MBB: Duke 56, Virginia 41 Post-Game Thread

[gofurman]

The game was kind of boring after the first five minutes, when it became clear that we were likely to win. I liked some of Nolan's plays, however.

I LOVE boring wins

[elvis14]

Wow that was an ugly win. Very ugly. I feel weird saying I'm disappointed after a 15 point win but I am. Thank goodness UVa couldn't hit an open jumper tonight. On the positive side, I really liked the game Ryan played tonight. Thought we should have ran some more sets where we posted him up on the 6'4" guys guarding him.

It's probably time for a "What's wrong with Kyle" thread. For weeks I've read excuses but the bottom line is that right now he's not shooting well at all. Tonight he was pretty bad with the ball in his hands. I don't say that to be overly negative. I was shocked at what was going on with Kyle tonight (and really against UNC@CH as well). I know coach K has made adjustments in the past to help Kyle get started and right now he needs something. We need him to be a major part of the offense to make a real run at the NCAA's.

[jv001]

Many thought this could be a trap game and in a sense it may have been. We didn't get any offense from Kyle, Seth had a little drop in his stellar play and the turnovers were bad. But there were some good things to take away from this game. Nolan once again played well. 22 points in a low scoring game like this is big. Throw in 7 rebounds and 4 assists and you have a very good game. Ryan also played very well with 11 points, 5 rebounds and at least 4 blocks. Mason and Miles played well in a game where they were doubled almost everytime they received the ball. Virginia usually keeps the game in the
50s. So next play. Go Duke!

[dukeinal]

As good numbers and great defense as Nolan plays is part of Kyle scoring and lack of a 3rd outside option partially on Nolan? It may sound weird but multiple times today Nolan drove into the lane made multiple moves, put up a contested shot with one of Kyle, Seth, Dre or Kelly wide open spotted up for a shot. I have noticed this in other games but it was quite apparent in the 2nd half today when they were collapsing on him, before we went into the spread at the end of the game.

[dairedevil]

I wasn't able to see the game live, but I recorded it and am watching it now. Got a little feedback from my mom, and have read comments about the game. Here are a few of my thoughts...
1. The early turnovers sucked the life out of our offense. The first few baskets we made were on good plays - passes inside to Mason and Kelly, good passes for an open 3..but those plays alternated with sloppy ball handling and careless passes. They just didn't get into an offensive rhythm early, and it hurt.
2. Nolan continues to play with confidence and success (thank goodness). Although I think that sometimes he tries to do too much, he is willing to put this team on his back and carry it to victory if that's what it takes.
3. I love Kyle, he plays hard every single minute he's on the floor. I wonder if he's fatigued - mentally, if not physically. I would love to see him play with the success and abandon that Nolan has-wouldn't it be fun if they both had it going in the same game?
4. Don't know when I've heard as many balls clang off the rim - on both ends of the floor - gotta say I was amazed to see that we shot 50% for the game.
5. Virginia just looked about as bad as any team we've played this year. Hope that we just sank to their level, cause this wasn't very pretty.

I congratulate the team for grinding it out on the road and coming home with the W. That's what matters. There will be lessons to be learned from this, I'm sure the coaching staff will have plenty to use as teaching moments when they break down the film .
Next play, right?

[-bdbd]

1. The early turnovers sucked the life out of our offense. The first few baskets we made were on good plays - passes inside to Mason and Kelly, good passes for an open 3..but those plays alternated with sloppy ball handling and careless passes. They just didn't get into an offensive rhythm early, and it hurt.
2. Nolan continues to play with confidence and success (thank goodness). Although I think that sometimes he tries to do too much, he is willing to put this team on his back and carry it to victory if that's what it takes.
3. I love Kyle, he plays hard every single minute he's on the floor. I wonder if he's fatigued - mentally, if not physically. I would love to see him play with the success and abandon that Nolan has-wouldn't it be fun if they both had it going in the same game?
4. Don't know when I've heard as many balls clang off the rim - on both ends of the floor - gotta say I was amazed to see that we shot 50% for the game.
5. Virginia just looked about as bad as any team we've played this year. Hope that we just sank to their level, cause this wasn't very pretty.

I congratulate the team for grinding it out on the road and coming home with the W. That's what matters. There will be lessons to be learned from this, I'm sure the coaching staff will have plenty to use as teaching moments when they break down the film. Next play, right?

