MBB: NC State 88- Duke 74 Post Game Thread

[BlueintheFace]

Keep it civil...

[FerryFor50]

This was more about how well NCSU shot and played than how poorly Duke played. Defensively, they weren't all there, but overall, it wasn't a terrible showing. State just couldn't miss...

[BlueintheFace]

State shot 58% (a lot of them jumpers) and Smith abused Plumlee early on. They just were on fire and hit those late ridiculous shots you need to pull off an upset. Kudos to them

[CLW]

total defensive let down by just about everyone that touched the floor. they looked slow and made so... many mental mistakes it was ugly. combine that with another poor shooting tonight and this team had no chance to get out of NC State with a W.

[Kfanarmy]

I thought they seemed meek right from the tip off...even when they made a little run, no emotion. Have to have some emotion, even on someone elses court if you're going to compete.

[dyedwab]

at least we weren't exposed as fundamentally flawed. We just had a game of uninspired and silly basketball.

No fight on defense, bad shot selection, unforced turnovers...

...at least everything is correctable...

[jipops]

Duke didn't play tonight, or should I say didn't compete. Not at all. This game wasn't remotely competitive.

[DevilHorns]

Scheyer was off today with decision-making, singler was tossing up shots that were not high%. only nolan showed up tonight. IMO, i think miles should've got more minutes but i think his very early play got him benched and zoubs played decently but i guess no poorly enough to let miles have another shot.

[Duke79UNLV77]

He had a very similar stretch last year. Given their modest athleticism, Singler and Scheyer need to be consistently superb shooters to be great players. So far in their careers, they just aren't.

Also, how few minutes did our "most talented player," according to Bilas and others, receive, not to mention his brother?

[Son of Mojo]

Bad defense/State hitting improbable shots combined with only our big 3 scoring but not shooting well = loss. There needs to be a step-up in our game by Saturday night. Were the Plumlees and Dawkins even out there (yes, I know they were, I mean figuratively)?? Only positive that may come from this game is getting a fire lit under Coach and the kids to not underperform for the rest of the year. NEXT.

[KShip21]

"at least Carolina lost"- from poster in the in game thread

after Saturday we could be sitting right next to them in the standings. Not so funny anymore is it?

[PumpkinFunk]

They came to play, we didn't. It showed most of the game that we were hurt, looking ahead to Clemson, and just did not come physically or mentally prepared. State jumped out to an early lead and got a crowd behind them, and it just got worse and worse for us from that point on.

[SCMatt33]

I don't think that this is one of those losses that "exposes" something specific that other teams can exploit going forward (though I'd imagine that there will be some practice time spent on rotating in help defense), but it certainly hurts.

State gets all the credit in the world for playing lights out while we were, well, flat (to keep it civil).

This loss may haunt us on selection Sunday specifically. State is outside the RPI top 100 as of now and I'd imagine will hover around that mark for the rest of the year. That goes down as a "bad loss" by the committee and if we're on the edge of one seed line to the next (1-2 or 2-3 depending on the rest of the season), it could very well be what bumps us down. It could, and I stress could, be like that question on a test where you mistakenly filled in the wrong bubble and you went from an A- to a B+ because of it.

[BlueintheFace]

Duke didn't play tonight, or should I say didn't compete. Not at all. This game wasn't remotely competitive.

you are wrong, i mean... that is all

[-bdbd]

Very disappointing. I didn't watch the whole thing, but am eager to see the box score. Seemed like the refs did us no favors either. This was just an awful performance by our guys though. State worked harder than us. NCSU was playing mostly out of their minds. That State three with 1 on the shot clock and around 6 min to go - with the lead down to 8 - that was killer! And a total prayer. NCSU just wanted it more. Everything down the stretch just seemed to bounce their way -- loose balls, rebounds, close ref calls, and 60% FT shooters making all their FT's, while our guys (with higher season %) kept missing... Bleeech!!!

I just hope this result lights a fire for us, like Clemson did last year...
It better.

[Kane]

Where are all of those on this board now that were so concerned by Plumlees' "woofing" against Wake a.k.a. playing with an attitude? Attitude wins games and State's Smith showed attitude and almost beat Duke by himself while Duke's bigs allowed him to dominate inside. We could have used some attitude, but we had none this game. We need some Laettner like attitude every game and we had it against Wake, but not against State. If I want to see a "boys choir" I'll go to Duke Chapel, but the rest of time I want to see attitude and if that includes "woofing" then so be it!

[VaDukie]

I don't know if we can take anything away from that other than we can't turn the ball over like that and State couldn't miss. How much of it was their shooting touch and how much was our inability to defend dribble penetration is unknown.

[jv001]

We made a pretty good team look great by not playing defense coming out of the dressing room. Miles looked worse tonight than he did at times last year. I guess the patting on the back after the Wake game did nothing to help him get ready for tonights game. As for the Big 3, only Nolan actually played well. That's all I'm going to say until I've had a night to sleep on this game. Go Duke!

[devildownunder]

Ferryfor50, this team's stock and trade needs to be its defense, so this was the worst kind of performance because the team let down at what is most important to it. Yes, state shot well, but they had wide open shots all night. Anybody would shoot well under those circumstances.

I refuse to believe this team will continue to play this poorly. The last couple of times out, at home anyway, were relatively easy. Maybe they got away from thinking about defense so much. I hope that's the case anyway. There is enough to work with on this team that tonight's loss can be a springboard, a la the game in charlottesville on the way to the first NC in '90-'91.

Oh, one other bright spot, Singler at least made some noise. He looked marginally more comfortable offensively.

And that WAS a great shot by Nolan.

[arydolphin]

It's only one game in the middle of January, but I really hope that's the worst game that Duke plays all year. The defense allowed way too many easy buckets, and the offense was not clicking tonight. It was really distressing to see how perimeter-oriented the offense was throughout the game.

Stats of the game: Duke 22-57 from the field (38.6%), NC State 32-55 from the field (58.2%). Also alarming: Mason Plumlee 1-3 for 2 points, Miles Plumlee 0-1 for 0 points. For Duke, the big 3: 61 points, the rest of the team: 13 points.