MBB: UNC-Chapel Hill 88, Duke 70, Post-Game Thread

[HateCarolina]

K

All of the rest of the games are on the road!

Funny because I was thinking the same thing. Glad to see an overall good tone from the other posters on here. Throw away first half for us, but that second half was great especially our intensity level. Looking forward to welcoming the Blue Devils down here to Atlanta. Wonder if Hubert will come down?? I feel like berating him a little bit as a complete homer.

On to the tourneys now and hopefully we can get back on track hitting the 3 ball and the Plumlees can continue there good play in this game (without the dumb pushing in the back fouls).

[devildeac]

This. Biggest advantage of being the #1 seed in the ACC Tourney is getting to avoid a semifinal matchup with the Seminoles. Wish we could have forced UNC to beat both teams that took them down in conference to win the Tournament.

We'll have to beat the 7/10 winner first.

[wgl1228]

Five points:
1. We had plenty of looks in the first but sometimes it just doesn't go down.
2. Good effort in the 2nd but UNC is better than State.
3. No matter how bad Dawkins is on D, Coach K has to allow him to shoot more than once.
4. Kelly inconsistent as usual.
5. Proud of the Plumlees against the best big men in the country not named Anthony Davis.

[uh_no]

How about running plays for Dawkins coming off picks rather than just putting him in the corner like we did with JJ...catch and shoot...just can't fathom why is is not being used more

I don't know, maybe he just wasn't feeling like getting himself open....I don't know what he was supposed to do or why he didn't get shots...but we did pretty darn good scoring in the second half without him...

[jipops]

I hope there are no meltdowns here. There is no reason for one. Though it was a painful loss to UNC (as if any to UNC aren't extemely painful) there is a ton to be proud of with this group. For 3 halves this season we have gone toe-to-toe with what is arguably the best team in the country employing an abundance of NBA-ready talent. Matchup-wise there is no way we should be hanging with these guys but with the exception of one one-sided half we did.

Great work by our bigs tonight. Obviously all they do in practice is try to set screens UNC's just showed they have more talent tonight. And it was a great job by the heels perimeter D to take away the 3 in the 1st half. Also kind of lucky for Duke that Roy got in 'horde the timeouts' mode so Duke could make a push.

[elvis14]

My thoughts after this game:

• Very proud of the way our guys kept playing until the final buzzer
• Very proud of the way Miles played hard and was effective
• Good to see Mason find himself in the second half
• Next play

[kmspeaks]

. For all the talk of Miles channeling Zoubek and hopefully becoming like him, it's not happening either.

seriously??
Miles Plumlee tonight- 16 points, 11 rebounds in 26 minutes against 2 of the best post players in the country

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Not giving up on this team. Like a lot of what I saw for about 15 minutes in the second half. Maybe we can figure out a way for this team to believe they are down 15 at the tip. We seem to respond to adversity. So might as well assume it out of the gates. Urgency, urgency, urgency!

[gumbomoop]

ACCT probably pretty open. UNC best team, Duke certainly capable of winning it. I suspect tonight's UNC win makes it highly unlikely that they'd be in same region as UK; that would have been [and still is] highly desirable.

As for what region Duke will wind up in, probably as a 2-seed, I don't know that I much worry about that any more, as if they play well they can make the Final Four no matter who's 1-seed in Duke's region; and if they play poor D and shoot poorly they won't get to the Elite Eight.

UNC certainly responded well to its loss to Duke. Like to think our guys will respond with determination. And much smarter play than in first half tonight. No ball watching. I worry about [several] players' instincts when they habitually ball-watch. If one's team's D is otherwise suspect, sure have to cut down on opponent's second chances. Not tonight.

Superb first half by Heels. And certainly smart enough for most of second. My sense is that Duke's several runs in last 10 minutes were stopped more by Duke mistakes than Heel defense, but if that is uncharitable or sour grapes, I will accept constructive correction.

[dbowen]

And obviously Coach K doesn't think he deserves the minutes. And there really is no point debating what the issue is for a few reasons:

1. We did that this past week in another thread
2. We already know what he does and does not bring to the table when he is in
3. We have no idea what goes on outside of the games that could effect his minutes

I agree with you, but one more point I would like to make is:

Andre seems to bring energy to this team when makes shots and gets back in a defensive stance. He may get beat off the dribble from time to time. But we don't have any 'Elite" defenders that are taking his minutes.
His smile is infectious and is what this team needs when shots by others just aren't dropping. He needs a chance to succeed and thats not gonna happen with his rear end sittin on a foam padded Duke chair. I apologize for bringing it back up and I'll leave it at that.

[OZ]

uh no:
"I hope coach K posts a paper in the locker room this week that just says

42-22"


Enlighten me as to the meaning of this.

[uh_no]

My thoughts after this game:

• Very proud of the way our guys kept playing until the final buzzer
• Very proud of the way Miles played hard and was effective
• Good to see Mason find himself in the second half
• Next play

for certain! When it was back up to 22 and then we got it down to 11....never thought we'd bring it down...we ran out of gas

the plumlees were fantastic...hopefully that's what we get going forward...miles was great...the ball fake on the first possesion was glorious

gotta figure out how to rebound against these guys if we meet them again...42-22...they're always going to outrebound us...they're better at it...but we need to close the gap....given the huge numbers of shots we missed padded their defensive numbers

[hurleyfor3]

some positive spin...

1. unc is, in fact, pretty darn good. I figured we still had a chance the first time we got it down to 11. Unc remembered the last game and this time decided to finish.
2. roy never cares about the acc tournament. So we can still win that.
3. We won't be in unc's bracket, and we can still play not to be in ky's or cuse's. This matters more than one game against unc.
4. Given our first half performance, coulda been worse.
5. This was our last non-elimination game. If this is the lower limit of how we play at this point, that's good news.

