MBB: Duke 64- Arizona State 53-- Post Game Thread

[striker219]

Is it just me perhaps not having a good day, or is listening to Vitale doing a basketball game somewhat akin to waterboarding?

He rambles, he talks about anything he can think of other than the game at hand, and he is boring.

It would be nice if I could figure out how to synch Bob Harris and hear some real game commentary. Otherwise I might find it preferable just to mute the sound and watch the game in silence to avoid hearing Dickie V ramble.

k

If there is a bright side to the last few years as far as the rivalry is concerned, it's that Vitale has been a bigger cheerleader for Carolina than for Duke.

[Kane]

You're kidding . . . Miles Plumlee is much improved over last year and that's it. The only positive from this game other than we won and no one was injured. If this same Duke team shows up against UCONN we're baby seals ;-)

[dukeballer2294]

does anybody think that this below average performance was a fluke? im not saying were #1 but when we essentially live and die by the 3 we sometimes play like this. it was also our first decent test, with uconn being our first true test, and this doesnt get me worried. first game away from cameron and its early. dont freak 5 games into a 5-0 season

[77devil]

Do you realize that Duke held Arizona State to 2 FG's in the last 12 or 13 minutes? After some adjustments, the second half defense was good.

True, but the guys didn't exactly put them away either when up 12 and failing to score in 3 trips down the floor, and not a single second chance on those possessions either.

[Wildling]

Geez, yeah, we're so dang slow. We were so slow on defense that ASU shredded us to the tune of 39% shooting. Ok, so Zoubs and Miles got caught out on the perimeter a few times and got beat by quick guards. That happens when we play defense like we did tonight (a little disorganized, at times). Even on those plays, ASU needed a pick and roll to get the action going. Nolan, Scheyer, Dawkins, and even Singler did great jobs prevented their defenders from blowing by. Miles' rotations were slow not for lack of quickness, but from inexperience. This game showed how much he still has to learn. We also missed a lot of chippies and wide open threes. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of new pieces working this season and it will take time before things click all the time, but team quickness is far from our biggest concern.

This is spot on in my opinion. Well said COYS.

Coach K made the defensive adjustments at halftime, and while they didn't execute perfectly, they understood why and where they were getting beat defensively.

This means to me they understand their weaknesses, they are coach-able, and intelligent enough to understand what was happening to them. This is a real positive in my book.

While it was an ugly win, the 2nd half showed me this team has what it takes to be a very good team down the road. I am excited about this team and they way it played in the 2nd half. Gutsy effort.

[airowe]

You're kidding . . . Miles Plumlee is much improved over last year and that's it. The only positive from this game other than we won and no one was injured. If this same Duke team shows up against UCONN we're baby seals ;-)

We held them to 15% 3 Pt. Shooting and 38% from the field. That's a positive.

[Poincaré]

Thoughts:
Plumlee: Made some freshman mistakes to be sure. He can't go through his man's arm on the entry pass. I think he will learn his lesson. He realized that he could play positional defense on Boateng late and succeeded. The truth is, tonight we saw how he still has a good deal of work to do on positioning (on defense and on the boards). He also needs to work on staying open in the post for more than a split second. Again.. positioning. This will take some time. Still, that block...Ohhhh my. I am glad he didn't hurt his head... that was close.
...
Sidenote- Don't argue that we don't go inside enough...ok people? We tried and our posts really struggled to establish and hold position.

Not to be a nitpick, but the Plumlee who played tonight was the Eldest (i.e., the soph)... I agree that he did make freshman mistakes. However, he also seems to be our only post player with potential for near-term development at the moment (Since we haven't seen Mason play yet).

Also, I think may be the sentiment is that if we don't have even one post player who can establish and hold position, then we are in trouble due to our thin (albeit talented) backcourt.

[SCMatt33]

We held them to 15% 3 Pt. Shooting and 38% from the field. That's a positive.

I'm not so sure about that. Yes, it always good to hold a team to those numbers, but I think it says more about ASU's talent level than our defense for the night. I recall a lot of missed open looks from the outside and they missed several layups. At the end of the day, we we're able to win solely because we are more talented. As for the minutes, I didn't mind seeing Nolan, Kyle, and Jon play the whole game, because they're going to need to play 35-40 minutes the entire year.

[Greg_Newton]

Woof.

Ryan Kelly... plays 5 minutes?

Miles Plumlee... plays 17 minutes?

S, S & S play 40 minutes... against ASU... in NOVEMBER?