Just back from the game. A few thoughts:
- I was astonished at the number of Duke fans, wearing all asssortment oif Duke gear, who were in attendance. In an arena of around 17K, I'd guesstimate over 1,000 (maybe up to 1,500) Dukies visible and AUDIBLE. There were several times when Duke crowd chants, such as "Let's go Dev-ils!" kinda took over the stadium for a short while.
- Duke getting out early really squelched the 'hoos fans. Before the game the fans were talking a lot about how they led most of the game at Duke, how they'd just had a great comeback at FSU (from down by 16 (?) to within 3 points with a minute to go, only to fall short), and how they were primed to fight us tooth and nail.
- The body language on the bench and during timeouts for UVA seemed "down and frustrated." They never seemed to ever get any real hope that they could come back.
- I like the UVA fans. The ones I met, sat around were smart, well-spoken and pleasant. Having been at Comcast, this environment was totally 180-degrees different. (At MD I generally won't wear Duke gear for fear of drinks, explitives to be thrown my way.)
- John Paul Jones Arena is very new, clean and quite "vertical" in feel - even high up you didn't seem that far away. They seemed to be trying a lot of things like "big-boy" arenas to jazz up the crowd -- t-shirt cannons and parachutes from the catwalks, chinese unicyclist/juggler at half, video-board racecar competitions, etc. Crowd wasn't very loud though. I was told they don't sell out most games - maybe Duke and UNC and that's about it -- maybe VPI.
- Their coach, Bennett, has the respect of the fans.
- Some fans I spoke with don't seem to believe they have the horses to compete yet in the ACC. They need some more recruiting successes before they'll ever challenge the ACC's upper-echelon...

Despite a sloppy game, it was a fun experience and the Duke fans all seemed to have a pretty good time. Man, though, did UVA seem to miss a TON of open shots, even lay-ups!

A win is a win. Go Duke! Next play!

[DukieInBrasil]

what an ugly game. Nolan played beautifully as well as Ryan Kelly. Even Mason had a very solid game. Everybody else pretty much stunk it up. The defense was good, perhaps even excellent, though it's hard to tell since UVa ain't so good. A double-digit conference road win? I'll take it every day of the week and twice on Sunday, and thrice if it's a Saturday on a certain March 5th.

[dukelifer]

obviously it won't happen too often, but he was in a funk today and the team didn't find a way to score points despite it....yeah they won...against a crummy virginia team. My point is that they need to find a way to perform on the offensive end when either the 3's aren't falling, or kyle is off, or whatever...last year they showed they could do that...i don't know if this years team with this performance from singler would win a game like the baylor game from last year...i honestly don't, and that's scary

Today Duke shot 50% for the game- turnovers and dumb play seemed to kill the scoring in the second half.

[weezie]

And Tony Bennett's offensive philosophy is to hypnotize the other team to sleep, don't forget. I was surprised that the crowd stuck around for so long; the students behind us began checking their iPhones and half-heartedly heckling pretty soon after the 2nd half began.
Wouldn't be at all surprised if Kyle doesn't have a flu bug, he did look drained. He's lost some weight since the season began, that's pretty obvious.
There was a Chinese acrobat riding around on a unicycle at halftime, catching and balancing multiple bowls on her head but I still prefer Miles and his unicycle.
Ryan showed some great personality tonight, he's a good barker.
The 'hoos need to lose the ridiculous fire shooting team announcements at the beginning of the game, though. It was pretty silly.

[dball]

JPJ is a nice venue. Almost felt bad that there was such a huge Duke contingent. This weekend will probably be rocking when Tech rolls in.

Ugly, ugly, ugly. The first part of the game was incredibly sloppy with both teams mostly throwing the ball away. Mason did miss two interior passes, though in his defense he's become accustomed to crashing the boards and probably doesn't expect to get the ball.

Good play from the bigs. Ryan scored, blocked a couple of shots and defended well. Miles played good D and little brother was solid as well.

Kyle was off though he plays hard. You can really appreciate his effort when you're at the game. He is always trying for a rebound or helping on defense. Love the guy but his shot has been off.

Always good to grab another road win. But it was uuuuggggglllllyyyy.

[Kedsy]

Love the guy but his shot has been off.

He only took five shots. In and of itself, that may be an issue, but in my opinion not enough shots to form a judgment as to his "offness."

[Duke: A Dynasty]

No MOTM thread for this game?

[Saratoga2]

When Wisconsin played Ohio State, Wisconsin moved the ball around well against a very good Ohio State defense. They refused to take a bad shot and in many cases took the entire shot clock trying to get a good shot only to be forced to take a prayer in the end. They were fortunate to be shooting well and their patience was incredible.

Duke against Virginia had a decided size advantage with the two bigs and Singler. Virginia tried to counteract that by doubling inside and crashing the boards. They needed to keep their one good big in the game. We didn't seem to react well to what was happening. Too few passes back out from inside to the open man. Forced shots from Curry, Singler and even Smith and not much looking for our bigs. Singler seemed to be determined to take the ball inside and drew fouls bulling his way in and made ill advised passes.

