MBB: Duke vs. UNC 2-8-12 Pre-Game and In-Game Thread

[ChicagoCrazy84]

I'm not sure UNC's defense is as bad as we say/wish it is. In fact their defense is probably much better than ours. Sure they've looked bad in their 3 losses but that's true of every team that loses. Their defense is ranked #14 in adjusted efficiency while ours dropped back into the 90s after this weekend.

Anything can happen, but I think UNC is a clear favorite in this game.

They do have a much better defense than us, that is true. Their bigs help them out a lot more with Henson and Zeller. I'm not bashing the Plumlee's or Kelly, Im just saying from a defensive standpoint, these guys are better. They don't have the greatest backcourt so I think we have that going for us. Our achilles heel is definitely stopping guards from penetrating into the lane and I don't know if UNC has the personnel to take advantage. It will come down to the battle of the bigs. I feel like the past few years against UNC, they have had their way down low with Henson and Zeller so if the Plums can hold their own, rebound, get a few blocks and get one of them in foul trouble, we have a great shot of winning.

[ChicagoHeel]

One thing I see that gives me a great feeling about Weds game is if their is a team in the ACC that cant guard the perimeter as bad as us its UNC. We will be able to get any shot we want we just have to knock them down...

I'm not sure UNC's defense is as bad as we say/wish it is. In fact their defense is probably much better than ours. Sure they've looked bad in their 3 losses but that's true of every team that loses. Their defense is ranked #14 in adjusted efficiency while ours dropped back into the 90s after this weekend.

How our defenses stack up (UNC is listed first):

Overall: 14th vs. 91st
3P D: 66th vs. 76th
2PD: 18th vs. 174th

Both defenses are bad at generating turnovers (200+ ranking).

One interesting note is that in conference play you are the 4th best defense against the three, although the ninth overall defense (ouch). We are 9th against the three, but the 2nd overall defense.

Overall we clearly have the defensive advantage, but you are matching a strength against a potential weakness of ours, which could keep things interesting. We are the 6th best 2P offense in the country, so we are also putting our strength against your weakness.

[slower]

If anyone gets on here again and says they think this is going to be ugly, they should have pitch forks taken away.

Irony alert.

[Wheat/"/"/"]

Ok...at a big tourney and can't post except from phone and it sucks.
Moonpies got it right, i'd say.
It's gonna be all about shooting.
If unc has a good, or even ok, outside shooting night, Duke is in trouble.
If Duke has a hot shooting night, they can certainly win.
Duke will have to watch fouls, Heels are coming inside. After reading some of this weeks threads, the whinning could get to be epic around here!
Duke will come in ready,i have no doubt. Will UNC be focused? You'd think, but they are a hard team to figure sometimes.
One other thing I think could be key, will Kendall attack the rim? (yes)...will he finish?
Matchup to watch...Bullock/Rivers

[MartyClark]

[QUOTE=dukeballboy88;548486]If anyone gets on here again and says they think this is going to be ugly, they should have pitch forks taken away.

Please don't try to take away my solitary pitchfork. That could get ugly.

[ChicagoHeel]

From Seth Davis...

• On the day I visited Duke last week, the coaches tried to light a fire under the players by calling a 5 a.m. team meeting. The meeting lasted for three hours, and I'm told Coach K delivered quite the harsh critique. Later that day Coach K put the players through a rigorous practice. When I interviewed Austin Rivers afterward, his knees were bright red from floor burns. ("Loose ball drills," he said cheerfully.) So it's surprising, to say the least, that the Blue Devils came out on Sunday for a league game at home and weren't ready to play. That does not bode well for their game at North Carolina on Wednesday night.

http://cnnsi.com/2012/writers/seth_d...issouri/1.html

[duke09hms]

The Duke ladies are putting it to the UNC women 45-21 after being down 10-9 thanks to tough defense, feeding their star post player Elizabeth Williams, good kickouts and ball movement, and timely 3-pt shooting.

Hope the men are taking notes.

Make that 50-24 end of first half.

[Saratoga2]

UNC is the tallest starting team that we have faced, with 7' and 6'11" on the back line and 6'8". 6'6" and 6'3" players at the SF and guards. They are not particularly rugged inside and they are also not all that quick defensively. We could take advantage of them if we were quicker at the guard slot, or more rugged inside. Unfortunately we don't match up all that well and may have problem scoring. UNC has an advantage scoring just due to the height difference, particularly at SG and SF. This game will take a very determined 40 minute effort on our part, with rebounding and defensive consistency, if we are to overcome our shortcomings.

