Let's Face It - We are the Kings of November and December

[devil84]

The games played through December are usually teams and players we don't usually face on a regular basis. Once January hits, we play almost exclusively conference games, where we face opponents we may have played as many as three times last year (and perhaps even once prior in the current season). Seniors could may have played the opponent's seniors 6-8 times or more in their career. They've been to the opponent's venue multiple times, know it, and have a history there. Scouting videos are likely to show Duke against a common, usually conference opponent with which they've had plenty of experience. Even summer pick up games are likely to have more ACC opponents on them than players from other teams, leading to even more familiarity.

ACC teams circle Duke (and UNC) on their calendars every year. When Duke's away, those are the games that sell out their stadiums and bring out the fans. Non-conference games do, too, but the toughest opponents generally are on neutral courts in sold-out venues with multiple fan bases in attendance (still anti-Duke, but not like playing on a home court in front of your own fans). But to have your own home venue transformed from a ho-hum atmosphere to THE GAME makes a huge difference in a team's confidence level.

My point is, that there is a lot of familiarity in conference play that can make it easier to beat (or lose to) an opponent that isn't there with the freshness of non-conference play.

It's probably why, if you look at the records for most other elite teams, that you might just see a similar pattern of winning percentages.

[ChillinDuke]

Agree with CDu here. I'm not saying that we haven't been good down the stretch. We've clearly been a top 20 team most years the second half of the season. But for the first half of the season we have been CLEARLY the best team in the country over that 10 year spread. It's not even close. We simply dominate. And I think it is because we have a great coach and we come out prepared. But, it's also frustrating. Like I said - it's crazy that 6 weeks ago we controlled 3 top 10 teams (and really 5 top 10 teams if you include Minnesota and VCU), and I don't think we could beat any of them on a neutral court today. Could we with Kelly? Yes, I think we could. We miss him. That's for sure. But we have become (for the most part) a peak early team the last decade.

So we're just noting a trend. Fair enough. But I still think the logic is off - at least for this year, as I haven't gone back and considered the previous 10 years.

Kentucky is most clearly not a top team. VCU is good - I dunno about Top 10. The rest are inarguably very good teams (I'll avoid calling them "Top 10" so as to avoid nitpicking).

But Miami and NC State are also very talented teams. They aren't inarguably very good teams - it's quite arguable. But they are very talented - just with a lot of variance.

Take away Ryan from us and put either of Miami or NC State at home and playing up to their talent level and it's completely reasonable to see us losing. Perhaps not as bad as we lost to Miami, but it's completely reasonable. Not enough for me to consider this anything other than normal goings-on in ACC play. (And I fully admit the loss to Miami was pretty bad looking.)

- Chillin

[Chicago 1995]

It's the sign of a well-coached, under-manned team.

Naturally, due to coaching and preparation, Duke comes out of the gate more ready to play and more cohesive. With no game film on the current crop of players, there isn't as many spots to break down a team. Plus, you never know how a team plans on playing year to year.

As the season wears on, teams get more chemistry and the talent starts to take over. In-game coaching isn't as important as game film and breaking down a team's weaknesses. Injuries pile up.

Coach K has always gotten more out of less than any coach in the country. That's why you see the trends you see.

How do you fit Duke's very different growth pattern between 86-94 in this theory? Michigan State under Tom Izzo?

[FerryFor50]

How do you fit Duke's very different growth pattern between 86-94 in this theory? Michigan State under Tom Izzo?

Those 86-94 teams had more talent, IMO.

You didn't have the whole "one and done" culture, either.

Tom Izzo? He's consistent, just like Coach K. But he hasn't won a title since 2000.

[nmduke2001]

I think one factor may be that Coach K is usually earlier than most in setting his rotation. So he is playing with his core 8 or so from the beginning of the season while some other coaches are getting ALL of their kids some playing time early. Heck, Alex hardly got any minutes even in blow-outs and now we want he and Amile to be big contributors because of injury. Having the rotation set early in the season probably sets up winnning early. Just my opinion.

