Two reasons:
1) Not attacking the press consistently
2) Missing wide open shot after wide open shot
There you have it.
Discuss the game here.
Bob Green
Two reasons:
1) Not attacking the press consistently
2) Missing wide open shot after wide open shot
There you have it.
I think Ferryfor50 said it best:
"Outrebounded, out-hustled, out-worked."
Sprinkle in a very poor shooting night from 3 and the outcome isn't all that shocking. Frankly, the fact that we were right there with them at the end is actually encouraging. Not sure GT could play much better or we could shoot much worse from the outside. No panic from me after this one.
Very good defensive performance, terrible offense. Hard to win in the ACC on the road when you can't throw it in the ocean.
Not real happy about losing all our true road games so far. But I would be much more worried (and I'm not at all b/c of today) if it were our defense that was struggling.
I'm still not sure that this team is a different as everyone thinks. Final Four teams don't shoot 47% of their shots in a game from three. You should be able to shoot 26% from three and beat a team that looks like a 5-8 seed right now.
And flaming will begin in 5,4,3,2....
saw a lot to be excited about in this game. Still, the fact that we got the production we did out of Mason and still lost this one tells you something about how much we didn't get out of the guys who have to really carry this team.
Our big men need to be smarter about fouling, especially Miles. We must learn how to actually execute the offense down the stretch and close out the other team's possessions. Too many jacked up threes and extra GT possessions down the stretch.
But most importantly, we have to figure out a way to get consistent offense out of singler. his problems have gone on too long to be a fluke. There has to be some way to get him going again. This team can be great but not without maximum efficiency and we don't come anywhere close to that without Kyle being Kyle.
looks like one *big* difference was FT's... GT was 22 of 28... Duke only 9 of 14...
3 reasons:
1) GT too physical in this one
2) Poor 3 point shooting
3) Singler was awful
If Singler had come to play, we do not lose.
0-2 in true road games is slightly concerning.
Obviously we are not built off the three this year. We got a lot of open threes this game and missed most of them. The statistic will also be inflated since we were forced to throw up a lot of threes in the last minute. What would you have us do as a top 10 three point shooting team in the nation with wide open threes... pull it back out? We just couldn't hit. It happens.
Great game by Mason, but it couldn't make up for the multiple problems we had in this one.
Surprised at how poorly LT and Singler played. Lawal killed us. He looked great today. The ball bounced GT's way today.
Defense doesn't end until you have the ball. Gtech got way too many second chances. We have to close out possessions better. Still, if this is the defensive effort we get all year, it should be enough to win. I think the real letdown in this game was offensively. That part has to get better for us to be really good.
One of Singler's worst games ever.
Glad to see Plumlee have a great game, but he really needs to be playing at the same time as his brother, in other words, both Plumlees need to start, and the sooner the better. Zoubek and Thomas are solid role players, but Mason and Miles are substantially more talented and the future of this program. Really hope to see Mason in the starting lineup immediately.
This loss was disheartening because once again, Duke owns the pre-conference schedule and as soon as the competition improves on the road, Duke loses. I hope Duke improves, but this looks like a broken record right now.
Until today, I haven't been impressed by winning all of our games thus far while Coach K fails to develop Dawkins and Kelly, and running Scheyer and Singler into the ground with heavy minutes in blowouts. Dawkins and Kelly need to get more time going forward so that we aren't so reliant on the three S's, and so that those two talented kids get acclimated to ACC games and DEVELOP. As we saw today, when two or more of our top 3 scorers have bad games, and we have foul trouble, we need quality depth to help win games. Today was a bad omen for ther rest of the conference slate, but if K realizes that he needs to develop his bench (not holding my breath), we'll won't see Duke realize it's fullest potential.
Miles 4-4
Mason 5-6
Zoub - 2-3
11 - 13
Rest of team 15 - 47
I'm sure there will be the usual teeth-gnashing after any loss, but I'm viewing this one as a real teachable moment. Think of all the things that went against Duke:
-Singler/Smith playing their worst games of the season.
-Dreadful 3-point shooting.
-Unusually poor FT shooting.
-Tons of foul trouble.
-Fifth game in 12 days.
-2 road trips (with a stop back in Durham) in four days.
-And, most importantly, playing a good team on the road.
And after all of this, Duke was right there in the end. We didn't get a couple of key stops, missed a couple of wide-open looks and then didn't execute a couple of late-game scenarios well. These are the situations that -- you hope -- Coach K will use to build this team for March success. Clearly, Duke can overcome all the problems above because, again, an a defensive rebound against an airball here, an open 3-pointer in the final minute there, and Duke wins. This team needed to play a close game; needed to go through an experience where a lot of things went wrong. It would have been much, much better to win that game to gain confidence. But this is the type of loss you can build on.
Tech beat us to all the loose balls in the 2nd half. That was as much of a problem as our bad shooting
I agree - I would be more worried if it were our defense that was struggling. We all know and have seen how great our offense can play so to see our defense play well too is good even in this type of game and loss.
I'm not to worried after this game, the boys will be back in top form and come March we won't even remember that we lost to Tech.
Tough to win when two weapons are misfiring... with both Nolan and Kyle struggling, and the tough tough D from GTech, that would have been very, very hard to win.
Nice to see Mason playing well, he is clearly improving with each game. Glad to see Dre get some minutes early; would love to see him hit a few of those threes.
Tough game. GTech seems like the type of team which has sunk us in the post season a few times over the last four or five years... athletic, long, strong... I am sorry we couldn't close them out.
We're not a very deep offensive team. So when we get 6-23 shooting from two of our big three, it's going to be a tough game. Especially when Scheyer isn't exactly lights-out either. Shooting 6-28 from 3 as a team was pretty awful too.
Tough loss. We played reasonable defense but got killed on the boards in the second half.
It was a really nice game from Mason Plumlee. He started looking a lot more confident out there today. Hopefully he continues to progress. That will help a lot, because the offense has been almost completely reliant on the big three to create all the buckets up to this point in the season.