Sure Miles was in some foul trouble, but he could have easily gotten 5-10 more minutes. And I strongly disagree that we should not have looked to the post more. Especially in the 2nd half, Miles was consistently getting good position on his defender and presenting passers with a target... they just never even looked at him. It's like S/S/S aren't used to having an offensive post option, so they don't even think about it. Perhaps if Kelly had played more, we would have seen some more post entry passes, which leads me to:

I just fail to comprehend how Kelly and MP1 play a combined 22 minutes in this game, while at the same time we fail to give any of the big 3 a single breather. If we're trying to prove our doubters correct and peak early due to drained players and a low ceiling, then that's the way to go. However, if we want to build a dangerous team that exploits its strengths, we NEED them to be major factors. It's November, and they've both been very effective so far.

I just hope this is some kind of test or coaching strategy and not a recurring theme. As much as an *** as Gottlieb was tonight, I have to agree with him to some extent - I just don't understand some of the things we did tonight.

[airowe]

I'm not so sure about that. Yes, it always good to hold a team to those numbers, but I think it says more about ASU's talent level than our defense for the night. I recall a lot of missed open looks from the outside and they missed several layups.

They shoot 49.4% from 3 point range and made one non-bank three point shot. ONE, non-lucky three point shot. Tonight they shot 2-13 from beyond the arc. Again, one of those was a bank shot.

[Neals384]

Thoughts:

Pick n' Roll: Let's be honest here. Duke had a huuuuge problem guarding the high screen and roll tonight (though the roll rarely hurt us). ASU ran Glasser off of one or two high screens and pushed for the switch. He then either came off the screen looking for a player flying in from the corner or attacked the mismatch (Plumlee or Zou) and got to the hoop or foul. Glasser is a heck of a player and he punished us on the screen and roll for much of the game.

What could Duke do? Fight through screens better... give him the three... or go small. Well, we did a bit of all of this and stopped the screen and roll in the second half. It took K awhile to instruct on this, but it happened and it worked for the most part.

Agree. I lost track of the number of times Miles or Zoubs followed Boat waay out to the 3 pt line. And they actually seemed as if they wanted to make the switch. And out of position for guarding the little guy, who scored on them at will. This needs a lot of work, or maybe we should be playing zone.

[Jim3k]

No need to be bellyachin' over this game. Herb's teams always make things ugly. They play hard and his zone concepts are outstanding -- the collapsing stuff jams the middle very well.

Once Duke figured out how to deal with it, late in the first half, it started going our way. Lockett played his heart out in a terrific first half. But he ran out of gas. Without his hot streak, Duke is in the lead the whole way. Many of his shots were of the circus variety. He played out of his mind -- but that was true defensively as well, where he was a bit out of control and got into serious foul trouble.

Sendek's zone tries to do one other thing -- stop the the treys. And they did that, much like Villanova did last spring. We've done it to other teams and ASU did it to us tonight. We were only 4 for 18 from beyond the line. Not every team will be able to do that to us.

One other thing slowed us in the first half -- Zoubs had some footwork and ball handling problems that I thought he had overcome. (Don't bring the ball down Brian.) That cost us about 3 possessions. In the second half, he played much better and those rebs stayed with us. We out-rebounded them both offensively and defensively. Between Zoubek and Miles we picked up 13 rebs, of which 5 were offensive. They should have been better pointwise, but the main problem was Miles and Zoubs not hitting FTs like they should. Miles was 2 for 5 and Zoubs 1 for 2. Zoubs is a very good FT shooter and Miles is better than he showed. I think they also stopped Boateng who simply cannot deal with centers better than he. Four points and 4 rebs in 31 minutes... He's not terrific, but he did nothing against our guys. I think against smaller/fewer bigs, he does better.

Truthfully, I don't think this game was that far from becoming a blowout. Four more FTs from our centers and we're up 15, two more treys and we're up 21.

We held them without a field goal for (I think) about 8 minutes in the second half. And they only shot 28% from the floor in that half.

So while it was not pretty, it was strong. Yet we should give some credit to Herb's team. The Sun Devils played hard and made us work to win. His team may have been picked 7th in the Pac-10, but I guarantee they are better than that. Maybe top 4 or 5. That team will see post-season play if it remains healthy.

Anyway, no need to think that the Connvicts will have an easy time with us. I think we will simply out-tough them. Playing pretty is unimportant so long as we win.

GTHC

[OldSchool]

Folks, the mediocre play in much of the game tonight was due to mental lapses, not athletic inferiority to ASU.

Indeed, in my opinion Nolan, Kyle and Miles are really elite level athletes among D1 basketball players. (As I type this that play of Miles's when he ran after an ASU player, rejected his shot from behind and then ducked his head as he went flying under the rim comes to mind.)

It seemed to me like three-quarters of the team was just playing in a daze for some reason tonight, particularly on the defensive side. Not recognizing what ASU was trying to run, not getting into the right position quickly enough, not rotating quickly enough.

And all of the dumb, silly fouls by our bigs! The problems we had tonight start and end in the mental space.

And that will determine how we do against UConn, not how we would fare in a decathlon against those guys. If we come out to play razor-sharp mentally, we win. If our guys are in a tryptophan hangover, we will be caught out in silly fouls and with our heads turned the wrong way on perimeter flashes as UConn strolls to the hoop.