[Chicago 1995]

Those 86-94 teams had more talent, IMO.

You didn't have the whole "one and done" culture, either.

Tom Izzo? He's consistent, just like Coach K. But he hasn't won a title since 2000.

Whether the 86-84 teams had more talent or not, I don't know that they were more talented compared to the competition at the same time, which is what would matter, and I don't know how the one-and-done problem would effect the growth of a single team over the course of a season. We're integrating as many new pieces -- maybe more because we lose guys through one and done -- so in theory, we should have more room for growth over the course of a season, not less. Highly rated frosh who get time like Rivers should give us more ceiling, not less.

That's moving the goalposts a bit as to Izzo. The metric we're talking about here isn't winning titles, but about improving from Nov/Dec to March, which Izzo has done, much as I dislike his style of basketball, very consistently and I think, without much question.

This is summoning a firestorm, but I think there's a real argument that K is less willing to sacrifice wins for growth than he used to be, and that instead of developing youth and depth -- which is where a lot of growth comes from -- K is maximizing the odds of winning each individual game.

[rsvman]

...This is summoning a firestorm, but I think there's a real argument that K is less willing to sacrifice wins for growth than he used to be, and that instead of developing youth and depth -- which is where a lot of growth comes from -- K is maximizing the odds of winning each individual game.

This is an interesting thought. It seemed to me in years past that Coach K cared a lot less about any individual game than maybe he does now. It almost seemed like sometimes he left the players on their own to lose the game in order to make an important teaching point that would help them later on (although it's not at all clear that he actually did that; this is only an impression I got watching some games in the past). That used to bug me a lot, because I kind of thought "you play to win the game." But now maybe I can see that there may be times when it is wiser to look at the long goals rather than the short ones.

And I agree completely that Izzo's teams are always better in February and March than they are in November and December.

[rthomas]

The only real trend that I see so far for Duke:

Neutral court: no losses
Home court: no losses

True away games: no wins

[Kedsy]

Sure. My point still stands. We peaked once in Nov/Dec, slumped in (only) January (going 6-3), then peaked again in Feb-April.

My main point about 2010 was that we still had a lull period in January. One of the big differences between that season and others is that we were able to find a new spark with Zoubek figuring out how to stay out of foul trouble and be a constant presence on the floor.

Every team has a "lull period." It's a long season. By your definition even the 1992 team "lulled" in February, going 6-2, while "peaking" in every other month.

[davekay1971]

I had no idea all those ACC and NCAA tournaments were played in November and December. Wierd. And I thought I knew something about college basketball!

I was wondering, just crazy spitballing here, if maybe our recent 1-2 streak had more to do with losing a critical senior All-ACC caliber player right as we play two top 25 teams, both of whom played their absolute best games of the season against us, on their home courts.

[mkirsh]

It's obvious to everyone here why we play better pre December vs post December every year. It's a combination of:

1) Coach K refusing to use early season game time to develop players - this means that our best players play more minutes early than other teams who spread minutes to freshman, and by the end of the year their freshman have made them better while ours don't add anything to the table since they haven't developed
2) Similarly, Coach K's insistence on playing his best players 35+ minutes per game catches up to them and they are exhausted and worn out by Feb
3) We don't play any true road games in the early season, and we don't know how to handle it when we go to someone else's gym
4) We wear the blue uniforms more in conference season, and everyone knows the players prefer black and play better in them
5) We always have someone break their foot in Jan because we wear Nike shoes

This is all in jest, of course - did I miss any other common grievances?

I'm in the camp of overperform early and then just perform (not underperform) late, which can be maddening if you allow your expectations to get pulled up by early season wins. Also, conference road wins are always hard to come by, games are more frequent which increases the chance of an off night (favoring the underdogs), and fewer breaks in the schedule.

