Let's move on from the CIS and Jon Scheyer point guard debates and get ready for a couple of big games at the Garden. The ASU game brings the obvious interest of playing against former Duke player Eric Boateng and NCS coach Herb Sendek. If all goes according to plan, Duke will play U. Conn. on Friday.
ASU is pretty deep with 10 players getting significant minutes and 5 players in double figures. Predicted to be in the bottom half of the PAC 10, ASU appears to be better than this despite weak early competition. Through 4 games ASU is 19 and 59 in offensive and defensive efficiency respectively, according to Pomeroy, while Duke is 10 and 44. Looks like this game could be more interesting than we might have thought earlier. I haven't see the Sun Devils play this year. Perhaps someone else has and can comment.
Hope to see some of you in the Big Apple.
Last edited by 77devil; 11-23-2009 at 12:17 PM.
I view this game as our first "real" game. ASU isn't a great team (predicted bottom half of a weak BSC conference isn't that great), but they are well-coached and have played extremely well of late (against pretty bad competition). I am really looking forward to the following:
1) Scheyer's distribution of the ball. Turnovers or no turnovers, it's more important to get teammates the ball.
2) How our big men, especially Miles, defends in the post. Radford got a lot of points against our guys inside, so let's see how ASU does. Boateng is not as talented as that enormous Eastern European player.
3) How our freshman play. Andre and Kelly had great games - let's see if they can carry that momentum to this game.
4) Singler's play. As the first "real" game, I want to see Singler have a great, all-round, stat-stuffing game.
5) My boy Nolan. I have a feeling that Nolan is gonna have a good night.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
I assume that Arizona State and Herb Sendek are still running the Princeton offense (although I can't really see Eric Boateng as a key cog in the Princeton offense). I remember some games against North Carolina State where it was pretty effective against Duke's extended pressure defense. (I also remember at least one Georgetown game where it was pretty effective.)
I'll be interested to see how it works against Duke's new "compact pressure" defense or, more accurately, how effective Duke's pressure is. I hope that with more athletic bigs we do a better job of handling back door cuts.
ASU had a game over the weekend that went almost identical to the Duke/Radford game.
ASU hit 18 of 32 Three's with one kid hitting 7.
They scored 104 points and had 29 assists on 38 FG's. Unreal how closely that mirrored the Duke game...
I don't think he is still using the princeton offense (old article from last year):
http://www.echofromthebuttes.com/200...e-cliffsnotes/
Can anyone confirm this?
Would love to see both teams catch fire again, with Duke winning this one 138-135 on an Andre Dawkins fadeaway 3 for his 38th point of the game.
Either that, or Duke winning by 1 on a Brian Zoubek dunk over Boateng. I'm not resentful at the guy by any means, but it would just be such poetic irony.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
I will be in attendance for the game Wednesday evening. Let's Go Duke... Hope to see you all there.
Miles Plumlee comments going into New York - http://bluedevilnation.net/2009/11/b...game-comments/
It seems Coach K is not extending the pressure defense as in the past. That alone should limit the back door cuts. However if we fall prey for the steal and take our eye off man and ball(cheat) we could see some back doors cuts. I look for another good game offensively and defensively from our guys.
Go Duke!
Most of the 2009-2010 ASU season previews I've read mention that Sendek's employs a "deliberate" or "methodical" offense. I am guessing he's tweaked it a bit since he was at State, but that it will look fairly familiar to Duke fans. The fact that the Sun Devils team scored 104 points on Saturday doesn't exactly back up my findings, though.
allpac10.com Preview
poingguardu.com Preview
Scout Preview
Glasser's a solid point guard and Kuhsiks is a very good 3-pt shooter but it seems to me this should be a relatively easy victory for Duke, unless we're absolutely dead cold from outside against their zone (and even then, we'd probably just pound the offensive boards for scores.) We'll have the three best players on the court and ASU is rebuilding after the loss of Harden and Pendergraph.
Bumpity, bump, bump!
Yeah losing Pendegraph and Harden are alot to replace. Duke is not a good matchup for ASU. Duke is too disciplined and has too much experience. Duke's first test outside of the confines of Cameron. Probably more of an issue for ASU than for Duke though.
I don't expect Duke to have too much of a problem with ASU. I'd like to see Duke play with a chip on their shoulder and for all the guys not named Singler, Scheyer, and Smith to continue to build on their games in MSG under the big lights.