Bench vs. Bench
I found it interesting when looking at MSU's results that Draymond Green (6'6 their 3rd leading scorer and leader in both assists and rebounds) comes off the bench for them as does Korie Lucious (4th in scoring, second in assists.) They start a smaller line-up than Duke, where I would imagine Kyle will be guarding Durrell Summers (6'4 2nd leading scorer) to start with Kyrie and Nolan guarding Lucas and Austin Thornton (6'4) and Mason and Ryan guarding Garrick Sherman (6'10 C) and Delvon Roe (6'8). Green and Luscious play more minutes than Sherman and Thornton, much like Dawkins, Curry and Miles are playing more than Kelly on Duke's team.
This could be an interesting game match-up wise as both teams have some depth (MSU with 9 players averaging 10mpg or more + Nix at 8mpg) and both teams have so far used smaller line-ups more often. MSU's top 5 players in mpg are: Summers 29.2, Lucas 29.0, Green 27.8, Lucious 24.6 and Roe 23.5. Their center (Sherman) is next at 19.5 mpg. This would appear to be a good line-up for Dawkins to see quite a bit of time at the 3, but Green may be a tough matchup. I would expect Kyle to guard Green most of the time he is in and Summers may be a tough, good match-up for Andre.
I am also interested to see how Lucas does against our back court, who did a great job vs. Pullen. They will then have played against arguably the top 2 guards in the country outside of Durham.
Should be an exciting game.
“Those two kids, they’re champions,” Krzyzewski said of his senior leaders. “They’re trying to teach the other kids how to become that, and it’s a long road to become that.”