Also, I'm too lazy to do the analysis, but I wonder if we are hyper sensitive to his (like with broken feet) because we watch Duke carefully - does this pattern hold true for other schools as well? Anecdotally Mich State seems to be the opposite - lose most of their early games but are formidable come tourney time, but do Kansas, Syracuse, UConn, other traditional powers follow similar patterns?

[Wander]

I had no idea all those ACC and NCAA tournaments were played in November and December. Wierd. And I thought I knew something about college basketball!

Our NCAA tournament performance has underperformed the expectations based on seeding in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, maybe 2009 if you include margin of victory, 2011, and 2012. I don't understand how you can possibly think bringing that up is a point in your favor.

Unlike some, I don't think there's anything wrong with our program and am quite happy with where we are, including this season after last night's game, but I don't see how anyone can deny we've been better in November/December (relative to other teams) than in March the majority of the past decade.

Thank god for Scheyer, Smith, Singler, Thomas, and Zoubek. Can you imagine what the perception of us would be without 2010?

[CDu]

I had no idea all those ACC and NCAA tournaments were played in November and December. Wierd. And I thought I knew something about college basketball!

I was wondering, just crazy spitballing here, if maybe our recent 1-2 streak had more to do with losing a critical senior All-ACC caliber player right as we play two top 25 teams, both of whom played their absolute best games of the season against us, on their home courts.

Way to seemingly not read the original post and make a response based on only the title. Nothing in your post is inconsistent with the content of the original post.

Not that it matters (see my previous two sentences), but I wouldn't use our NCAA tournament results of the last decade as evidence that we did really well in those games. We only came close to our seed's expectations in 3 of those 10 tournaments after all.

[CDu]

Every team has a "lull period." It's a long season. By your definition even the 1992 team "lulled" in February, going 6-2, while "peaking" in every other month.

Those are hardly comparable. We lost two games to inferior opponents (one in somewhat of a blowout) and then got blown out by another really good team. In 1992, we lost a 2-point game at UNC (a top-10 team) and a 4-point game at Wake Forest (definitely an upset). A close loss against a REALLY good team and a close loss against a solid-but-not-great team is better than a close loss against a sort of good team, a blowout loss against a pretty bad team, and a blowout loss against a really good team.

[Matches]

Eh. Every team is different. I think you can, if you are so inclined, look at the stats and see a trend of a mid-to-late season decline, but I'm not sure a particular cause can be attributed to it.

2008 team wore down physically at season's end.
2005 & 2011-12 teams had key injuries.
2012 team was ahead of everyone out of the gate because of the China trip.
2013's not over - too soon to draw conclusions.
2007 team just wasn't very good, regressed defensively.

2009-2010 teams played IMO their best ball in February and March.

We've had a spectacular record in November (December means less to me as we usually play fewer games and have more cupcakes during exams). I'm not really willing to turn that into a negative by expecting the team to play at an unconscious clip all season long.

[azzefkram]

It's really tough to draw any conclusions without seeing how other programs perform. Maybe this is common for many programs. I remember feeling shocked at how many players were transferring out of Duke until I looked around and saw that it happens to almost all the big programs. If I had to guess, this happens just about everywhere. Well maybe not the utter dominance of November and December.

[Monmouth77]

Whatever the reason for our early season success, I am less alarmed by the team's current struggles (which I think have a lot to do with Miami and NC State's talent, their hostile arenas, and our adjustment to playing without Kelly, which includes substituting freshmen for Kelly) than I am heartened by the contribution of those early wins to our bulletproof RPI.

Even with a few more stumbles (@ UNC? @MD? Miami/State rematches), Duke is going to have an on paper resume worthy of a #1 or #2 seed. We could end up like WVU from 2010 with 6 losses and still be in the conversation for a #1 seed.*

So I look at it as equity.

Obviously, I want to see the team come together and improve. But we have some breathing room to take our lumps, play through some trial and error, and still have a commanding position come Tournament time.

