MBB: Duke 79, Georgia Tech 57 Post-Game Thread

[cptnflash]

FTR, for those piping the Nolan v Jimmer argument, defense is accounted for in Ken Pomeroy's player of the year formula, which is a neutral arbiter.

It has as of last weekend Fredette first, Sullinger 2, and Nolan 3. http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/web...with_freshmen/

Thank you for injecting some rationality into the POY discussion.

For those saying that there's no way Jimmer is deserving because he plays against weaker competition, I suggest you look at Duke's strength of schedule this year. Through no fault of our own, it is way below our usual standard because our "signature" non-conference opponents have turned out to be lame (I'm looking at you, Michigan State and Kansas State) and the ACC is having a down year (I think someone earlier said it's still the best conference out there, which is just obviously false). I love Nolan, and I would really love for SOMEONE from last year's national championship team to have their jersey retired, which as we all know requires winning some kind of national POY honor, but dissing Jimmer based on SoS (or anything else) is misguided. The fact is that it's a three horse race, and we're lucky to have one of the horses. But Jimmer is the truth, and unless the stats change meaningfully he will probably win because he's been slightly better than Nolan and Jared Sullinger, and it's a way better story.

[Merlindevildog91]

made me long for Dick Paparo.

I would hope Hank Nichols (he is still the head honcho of ACC officiating, right?) will show the time up until the technical as a primer as to how NOT to officiate. The call on Thornton was the last straw for Coach K, but there were lots of terrible calls and no-calls in this one.

That being said, I think Kyle is coming around. Nolan played his usual terrific game. Ryan Kelly continues to make the big plays that don't show always show up in the box score. Seth looked good. I am very happy as to his confidence level in all aspects of his game. Now Andre needs to get his stroke back. When he gets his stroke back, the rest of his game will follow. (Yes, I know he should play defense and be confident and make good passes, etc., whether or not he is hitting his shot, but he hasn't gotten to that stage yet.)

[rthomas]

made me long for Dick Paparo.

I think you mean Lenny Wertz.

[Merlindevildog91]

I think you mean Lenny Wertz.

Well, actually, no. I meant Dick Paparo, the only ref I can remember who had his own specific cheers.

But I'm not sure either of them would have been any worse tonight than Karl Hess.

[taiw93]

In my opinion, the play right before the T should have been a foul on Tyler, and a technical foul on Shumpert. Either way, though, I'm happy the technical happened. It changed the tide of the officiating (and, most importantly, the game), and demonstrated why K is such a great basketball psychologist. And though Shumpert was overly rough on Tyler throughout the game, I do hope that his finger is OK. It looked like a dislocation to me (just based on the replay and his reaction to the injury), and those hurt A LOT.

Overall, I thought Duke played very well today. Nolan was, as usual, stellar (man, he's spoiling us), Kyle had another solid, workmanlike performance, Seth put together another fantastic all-around game (he's looking like our starting PG next year, IMO - he has great court vision), Tyler played great D and facilitated well, and Mason played well also. This team is steadily improving as a unit.

[cspan37421]

Well, actually, no. I meant Dick Paparo, the only ref I can remember who had his own specific cheers.

But I'm not sure either of them would have been any worse tonight than Karl Hess.

a) "Lenny, you're the Wirtz!"
b) see Valentine, Ted

[Merlindevildog91]

a) "Lenny, you're the Wirtz!"
b) see Valentine, Ted

I didn't say there weren't other cheers, just that Mr. Paparo's stuck in my mind to the exclusion of all others. I am a Crustie at this juncture, after all.

[Acymetric]

FTR, for those piping the Nolan v Jimmer argument, defense is accounted for in Ken Pomeroy's player of the year formula, which is a neutral arbiter.

It has as of last weekend Fredette first, Sullinger 2, and Nolan 3. http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/web...with_freshmen/

To be fair, Ken admits that the formula (Dean Oliver's stops method) isn't perfect.

