MBB: Georgetown 89, Duke 77 Post-Game Thread

[BlueintheFace]

why on earth would we have been unprepared for Georgetown's offense? We have been in a series w/them for a while now and our last game was at home, 3 days ago.

Did you watch the game? We looked pretty unprepared. When the other team gets uncontested layups in the halfcourt set, that isn't effort... that's confusion. That is a player getting lost or not rotating. That is unprepared.

[Cameron]

Let's please refrain from the I love our guys so so much the most in the whole worldest drivel.

This team has been knocked out harder than Trevor Berbick twice in the last four games, I mean smashed in ... the ... face. Hopefully, Coach takes them through defensive slide and ball handling drill hell the next couple of days and makes them earn that jersey.

We need a Bobby Knight practice first thing Monday. Once is bound to happen, but two blowout losses in four games with this kind of talent on a team that is expected to win championships (ACC) and challenge for a Final Four is not Duke basketball. Call me crazy, but I don't recall this happening twice in the same season, let alone twice in four games, in any other year besides '95 or '96 in the mordern (past 20 or so years) Duke era (and I think we can all agree that those teams don't come close to the talent we have here right now. This is a team full of star power and star potential).

As another poster said, the last two seasons have featured more blowout losses than we had the previous 10 years combined. Hell, in 2007, our worst season in terms of losses since the mid '90s, we only lost one game by 12 and never repeated that scenario again. (The scoreboard today and against NC State might not have read 25-point shellacking, but that's what we got.) Until we prove the past few March performances otherwise, I will be shaking in my chair when we hit the floor in a Sweet 16 game.

Don't get me wrong, I love this team, too, but I can't bear to read all of the sandbagging around here that tends to follow losses.

[devildownunder]

Did you watch the game? We looked pretty unprepared. When the other team gets uncontested layups in the halfcourt set, that isn't effort... that's confusion. That is a player getting lost or not rotating. That is unprepared.

I watched the last 15 minutes of the game, it was 54-46 when I tuned in. It didn't look to me like there was an intense effort on defense, for whatever reason. If you think it was confusion, fine. Your guess is as good as mine. I'm just saying that there is no good reason, that I can think of, for us to have been unprepared. So that seems like an unlikely answer to me.

[rotogod00]

I watched the last 15 minutes of the game, it was 54-46 when I tuned in. It didn't look to me like there was an intense effort on defense, for whatever reason. If you think it was confusion, fine. Your guess is as good as mine. I'm just saying that there is no good reason, that I can think of, for us to have been unprepared. So that seems like an unlikely answer to me.

we're just not as good. people have a tough time swallowing that, however

[JBDuke]

That's fine, but if his perfomance today is considered a positive, then we've fallen a lot further off from the glory years than I thought.

But your post said that the praise for Lance's play, given his points and turnovers today, said more about our "current and recent capabilities". As I said in other posts, everybody has bad days. Today, just about all of our players did. I think it's reasonable for someone to single out Lance's performance as a relative positive. And I certainly think it's wrong to say that this teams "capabilities" are limited because a defensive-oriented starter scored 8 points and turned it over 4 times today.

[BlueintheFace]

I watched the last 15 minutes of the game, it was 54-46 when I tuned in. It didn't look to me like there was an intense effort on defense, for whatever reason. If you think it was confusion, fine. Your guess is as good as mine. I'm just saying that there is no good reason, that I can think of, for us to have been unprepared. So that seems like an unlikely answer to me.

Well, you get one practice on thursday and pre-game on saturday for court time preparation. That isn't a whole lot. In fact, that is very very little preparation time on the court.

[CameronBlue]

A lot of clutching at straws in some of the logic I see posted in this thread so I'll add my own working theory:

Duke is talented but not in ways that are evident within this version of the motion/dribble-drive offense that K has trotted out this year. This team just does not have the horses to be effective. A continuity based scheme would serve the fortunes of this team better. K's choice to "let Scheyer be Scheyer" is fine provided the coaches are content to risk more results like today.

[devildownunder]

it seemed to work for 'cuse the other day when they shut them down on offense with the zone. we could have at least tried right?

In K's defense, you don't just snap your fingers and get a team to play the kind of coordinated, shifting, flexing, smothering zone defense that Syracuse put on Georgetown. Boeheim's been running that 2-3 forever and he's reached the point where he knows how to teach it. But he does that from day one of practice, all the time. If the zone is something you rarely play, I doubt you'd get your players to perform nearly as well in it. Particularly since defensing Georgetown's offense in the 2-3 requires real attention to detail WRT identifying shooters or cutters on the wing, when to pinch and when to stay home if you're one of the big guards at the top, etc. Just sitting back in a passive little trapezoid with your hands out doesn't cut it against the Hoyas' princeton scheme.

[moonpie23]

i know we played ruff D today, but watching the game, i thought Gtown was as crisp in offense as any team i've seen this year (tx and ku as well.)

we do not have a scoring threat....someone that the other teams fear and then plan around..

no one knows what FEB holds...we shall see...

[KandG]

One more point. I'm generally in the "it's just one game" camp, even though I know today's game may reflect some unnerving patterns in our defense.

However, my twitter feed is more NBA oriented but also has some HS/college scouts, reporters, TV personalities, columnists etc who don't comment a ton on college games. Today they're all commenting on how bad Duke looked, and how this is "not your father's Duke". Seth Davis said this loss will shake the confidence of the current Duke team badly, and he seems to be backing down from his original claim about Duke being an outside shot for the Final Four.

Sometimes it's just one loss, but sometimes losses are so loud and ugly that unwanted extra attention is impossible to avoid. Maybe it was the President being at the game that had a lot of press tuning in. Not a good time to lay an egg, that's for sure.