We also will face a very hostile crowd. My guess is that we will start Mason, Ryan, Quinn, Seth and Austin. We shall see on that.

[shoutingncu]

If anyone gets on here again and says they think this is going to be ugly, they should have pitch forks taken away. Yall are acting like this is the 09 Heels or something. They are very beatable even in the Snooze Dome. They have 1 ball handler and he struggles making lay ups and if he takes a 3, I get scared for the backboard. I am one that thinks these teams are not that far apart and I am expecting a good hard fought contest with Duke pulling out a victory.

Except that a better Duke team lost to a younger version of this Carolina team in the (I prefer) Schnozz Dome... by 14.

[#1Duke]

IMO, the game is going to come down to our perimeter shooting and the defense by our bigs.... that's it.
Carolina has some size on our guards and we have seen that that gives us some trouble... we're going to have to make every good look count.
Our bigs are going to have to play VERY tough defense AND stay out of foul trouble, no moving screens or reach ins. We have got to stay in front of Marshall and guard the passing lanes.
It's going to take 40 (FORTY) minutes of hard tough defense and some good shooting on our part to have a good shot at a win.
Rivers should be given the go ahead to penetrate and draw fouls.

[Mr.Analogy]

After reading some of this weeks threads, the whinning could get to be epic around here!

You mean like the kind of whining over at IC after the 33 point beat down FSU gave your holes?

[OldPhiKap]

(never mind)

[-bdbd]

How our defenses stack up (UNC is listed first):
Overall: 14th vs. 91st
3P D: 66th vs. 76th
2PD: 18th vs. 174th
Both defenses are bad at generating turnovers (200+ ranking).
...
Overall we clearly have the defensive advantage, but you are matching a strength against a potential weakness of ours, which could keep things interesting. We are the 6th best 2P offense in the country, so we are also putting our strength against your weakness.

Disagree about the D "advantage." First, I think we can agree thast BOTH teams have been terrible on D for much of the year. A lot of those rankings have to do with who you've played and the individual match-ups for a given game. Given NC's easier schedule, for example, their relative number may be somewhat "inflated." In any event, NO lead willl be safe in this game for either team, given their offensive prowess and defensive deficiencies.

Duke is now ranked #10 by the AP and NC@ch is ranked #5. Add this one to the large tally of these match-ups where both teams were in the top-10!
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/bas...caa/men/polls/

Odds we'll see Karl Hess yet again? I think unc hates him (and gets him) almost as much as we do.

-jk

I'll lay down very good odds that BOTH groups of fans will come away convinced that they got screwed by the refs...
Unfortunately, we all know which team historically gets all of the calls...(Ha!) At least, which team consistently gets the greatest foul-differential in the ACC every year.

Hint: it ain't Duke.

[JNort]

UNC and why we win:

1) Marshall is not a scoring threat, is slow and will not penetrate well which is what has killed us all year. On defense he does not move very quick which should mean either penetration or openings for the 3 ball for us.

2) Reggie Bullock shoots a good bit for some one who is not a part of their big 4 and he hits decent % but struggles if you do not give him room. Who ever is playing the 2 guard spot just needs to play good off ball defense.

3) Barnes will have the size advantage on us since we do not play any SF's. Luckily though he odes not really post up nor is he good at getting to the rim off his own dribble. Barnes can take 1 or 2 dribbles then he either shoots or passes. He will get his points we just gotta make sure its not a great % and don't let him get to the foul line.

4) Henson is long and blocks/alters a lot of shots and we all know this by now. The key to stopping Henson is to not let him get his spot in the paint and box out on defense. Henson is very slim and can be pushed around a little bit. Mason and Miles should fare decently enough if they keep him from getting to deep in the paint. Also depending on how the refs let the game play could affect how well we do against Henson and Z. If they allow a physical game in the paint then we got the advantage. Over on IC I saw them talking about this as well

5) Zeller imo does not get enough attention. He has good instincts and is a hard worker with excellent touch around the rim. Once again he is a very soft player who does not like physical contact and Mason and Miles really like to bang on offense and defense.



Our player notes:

Curry plays well against UNC or he has in the 3 games he has played them in. He has averaged 18 ppg while shooting 58% from the field and 58% from 3 as well. I do not expect him to play that well in the upcoming game but I think it is reasonable to think he gets some what close to those numbers (12 + points)

We have plenty of unknowns with our team this year against UNC if you look at past performance because Mason and Miles have never been asked to score on offense against Zeller and Henson. Cook and Tyler do not have much/any experience at all against UNC or any team for that matter up until this year. Dawkins has never played more than 15 mins and in 5 games has averaged 2.5 shots per game, how well will he do with more pt and more expectations to score?