[JaMarcus Russell]

Folks, the mediocre play in much of the game tonight was due to mental lapses, not athletic inferiority to ASU.

It seemed to me like three-quarters of the team was just playing in a daze for some reason tonight, particularly on the defensive side. Not recognizing what ASU was trying to run, not getting into the right position quickly enough, not rotating quickly enough.

And all of the dumb, silly fouls by our bigs! The problems we had tonight start and end in the mental space.

And that will determine how we do against UConn, not how we would fare in a decathlon against those guys. If we come out to play razor-sharp mentally, we win. If our guys are in a tryptophan hangover, we will be caught out in silly fouls and with our heads turned the wrong way on perimeter flashes as UConn strolls to the hoop.

I couldn't agree any more. I thought that Zoubek and Miles both had some very bad mental lapses. Miles picked up 2 unnecessary fouls while trying to aggressively defend a turnover machine who would have handed the ball over with no struggle a few seconds later. Zoubek just had a very poor performance tonight outside of his rebounding. I was disappointed to see him continue to get playing time after mental mistakes, while Kelly didn't see much action.

The one thing that confused me was how Zoubek repeatedly followed his man to the 3-point area, and how Coach K seemingly wanted him to continue doing that.

[BlueDevilCorvette!]

Wow, tonight it looked like Duke was playing in quicksand with concrete Nike's on. Hey, my only 2 cents about the game is why did they often overlook Dawkins? At one point he was screaming for the ball in the corner but Kyle didn't get it to him. Either way, I can see good things coming as a result of this game. I won't be so quick to say that UConn will have their way with Duke. I think Duke team leaders will provide the stability and energy to get us the victory Friday.

[1999ballboy]

A few things.

-The fouls by our bigs are the biggest concern to me here. The problem of bigs getting beaten on the outside was corrected in the second half. Our poor shooting improved in the second half. The fouls were the only thing that were bad the whole time. I thought Zoubek got called for a couple of ticky-tack fouls (and at least one time, he was on the wrong side of a no-call on the offensive glass), but Miles has really got to stop making those fouls if he's gonna keep starting at the 5 this year. And I think he will. Every other aspect of his game has improved tremendously, and those fouls were just mental lapses.

-Our team's defense as a whole consistently looked better when Lance was in the game. I'd like to see his +/- stats on this game.

-That offensive foul call on Nolan was one of the worst calls I've ever seen, or at least it looked that way on TV.

-I am in agreement with all those who said they'd like to see Ryan get more minutes. I hope his minutes don't totally disappear when Mason comes back.

-K went small a couple of times- notably in the closing minutes. I never really bought the claim that Kyle wouldn't play any 4 this year, and it looks like he will, at least a little. Which I don't think is a bad thing, as long as it isn't his regular position. Which it won't be.

-Getting Lockett in foul trouble might have been the best thing we did that game. That guy was flat out scaring me in the early minutes.

[NYC Duke Fan]

Not to be a nitpick, but the Plumlee who played tonight was the Eldest (i.e., the soph)... I agree that he did make freshman mistakes. However, he also seems to be our only post player with potential for near-term development at the moment (Since we haven't seen Mason play yet).

Also, I think may be the sentiment is that if we don't have even one post player who can establish and hold position, then we are in trouble due to our thin (albeit talented) backcourt.

I remember when Mason committed to Duke, his father said that he is not a back to the basket post player...has that changed ? I don't think that it has and Mason when he is ready will not be the answer in the post.

[darthur]

#1 Kansas vs unranked Memphis: 57 - 55
#2 Michigan State vs unranked Gonzaga: 75 - 71
#4 Villanova vs unranked George Mason: 69 - 68
#5 Kentucky vs unranked Miami Ohio: 72 - 70

Bad games... they happen.

[Kane]

Duke's 3 pt % 22.2, Smith 0 for 6 and Singler 1 for 5 . . . on the playground in the un-PC world where players "sweat and swear" they're called 'bricks." (Singler missed 8 of his first 9 shots - perhaps worst game of his career?) Whom among us can "spin" this glass to half full?

Total pt. production from the bigs 13 (that needs to double) otherwise, we're still the perimeter oriented team from years past with some tall guys on the team. Going inside FIRST then kicking it back out when required may help our 3 pt % . . . let's hope so at least!

BTW a "brick" is a poor shot so named for sounding and looking as though one tossed an actual brick toward or onto the rim and it lands with a "clunk" or a "clank" sound, a.k.a. "boing."

[PhillyDuke]

Coach K has to play Kelly more than five minutes, or he'll NEVER reach is potential. That's the one thing I hate about the coach; he plays too short a bench. This is the reason why we have McD's all-americans sitting who don't turn into anything, which is a turn-off to high school players.