[devildownunder]

Well, you get one practice on thursday and pre-game on saturday for court time preparation. That isn't a whole lot. In fact, that is very very little preparation time on the court.

it's more time than you get for the 2nd, 4th and 6th rounds of the NCAA tournament.

We had plenty of time to prepare. I'm not saying whether we were prepared or not because I have no way of knowing. I'm just saying that, just from looking at the schedule there was no reason to believe we weren't prepared.

[NYBri]

...on the offensive or defensive side of things.

They killed us. Period.

[hq2]

This is the second recent game where the Plumlees didn't do anything against good comp. Admittedly, Aminu and Greg Monroe are probably NBA players, but the Plumlees couldn't do anything against either of them. Our offense was bad; almost no drive and dish, too many late-in-the-count 3s. The defense showed that we are vulnerable to quick, good-passing guards. (See Villanova last year). Just the kind of team we don't match up against.

[BlueintheFace]

it's more time than you get for the 2nd, 4th and 6th rounds of the NCAA tournament.

We had plenty of time to prepare. I'm not saying whether we were prepared or not because I have no way of knowing. I'm just saying that, just from looking at the schedule there was no reason to believe we weren't prepared.

There is one big difference in March. The other team is just as prepared. Georgetown had 5 days of preparation. It's about the discrepancy in time.

[devildownunder]

Well, you get one practice on thursday and pre-game on saturday for court time preparation. That isn't a whole lot. In fact, that is very very little preparation time on the court.

just fyi, we played Georgetown at Georgetown in 2004 as well. Also 3 days after our last game. Here's how that turned out:

1/21 * at Maryland 1 College Park, Md. (Comcast Center) W 68-60 17,950 9 p.m. ESPN
1/24 at Georgetown 1 Washington, D.C. (MCI Center) W 85-66 20,193 2 p.m. CBS

[JBDuke]

just fyi, we played Georgetown at Georgetown in 2004 as well. Also 3 days after our last game. Here's how that turned out:

1/21 * at Maryland 1 College Park, Md. (Comcast Center) W 68-60 17,950 9 p.m. ESPN
1/24 at Georgetown 1 Washington, D.C. (MCI Center) W 85-66 20,193 2 p.m. CBS

Yeah, but that's a completely bogus comparison. That Georgetown team was on its way to a 13-15 season, and that Duke team was #1 at the time.

[soccerstud2210]

In K's defense, you don't just snap your fingers and get a team to play the kind of coordinated, shifting, flexing, smothering zone defense that Syracuse put on Georgetown. Boeheim's been running that 2-3 forever and he's reached the point where he knows how to teach it. But he does that from day one of practice, all the time. If the zone is something you rarely play, I doubt you'd get your players to perform nearly as well in it. Particularly since defensing Georgetown's offense in the 2-3 requires real attention to detail WRT identifying shooters or cutters on the wing, when to pinch and when to stay home if you're one of the big guards at the top, etc. Just sitting back in a passive little trapezoid with your hands out doesn't cut it against the Hoyas' princeton scheme.

not saying that we switch to zone and everything works happily and merrily. im simply saying heck, give it a try for a couple possessions and see what happens. maybe it slows them down. maybe they take some bad shots. maybe it cools them off a little. maybe we get some TO. stuff like that.

[KandG]

Don't get me wrong, I love this team, too, but I can't bear to read all of the sandbagging around here that tends to follow losses.

What sandbagging? This looks like a pretty critical thread to me -- I see very little sugarcoating of the issues around a terrible loss.

Now if you want some "Win one for the Gipper" smashmouth drivel -- which insults the players and coaching staff who you assume aren't taking the loss with the appropriate loss of urgency, well there's not much to be done. One of the funniest things I see on every message board -- across every sport -- is how people think throwing chairs and yelling and getting in players' faces equates to effective coaching in the face of a slump or bad loss.

Fans that propose these motivational methods wouldn't last two seconds in a real locker room before being tuned out...but that's the internet for you.

[Wildcat]

But we could use another scorer; ala Olek Cyz. We need someone who is tough, strong and that can get to the basket and finish with authority. Yeah its spilled milk now; but who can we mine from this bench to be a consistent scoring addition to the Big 3 when they and the "three," are limited? Maybe he (K) ought to try starting Dre, and possibly "call up" an Elliot Williams-like resurgence from last year. That's bout the only thing I can think of right now that can shake things up and give us a different look right now.

As one poster said; teams by now, know what we can and cannot do. A little mix-up in the lineup, or a different look here or there might be able to accent our latent strengths and mask some of our glaring weaknesses. I don't know; but we got to find some additional scoring consistently in the paint. I like what others have suggested: feed the paint more. But I still think we are missing that mature/confident/role-player/slasher/offensive minded player whose PRIMARY DUTY is to score without shooting threes.

I don't know if we have that.

[devildownunder]

There is one big difference in March. The other team is just as prepared. Georgetown had 5 days of preparation. It's about the discrepancy in time.

Georgetown had 4 days and we had two. This preparation thing is a weak argument, though. Georgetown is not an unfamiliar opponent and they did not come out and blow us away with a bunch of stuff we'd never seen before. In fact, the score was 17-16 with 9:52 to play in the first half and 54-46 with 13:48 to play in the game.

They beat us, badly, because we had absolutely no answer for Greg Monroe on defense and our offense had no balance whatsoever. The only way we could consistently get a decent look was dribble-drive kick, which means we got open looks from 3 and nowhere else. And we just don't have the kind of talent that allows us to fill it up from 3 like that and win. We have to get some easier baskets -- like any team -- and we weren't able to do it.