Austin has gotten better recently as a distributor and nobody has the foot speed for UNC to stay with him (does anyone?). Austin also seems to love attention good or bad and boy... UNC will make sure they hate on him and give him plenty of attention, hopefully he responds well to it.

[ChicagoHeel]

Disagree about the D "advantage." First, I think we can agree thast BOTH teams have been terrible on D for much of the year. A lot of those rankings have to do with who you've played and the individual match-ups for a given game. Given NC's easier schedule, for example, their relative number may be somewhat "inflated."

The defensive rankings I cited earlier are from KenPom and I'm reasonably certain that they account for strength of opponent. So in that sense I am comparing apples and apples when I say we are 14th ranked and you are 91st. Overall, our defense this year has been good and we are the better defensive team- I just don't think that's debatable. That being said, we've had the occasional lapses and you are a top-5 offense, so it is by no means guaranteed that our D will dictate the outcome of the game.

[UrinalCake]

IMO, the game is going to come down to our perimeter shooting and the defense by our bigs.... that's it.

I think this sums it up pretty well. I don't expect us to get much inside scoring at all. I think we'll try to dump it in a couple times early and either get blocked or turn it over, then we'll just stop. In last year's game Kelly got four wide open looks from three to start the game and missed them all - clearly UNC's strategy was to play off of him, at least until he starts hitting. Hopefully if he gets those looks again he'll knock them down. I think if we can hit 40% from three and keep the Plumlees out of foul trouble then we'll win.

[UrinalCake]

The defensive rankings I cited earlier are from KenPom and I'm reasonably certain that they account for strength of opponent.

I get that these rankings are adjusted for strength of schedule, but I don't really understand how that's logistically possible. If team A plays ten awful opponents and beats them all handily, while team B plays ten ranked opponents and goes 5-5 while giving up more points, how can you mathematically determine who has the better defense?

At any rate, I do think that UNC has the better defense. I think the last two years their defense has been very underrated.

[JNort]

The Good:

UNC does not cover the 3 well and we have tons of 3 point shooters

We do not stop penetration well but UNC passes to get good shots and does not look to drive in too much

K > Roy


The Bad:

They got much more size than us except at PF and C where it is close(er)

6'4" Marshall we give depending on who starts 3 to 4 inches
6'7" Bullock we give depending on who starts 3 to 5 inches
6'8" Barnes we give up about 4 inches
6'11" Henson we give depending on who starts 1 to 4 inches
7' Zeller we give depending on who starts 1 to 2 inches

It is a home game for UNC

[FerryFor50]

From Seth Davis...

• On the day I visited Duke last week, the coaches tried to light a fire under the players by calling a 5 a.m. team meeting. The meeting lasted for three hours, and I'm told Coach K delivered quite the harsh critique. Later that day Coach K put the players through a rigorous practice. When I interviewed Austin Rivers afterward, his knees were bright red from floor burns. ("Loose ball drills," he said cheerfully.) So it's surprising, to say the least, that the Blue Devils came out on Sunday for a league game at home and weren't ready to play. That does not bode well for their game at North Carolina on Wednesday night.

http://cnnsi.com/2012/writers/seth_d...issouri/1.html

Did you see that he dropped Duke to 15th from 8th? After a 4 point loss in OT?

I really want to like Seth Davis. But he keeps giving me reasons not to.

[duke09hms]

Disagree about the D "advantage." First, I think we can agree thast BOTH teams have been terrible on D for much of the year. A lot of those rankings have to do with who you've played and the individual match-ups for a given game. Given NC's easier schedule, for example, their relative number may be somewhat "inflated." In any event, NO lead willl be safe in this game for either team, given their offensive prowess and defensive deficiencies.

The KenPom defensive rankings take strength of schedule and quality of opponent into account, so by just about every objective measure, the UNC defense as a whole is unfortunately much better than ours.

That doesn't mean they don't have weaknesses that can be exploited - such as suspect perimeter defense similar to ours. It's just that up till now their bigs have done a much better job of covering up for their guards and rotating over. If Kelly can hit a few outside shots and keep Henson away from the lane more that would help tremendously.

Given their penchant for running and the fast-paced game, the UNC defensive is chronically underrated since they give up more total points due to more possessions played.