a little harsh here I think. I agree with the fear of "watching" but the key here is also give some credit to FSU - they aren't known for nasty D for nothing. Their D is legit. No 2 ways about it. That's why they will win their share of ACC games... winning some shockers (tonight) and losing some shockers (Auburn.. bc they are awesome on one side of the ball (D) and pretty bad on the other (O). Singleton is the reigning D player of the year lest we forget. They have so many big bodies too with Kreft and James.. good grief if they had Xavier GIbson they are huge
After the Miami game this game immediately stuck out as a potential L. FSU gets jacked up for Duke always ('02 and '06 were in my mind before they showed the graphic, also '93), and we were coming off a tough game against Maryland. I told my co-workers last week this one had me worried. I should have cashed my 401K out and taken FSU and the points. That said I don't see us losing again for awhile. FSU is just one of the teams that year in year out causes match up issues for us.
Next Play
"Just be you. You is Enough."
K was very mild mannered in the post game. I was actually shocked that he thought we played with great effort in the 2nd half. I thought our D stunk it up. Maybe he was referring to the offense picking it up.
He offered no excuses. We just got beat. FSU was better tonight, in every aspect.
"Just be you. You is Enough."
It's not so much that we lost, but how we lost that bothers me.
I know I just need to accept that, for the recent past and foreseeable future, Duke has been and will be primarily a finesse, jump-shooting team. But it's a shame, because I love watching good power basketball and post play. I guess you just take the good with the bad and be thankful we still have K.
But... if Kyle doesn't make a series of ridiculous threes, we're not even in the game at the end. Even when we cut it to 59-58 on Nolan's three, the ball never went inside the three-point line during the entire possession. That just not good basketball. I think I can count on one hand the number of times we made FSU defend the rim today.
As for the result, a lot of people predicted this would be our first loss, no biggie. But it's not fun to see your team get bullied and not really know how to fight back besides chucking up deeper and deeper threes.
K said in the presser that it was early and that we will learn from this There's no way to simulate Kitchens or Singleton in practice and Singleton contributed much last summer on the select team and is a great kid.
We played worse last year at NCSU and GT, but Miles and Mason need to step up ala Zoubs if we are to go far in March/April
Krzyzewski is not a god. He is merely one of the best coaches in college basketball history.
Therefore, when the other team has every tool capable of beating Duke and uses it correctly and Duke doesn't have someone step up and have a career game of their own, all it takes is a solid game-plan and consistent execution to out-coach K and get the W.
Maybe you have a different definition of out-coach (maybe I'm merely speaking of being outplayed as a team), but that's mine.
Coach K nailed it in the post-game presser.
He said that we showed up to play, not to fight.
FSU showed up to fight.
“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.”
This hurts...duke losses always due but I felt this one coming on like a bad cold. I thought even if we pulled this one out, and it never felt like we would, then we would lose the next....i think it helps us really...the players are probably being told to make certain changes and don't really believe in what they are told until a loss slaps them in the face. It makes them re-think what they are doing....only a loss does that. Watch out cavaliers!!
That Nolan does dribble the ball way too much in setting up the offense. Waste of time to get into our offense. When this happens, sometimes we end up taking a forced shot to beat the shot clock. This is where we could use another ball handler that can penetrate. Maryland and FSU stopped Nolan's penetration and with no post offense, we had trouble setting up an efficient offense. Too many turnovers and too many 3's. But I have confidence Coach K will work on our offense. 24 points in the first half set the stage for this upset. But I'm glad we don't have to rush the court like every team that beats us. We'll be back. Go Duke!
We lost, that's fine...Without Kyrie, it is obvious that on any day we can lose...
But, how does UNC Greensboro score more points against FSU's defense than we do? The loss doesn't really bother me, but for some reason, that fact does.
I am not surprised by this result. FSU is one of the toughest teams for us to play on the road and has been for years. Before the season I picked this as one of our most likely losses. I am disappointed, but not disheartened. Contratulations to FSU. They played a great game and deserved the win.
I still think we are a top 5 team as I thought we were before the game.
I still think we will get better as the season progresses.
I still think we are the best team in the ACC.
I still think we can make a deep run in the tournament with as good a chance as anyone for an NCAA title.
Why do I think these things? We have plenty of very good players and a world class coach. We'll be fine.
I may be overly optimistic, but I think my expectations will end up being closer to the way the season will unfold than most of what I've read so far in this thread. We'll see.
Bummer of a loss, but not the end of the world.
FSU played hard for 40 minutes and were very aggressive rebounding. I haven't seen the numbers, but it seemed we were soundly out rebounded. They also got a lot of offense from Kitchen and Singleton. The defense on them wasn't horrible, they just hit tough shots.
Mason did the best job in the rebounding department for us, but there was essentially no offense from him. Even a chippie from 6 inches was beyond him tonight. Lacking any inside scoring from our bigs was known to be a weakness, and it continued to show up tonight.
I thought the turnovers by our team really hurt. Dawkins, Singler, Curry and Nolan all had their share. The FSU defense really bothered us. Guys tried to dribble through a defender and their quick hands turned us over numerous times. My guess is we had something like 20 TO's
We shot a lot of threes and were way off for a much of the game. Both Nolan and Kyle tried to shoulder most of the burden, and for the team to be successful they have to. They got 39 between them and that was not bad, but sometimes they need to think of involving others rather than forcing the ball. The decision making needs to be better. Curry and Dawkins each had 8, but we got only three points inside from our bigs.
Our end of game execution was poor. Curry got the ball with a chance to even the game but he tried to dribble through two defenders rather than passing to an open Nolan. Singler took a very long 3 and Nolan rushed a shot. I though we had a chance, but the poor execution at the end was not getting it done.
Seeing Scheyer in the stands was nice. We needed someone like him to make good decisions. Kyrie would have helped a lot, but alas he may not come back this year.