The drawback is that it’s difficult to measure defensive value. But the work on the preseason ratings indicates that the “stops method” is better than ignoring defense altogether, and that’s a start.

Whether the defensive talents that don't show up in the current method would account for the gap in their ratings is pretty much impossible to determine, but the possibility can't be discounted.

If your goal is to point out that Freddette is a legit contender to those who seem to think he isn't you're spot on (because he is), but it is a bit misleading to promote the defensive aspect of the kPOY rating without acknowledging that the defensive component isn't as proven and all-inclusive as the offensive component (meaning that advantages in defensive performance are not accounted for as well as advantages in offense are).

[Merlindevildog91]

I echo some other posters who are singing the praises (here and elsewhere) of Seth Curry. Seth did a fine job when Nolan was on the bench of bringing the ball up court and passing to the open man. He has improved a lot from the beginning of the year with ball skills, with defense, with positioning, and in just about every way. Even when he was struggling mightily with his shot, he worked hard at the rest of his game.

[SCMatt33]

Looking at the official box score, I was amazed at how we dominated the glass until the last 5 minutes. After that point, Mason fouled out and Duke was just trying not to foul and send them to the line.

For the game, Duke had 15 off rebounds and 41 total, while GTech had 16 offensive and 37 total. That translates to a 41.7% offensive rebounding for Duke and 38.1% offensive rebounding for GTech. The caveat is that in the last 5 minutes, which is a good approximation of garbage time for a game like this, GTech won the boards 12-3, including 7 offensive boards to just 1 for Duke. Before this time Duke was rebounding offensively at 46.7%, while holding GTech to just 27.3% for GTech. If that isn't owning the boards, I don't know what is.

[hotbutteredseoul]

I echo some other posters who are singing the praises (here and elsewhere) of Seth Curry. Seth did a fine job when Nolan was on the bench of bringing the ball up court and passing to the open man. He has improved a lot from the beginning of the year with ball skills, with defense, with positioning, and in just about every way. Even when he was struggling mightily with his shot, he worked hard at the rest of his game.

I think the emergence of Seth as a playmaker is especially important given that the Plumlees (Mason in particular) only really thrive in the halfcourt offense when receiving feeds off the drive with the defense rotating. Until recently, though, we haven't been able to get the consistent penetration since Nolan was our only guy who could really get into the lane off the bounce. Defenses keyed in on that aspect of the offense (leading to those ugly occasions when we pass the ball around the perimeter for 25 seconds and then hoist a three). But with Seth willing to push the ball and force defensive rotations, that opens up a LOT of the opportunities for Mason in particular to catch the ball moving through the paint, where he is really successful because of his good hands and great ups. This is what made us such a juggernaut when Kyrie was handling the ball a lot. It's GREAT to see us get back to that beautiful offense, and it's largely due to Seth's confidence as a ball-handler.

[Johnboy]

In my opinion, the play right before the T should have been a foul on Tyler, and a technical foul on Shumpert. Either way, though, I'm happy the technical happened. It changed the tide of the officiating (and, most importantly, the game), and demonstrated why K is such a great basketball psychologist. .

The second Shumpert elbowed Thornton in the throat, I said to my friend "Georgia Tech is dead. They are about to be utterly destroyed." I was recalling the Clemson game years ago in which Trajan Langdon was hit (and had to leave the game for a while). We went on an absolute tear and dismantled Clemson in that game.

Tonight, Coach K stood up for his player and team, got the tech, and the players did the rest. I'm not saying every Duke team is capable of doing this to an opponent or even that this team is capable of doing it to anyone - but Georgia Tech should know better than to incite this team at home when they had everything going for them up to that point. I think we win this game anyway, but after the technical, it was all Duke, with gusto.

[Olympic Fan]

made me long for Dick Paparo.

I would hope Hank Nichols (he is still the head honcho of ACC officiating, right?) will show the time up until the technical as a primer as to how NOT to officiate. The call on Thornton was the last straw for Coach K, but there were lots of terrible calls and no-calls in this one.