What we came to as our sole offensive plan in the second half was to spread the floor and let Nolan with his variety of scoring skills to go against the Va defense. Lots of standing around by the other players and some forced shots by Nolan but it was effective because Va couldn't hit a shot to save themselves. Some of what we credit as excellent Duke defense was Va's inability to hit wide open shots. Perhaps they were tired out from their defensive effort inside.

I would prefer that Duke move the ball, look for a good shot and spread the offense among a wider variety of players. Our approach tonight is unlikely to be a winning one at VT or UNC. Having Kyrie for a game like this would have made us look entirely different. Hope he gets back soon.

[flyingdutchdevil]

He only took five shots. In and of itself, that may be an issue, but in my opinion not enough shots to form a judgment as to his "offness."

Maybe in this game, but Kyle's shot has definitely been off as of late. Since ACC play started (Jan 2), Kyle has been shooting 40% from the field. In the last 4 games, he's been shooting just 32%.

Kyle is a great basketball player and the intangibles that he brings to the game adds so much value to his game. But his shot has been off lately and he is settling for a lot of mid-range jumpers and 3-pts (and not making them). I would rather have Kyle on the floor than not, but if this slump continues, I'm not sure how far we can go in the tourney.

[oldnavy]

Virginia plays really good defense. They are very high energy and did not give up a lot of open shots. I think we need to give them a lot of credit for hanging in and playing a really tough game.

Overall, I think getting through a game played like this will be a great learning experience for the NCAA. Virginia reminds me of a strong mid-major team like we might face in the second round if we are fortunate enough to get that far. No disrespect to UVA, but their talent level is down with the injury to Scott, and they are going to be a team to recon with in the future.

Good game guys, next play!

[MChambers]

That and a very Duke friendly rim that seem to knock out at least 5 shots that were half way down.

But it's Virginia's own rims; holding another team to 41 points and 28% shooting on their own floor is impressive, any way you look at it.

[mkline09]

When Wisconsin played Ohio State, Wisconsin moved the ball around well against a very good Ohio State defense. They refused to take a bad shot and in many cases took the entire shot clock trying to get a good shot only to be forced to take a prayer in the end. They were fortunate to be shooting well and their patience was incredible.

Duke against Virginia had a decided size advantage with the two bigs and Singler. Virginia tried to counteract that by doubling inside and crashing the boards. They needed to keep their one good big in the game. We didn't seem to react well to what was happening. Too few passes back out from inside to the open man. Forced shots from Curry, Singler and even Smith and not much looking for our bigs. Singler seemed to be determined to take the ball inside and drew fouls bulling his way in and made ill advised passes.

What we came to as our sole offensive plan in the second half was to spread the floor and let Nolan with his variety of scoring skills to go against the Va defense. Lots of standing around by the other players and some forced shots by Nolan but it was effective because Va couldn't hit a shot to save themselves. Some of what we credit as excellent Duke defense was Va's inability to hit wide open shots. Perhaps they were tired out from their defensive effort inside.

I would prefer that Duke move the ball, look for a good shot and spread the offense among a wider variety of players. Our approach tonight is unlikely to be a winning one at VT or UNC. Having Kyrie for a game like this would have made us look entirely different. Hope he gets back soon.

I noticed the standing around too. Not to single out Andre but I noticed a lot of that from him after they talked about how Seth had talked to Steph about moving without the ball. Andre just seemed to hang out on the wing and didn't seem very active on the offensive end.

[Matches]

But it's Virginia's own rims; holding another team to 41 points and 28% shooting on their own floor is impressive, any way you look at it.

I guess - but a lot of it had less to do with our defense than it did with UVa's ineptness. If they'd been able to knock down half of the completely wide-open looks they had in the 2nd half, it would've been a competitive ballgame. I did like our rebounding, though - they were one and done most of the night.

[Duke4life92]

obviously it won't happen too often, but he was in a funk today and the team didn't find a way to score points despite it....yeah they won...against a crummy virginia team.

Good road win against a scrappy defensive minded virginia team.

I guess - but a lot of it had less to do with our defense than it did with UVa's ineptness. If they'd been able to knock down half of the completely wide-open looks they had in the 2nd half, it would've been a competitive ballgame.

Dang,i'll take a road win while holding the opponent to 41 pts in there own gym even though they missed alot of open looks(we did miss wide open shots aswell)give credit to tough duke 'D'.It seems to me kyle has been frustrated with the lack of respect he has gotten from the officials this year and that has made him lose some focus but i believe he'll right the ship soon and be back to normal,he's too good to let the ticky tack crap the whistle blowers have been hitting him with this year ruin his season.I have faith in him.GO DUKE!!.Dang playing the cav's remind me of an old princeton team but without the good shooters

[mkline09]

Did anyone else get annoyed with the split screen focus on Nolan? It was OK for a short period but after a while I was just annoyed and my ADHD started kicking in and I couldn't focus on the game.