[Albert]

Let's right this ship and the tone of this thread.

I got as down or as angry as I was going to get about halfway through the first half.

I appreciate the way our boys fought back.

I love Miles, and I am moved by the way Mason fought. Perhaps for Duke, perhaps for his brother, likely for both. Including Pops Plumlee's emotion at the end of the game, the entire Plumlee family showed you why Duke, and the privilege to be a fan of this program, are special things in this world. If you're looking for something positive to take away, look no further than Miles and Mason -- we saw Mason emerge from his recent doldrums, and maybe following tonight this team will finally hit on all cylinders the way that UNC, to their great credit, did tonight.

If you offered me at the beginning of this season that we would beat Carolina exactly once, I would have taken it against Door #2. That said, let's go out and win the ACC Tourney.

[mr. synellinden]

I think Dre needs more time. He didn't really play either UNC game probably b/c of match-ups so in the tourney, he should get more PT b/c we saw what he can do against FSU. Additionally, we won't face a team with that size more than likely for a while. We can conceivably get the #1 seed but as long as we stay away from UK in the bracket, I think we can get to the F4. Put us in the bracket out West with MSU or KU and I'll be satisfied.

If you can, go back and watch the beginning of the game when Andre got his first playing time. On one of his first possessions he let his man (Bullock I think) go right past him for an offensive rebound and an easy put back. I don't think he even pretended to try to box him out. That is why Andre doesn't get more minutes. It is a matter of effort, determination and fundamentals with him. Without those, he (nor any Duke player) won't get much playing time, no matter how well they can shoot.

[HB TAYLOR]

Answering a post in the in-game thread, which is now closed. Someone said it's odd when Marshall can hit everything but Curry and Dawkins can't. I don't disagree. But Dawkins got to take one shot--at no other time when he was in the game did anyone get the ball to him when he was open, and Coach K didn't give him much time on the court. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I don't get it. When you are deep in the hole and Seth Curry is going 3-13 and Ryan Kelly is going 1-8 and even Austin Rivers is going 1-6 from 3, wouldn't you a) give Dawkins a chance, and/or b) at least suggest that someone pass to him during the few minutes that you did put him in the game?

I really don't know what has happened between Coach K and Andre over the last two weeks, but honestly, I don't think it's a good sign for our post-season prospects. Duke depends on outside shooting, whether we like it or not, and if some folks aren't hitting, it seems like other folks need to get an opportunity. I didn't see Andre do anything so terrible on defense tonight that it justified abandoning him completely (especially since apparently no one could play good defense in the first half, with the possible exception of Miles).

I agree for this particular game, hard to base an offensive performance on just 1 shot attempt. But, I believe the coaching staff is recognizing the obvious, Dre's game consists of the 3pt shot and.....nothing else. He is a 6-5 guard that cannot handle the ball nor take anyone off the dribble and his entire game depends on him hitting early shots. As I stated previously I do agree with you on this game.

[CoachJ10]

ACCT probably pretty open. UNC best team, Duke certainly capable of winning it. I suspect tonight's UNC win makes it highly unlikely that they'd be in same region as UK; that would have been [and still is] highly desirable.

As for what region Duke will wind up in, probably as a 2-seed, I don't know that I much worry about that any more, as if they play well they can make the Final Four no matter who's 1-seed in Duke's region; and if they play poor D and shoot poorly they won't get to the Elite Eight.

UNC certainly responded well to its loss to Duke. Like to think our guys will respond with determination. And much smarter play than in first half tonight. No ball watching. I worry about [several] players' instincts when they habitually ball-watch. If one's team's D is otherwise suspect, sure have to cut down on opponent's second chances. Not tonight.

Superb first half by Heels. And certainly smart enough for most of second. My sense is that Duke's several runs in last 10 minutes were stopped more by Duke mistakes than Heel defense, but if that is uncharitable or sour grapes, I will accept constructive correction.

I agree. The poor shooting of the Devils certainly masked the fact that UNC doesn't play great defense either. I won't hold my breath to wait to hear ole' Hubert mention that...

[Chris Randolph]

uh no:
"I hope coach K posts a paper in the locker room this week that just says

42-22"


Enlighten me as to the meaning of this.

My guess is that was the rebound margin

[HateCarolina]

when you are not athletic, and this team is by no means athletic, you have to work harder than the rest. not only did we not work harder than the rest, we looked like a bunch of kids being awestruck by something they haven't seen before.

i'm tired of having to shoot 3s to offset having weak athletic ability on the glass and on defense. this has been the pattern for upwards of 5 years now. get some athletes coach k because every basket we have to score requires 10x the effort that other teams need because we can't get layups and we can't get short jumpers. nobody except rivers has the ability to generate easy scores. this equation, weak athletes + outside shooting does not equal wins. it equals losses in the long run. there's a reason why we were down by 20 to nc state and won with a miracle. there is a reason why carolina has dominated us for 79 minutes this year. there is a reason why we scrape by teams like wake forest and georgia tech. the equation mentioned above!

this duke team needs to work harder than the opposition to score and when they don't we lose. we were killed tonight. not beaten. killed. that's a fact. that's just a reality. the facts are all in the stats. look at the rebounds. look at the oppositions shooting percentage. it was UGLY!!!

come on duke. you can win. if you try harder and leave it all on the floor because your talent is not going to win you big games from here on out because the opposition likely with have better athletes going forward in these tourney contests.

Aha...the unathletic argument raises it's ugly head. Three words to dispel this notion: 2010 National Champions.

[Rogue]

Well that was a huge hoover vacuum game.. sucked from the beginning.

Best thing, we don't have to wait long.. ACCT next week..

Move on.. get mentally tough.