You are confusing Hank Nichols with John Clougherty (who replaced Fred Barakat as the ACC director of officials after 2005).

Nichols was one of the all-time great ACC officials, who later served for many years as the NCAA director of officials (which meant he oversaw the NCAA Tournament, but had little input in regular season officiating -- the conferences ove5rsee that).

BTW, Nichols was just nominated for the Naismith HOF this past week (the same nomination list that stiffed Reggie Miller while listing the stiff Dennis Rodman).

Bad crew tonight -- I had a flashback to the 2004 Duke-Tech game in Cameron where Karl Hess T'd up K and helped the Jackets win. Hess didn't call the T tonight, but he was part of the problem.

The first thing I did when I got home was to go to the DVR and check out the sequence that set off K. I diagreed with the charge call on Nolan, but I'm biased and I can see where you can argue the call.

But the "foul" on Tyler that drew the T -- and happened directly in front of Coach K -- was unbelievable. Shumpert delivered a forearm shiver to Thornton's head and the foul was on Tyler!

Worse was Tim Brando's commentary. As he's calling the play realtime, he responds to the whistle by calling it an offensive foul on Shumpert (which it clearly was). When he realizes that the foul is on Thornton he sounds surprised -- but when they show the replay, he decides that the foul is on Tyler after all. From that point on, he claims that K wasn't upset about the Shumpert/Thornton foul, but got the technical because he was still mad about the charge on Nolan at the other end of the floor.

My other favorite part was the halftime paeon to Sundat night's in Cameron (this is the last year Fox Sports has the package) and how great they are and how everybody looks forward and loves the Sunday night games.

Then postgame, Coach K goes on a tirade about how awful Sunday night games are and how the players and the fans hate them! He argued that the games ought to be played on Saturday.

It was great.

[Greg_Newton]

"It just happened so fast. ... They got a couple of breakaways and the crowd got into it," Miller said. "Then we got a couple of silly fouls, and the next thing you know they were up 20. It's a good thing to keep fighting, but it's highly unlikely that you'll come back on a Duke team when you're down by 20."

Amen!

Nolan is a the greatest, Mason is getting better every game. Good stuff.

[Kedsy]

I think the emergence of Seth as a playmaker is especially important given that the Plumlees (Mason in particular) only really thrive in the halfcourt offense when receiving feeds off the drive with the defense rotating. Until recently, though, we haven't been able to get the consistent penetration since Nolan was our only guy who could really get into the lane off the bounce. Defenses keyed in on that aspect of the offense (leading to those ugly occasions when we pass the ball around the perimeter for 25 seconds and then hoist a three). But with Seth willing to push the ball and force defensive rotations, that opens up a LOT of the opportunities for Mason in particular to catch the ball moving through the paint, where he is really successful because of his good hands and great ups. This is what made us such a juggernaut when Kyrie was handling the ball a lot. It's GREAT to see us get back to that beautiful offense, and it's largely due to Seth's confidence as a ball-handler.

Well, I thought Seth played a good game, but I didn't notice him penetrating all that much. Nor did Mason thrive tonight because of passes from Seth, who assisted on only one of Mason's four baskets (the other three were assisted by Andre, Kyle, and Tyler). Four of Seth's six assists were on jumpers by Kyle or Nolan (and one was on a Nolan layup).

Seth has improved his confidence and his ballhandling, but he doesn't drive very much, and his style doesn't seem anything close to Kyrie's. I can't help but think your comments are more wishful thinking than reality.

[Kedsy]

But the "foul" on Tyler that drew the T -- and happened directly in front of Coach K -- was unbelievable. Shumpert delivered a forearm shiver to Thornton's head and the foul was on Tyler!

I think the foul on Tyler came before the forearm. On the replay, it certainly looked like Tyler bumped Shumpert a couple times before Shumpert raised his arm. I'm also not at all convinced the forearm was intentional, and my guess is there was at least some acting on Tyler's part.

