell behind and could never catch up. Maybe if he played a bit more in the 1st half he wouldn't have decided he needed to force up terrible 3-pointers in the 2nd half. Who knows.

[robobevan]

Why did coach K call time out between gerald's 2 free throws? We were up by eight and things were going our way. We were also close to the under 8 minutes time out.
Also like another poster I noticed how physical we were on the out of bounds play under our basket near the end of the game. Big improvement since that Wake game.
Great win! Go Duke!

[ncexnyc]

This game so resembled the first game against BC.
We had early control of the game and looked like we would cruise to an easy win. Nolan makes a great steal, but misses a lay-up, back comes BC and bam, four point swing and we've got ourselves a game. Of course Rice finally wakes-up and hits a pair of 3's prior to the end of the half and low and behold, BC is up by 7.

Everyone on Duke finally gets it going, the 3's start falling and the D gets us a few easy baskets and suddenly we're pulling away, but wait BC does it's best Dracula imitation and rises from the dead with the help of some sorry free throw shooting by Duke.

These kids really love gutting out these close games. I wonder if they get a cut from Duke Medical for all the cardiac patients that have been coming there way these past few weeks.

Let's do better at the charity stripe and let's stop giving up these dumb fouls after we play close to 30 seconds of stellar defense.

Nolan looked pretty good in his first game back and should see more time over the next few games.

Greg appears to be the odd man out, but that doesn't surprise me.

Brian had some interesting moments and maybe we'll see more of him against the twerps.

David looked better tonight and hopefully he's back to being out of his funk.

But most of all let's keep G from collecting 2 quick fouls in less than a minute of play.

And speaking of fouls, the officiating of this game was rather strange. It seemed they were calling lots of ticky tack fouls at the start of the game, but later they let the game get very physical.

[mgtr]

I was not aware that they talked that funny way in Colorado, but it is late, and I am aware of less and less as the liquor flows. But we won!

[RepoMan]

Yeah, I hope he's alright. I'll be interested to see how he does tomorrow, because he didn't look like himself today.
. . .
But hey, it feels great to escape with a tourney win against a very good team when you only played subpar. I bet we'll see some solid intensity tomorrow... as far as poise and shooting, well, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I couldn't disagree more with your post, but I will focus on two comment in particular:

1. I thought Nolan looked great. Sure, he missed the layup, but, for the most part, he looked better than he had been playing in the two weeks prior to the concussion. I am super optimistic about Duke's chances based on what we saw from Nolan

2. I thought we played very well, not subpar. Sure, we can play better, but, for the most part, we played a solid game. Kyle was excellent. G played through a wierd foul game. Scheyer was solid. E played good D. Dave was great. He seemed to be back in form. Defense was really good. really, I just feel great.


Fear the turtle my a*s

[COYS]

I agree. Sitting him is the way to avoid criticism because sitting a player who has 2 early fouls is what is the norm. I also think it hurts your team terribly. Do you honestly think K cares about criticism?

Sitting your best player because he has fouls accomplishes nothing. You sit him so he doesn't foul out? The downside of him fouling out is him sitting! If Gerald is going to foul out in 10 minutes of play then does it really matter if those 10 minutes are in the 1st or 2nd half?

Wake sitting James Johnson possibly cost them the game earlier in the night. Was that the right move? He sat his most effective player more than he needed to and his team fell behind and could never catch up. Maybe if he played a bit more in the 1st half he wouldn't have decided he needed to force up terrible 3-pointers in the 2nd half. Who knows.

Gerald sitting wasn't the only reason for our offensive woes in the first half. Quite frankly, the team should have executed better on offense throughout the first half, with or without him there. Our defense was still stellar and it made the decision to sit G a little easier. Any such decision is certainly debatable, but I'm not sure it was clearly a bad decision. With better free throw shooting we would have won this game by a comfortable enough margin that most people would probably have forgotten that G hardly played in the first half.

[karmacoma]

Can we give the minutes played a break. We must be the most out of shape team in the country. Three UNC players were in the high 30 minutes and we played the same number of players as they did. What about the Syracuse players, and the won in overtime tonight.

I agree, the "Coach K never develops his bench" meme is overdone. It's not just the minutes -- although again, I think they contribute to missed FT's down-the-stretch. It's also about the burden on the Big 3 to generate virtually all of our scoring. Balance and bench productivity matter in March.

I don't think what I'm saying is all that controversial -- consider the first half, when we seemed lost offensively w/o Gerald on the court with his early foul trouble. I'm sure somebody will...maybe Nolan, as he gets his legs back.