From my perspective, K drew the T on purpose to (a) cow the officials a little bit (which if true, seemed to work); and (b) to fire up the team (ditto).

[-bdbd]

I think the foul on Tyler came before the forearm. On the replay, it certainly looked like Tyler bumped Shumpert a couple times before Shumpert raised his arm. I'm also not at all convinced the forearm was intentional, and my guess is there was at least some acting on Tyler's part.

From my perspective, K drew the T on purpose to (a) cow the officials a little bit (which if true, seemed to work); and (b) to fire up the team (ditto).

I just watched the replay of that sequence a couple times on the DVR and, as G-man points out, very often it is actually the preceding play/call that leads to the technical. K had reacted angrily to the charge call against Smith (note: it wasn't the first time in the first 10 minutes that that same ref had a couple "close" calls go against Duke). But it looked like K said something at the ref on that side as they came back up the court. It could have been just as easily that the the REF made the Thornton call that was either (A) A statement aimed at K, or (B) He made an emotional call (against Duke, in the person of Tyler) after being angry at K.

In any event, while I won't deny the possibility, I'm not big on "conspiracy" theories and it appeared on the replay that K was just simply spontaneously angry at a pair of lousy calls by a certain ref. It also would seem like an odd time to "intenionally" get a T, to supposedly fire up your own team -- right after they just made a big comeback to get back into a close game -- though the 4 FT's suddenly put Tech back in charge, albeit fairly briefly.

I thought that a foul could have been called on Tyler as he struggled to wedge himself in front of the screen. But it wasn't. The whistle came after a brief pause and then Shumpert re-initiated contact - probably out of anger/frustration at TT - with a forearm to the neck area. At any rate, Tyler clearly had two feet firmly planted at contact and there's just no defense of a foul call on TT at that point. Good thing that it ultimately didn't matter.

Nice little gut-check for Duke tonight. Now, I can't wait to see those polls come out!


P.S. Brando really is bad. He just misses so many obvious things, or just plain contradicts himself seconds apart... I can almost hear Gminski cringe sometimes as he tries to figure out how he's going to bail the guy out yet again. G-man sure has a load to carry with that dolt at the mike beside him...

[Reilly]

"Smith is averaging 21.7 points per game this season. Only Danny Ferry (1989) and J.J. Redick (2005, 2006) have had higher averages during Krzyzewski’s tenure."

Nolan 21.7 out of 83 points per game for Duke = 26%
JJ 06 26.8/81.1 = 33%
JJ 05 21.8/78.2 = 28%
DF 89 22.6/86.5 = 26%

I was surprised to see the 1989 team scored as much as it did ... I was thinking Danny's percentage of overall team points would have been higher.

[cascadedevil]

I was at the game last night, and the Crazies continue to be in fantastic, loud and jubilant form. I offer my congratulations to the students who have really stepped up this year.

All of the board discussion about how physical the game was does not even do justice to what I saw in the first half. A number of ACC teams take physical play to the edge (e.g. Florida State), but there were at least 5 plays in the first half where it looked like the GT players were trying to injure Kyle or Nolan (e.g. the shove to Kyle's back under the basket that sent him flying and was not even called for a foul).

That being said, I could not figure out how Shumpert hurt his hand. It looked like he was just standing on the perimeter being guarded by Thornton and then all of a sudden he was on the floor in obvious pain. Was anyone able to see on replay what happened?

[Papa John]

That being said, I could not figure out how Shumpert hurt his hand. It looked like he was just standing on the perimeter being guarded by Thornton and then all of a sudden he was on the floor in obvious pain. Was anyone able to see on replay what happened?

He jammed his finger on Thornton's hand while making a pass; the kind of play I like to call 'karmic justice'. The basketball gods were watching Shumpert's antics all game, and were clearly not pleased when his elbow to Tyler's face resulted in a personal on Tyler and a technical on our bench, so late in the second half they came calling to settle the debt.