*I acknowledge that the Tournament Selection folks weighs player injuries, so if Kelly never comes back we could lose a seed line or two. I am explicitly assuming that the spirits will not be so unkind as to exclude such a worthy guy from finishing his senior year.

[OldPhiKap]

Except that we also have a worse record against ranked teams. Yes, some of it is simply playing more road games. Part of it is playing against more difficult opponents. But that alone shouldn't account for a nearly 30% difference in winning percentage against top-25 teams.

Do I think it's a "systemic problem?" No. As you note, we've won multiple ACC championships and even won a national championship and made another Final Four in the time period (last 10 years). But I do think it's a trend worthy of discussion, moreso than you seem to be willing to admit.

I am happy to discuss it. If I take a thread entitled "King of November/December" as antagonistic/provoking, and you do not, I hope we will just agree to disagree on it.

To be clear, I am not picking at you. I respect your posts and often agree with you. This just obviously strike us differently.

To the main point: different teams peak at different times. Some, like 2010, peak at just the right time. Others peak earlier. Some never quite get there at all. I would simply say that, historically, our season gets more difficult once conference play starts. Part of the reason our % falls is because we have to play @ Carolina, @ Md, etc. I would also suggest that a conference team ranked 10-25 is tougher to beat than one you do not have to play every year (especially when it is in a neutral site, as the pre-Christmas games are).

I would suggest the more relevant inquiry is our % at home, at neutral courts, and in true away games. The last category is significantly below the other two. And we don't play those until after Christmas.

[Bluealum]

I think there's a real argument that K is less willing to sacrifice wins for growth than he used to be, and that instead of developing youth and depth -- which is where a lot of growth comes from -- K is maximizing the odds of winning each individual game.

We approach this questions from so many different angles so many times... is it possible that there is some truth to this? Playing Josh and Tyler as our primary backups early in the season because they know the system better and likely offer better outcomes in early games, actually just might have some downstream effects. While I am not in the camp that players that don't play in games don't improve, I do think that any game involves both physical and psychological components, of which 'confidence' is the most oft used descriptor for the latter. Confidence, I submit, is disproportionately earned in actual games, while physical skills and system understanding can develop exclusively in practice.

If we played folks like Amile and Alex more and Josh and Tyler less early, perhaps our record would be a little less overwhelming in Nov/Dec, but our improvement over the course of the season with a combination of lesser expectations early, and potentially greater performance late would 'feel' remarkably greater.

In K's early years he made a repeated point of emphasizing that the only real metric was how his teams performed in March, everything else was a leadup to that. He does that noticeably less now, methinks...

STILL, we have great overall outcomes, and yes I am sooooo glad we have 2010. Without that...the cross talk would be too much to handle.

The good news is that a close loss would not have warranted a shakeup or a major rethink. A loss like this just might, and when K really looks for alternate solutions he usually finds one.

[Kedsy]

Nov and Dec since '03-04:

Overall Record: 108-6. That's 94.7%
Record Against Teams in Top 25: 21-3, or 87.5%
Record Against Unranked Teams: 87-3 or 96.7%

So here's our record from Jan on (including the year where we won the championship)

Overall: 172-52, or 76.8%
Against Top 25: 36-24, or 60%
Unranked Teams: 136-28 or 82.9%

OK, the thing is, we play very few true road games in November and December. So here is our record in home and neutral games after January 1 for the period you've used:

Overall Record: 116-24. That's 82.8%.

However, of the 24 losses, 8 came in the NCAA tournament, 4 came in the ACC tournament, and 5 came to UNC. I don't think any of those losses could fairly be counted in part of a early season/late season trend.

Moreover, 11 of the 24 losses came in two seasons (2007 and 2012). Not counting those two seasons, our overall record at home and neutral courts during the period is 103-13, or 88.8%. Considering we do play a decent number of patsies in November and December, I'd say there's little to no difference there, meaning the "trend" is really just an acknowledgment of two less-than-stellar seasons.

Against top 25 teams: 27-13. That's 67.5%.

Again, 10 of the 13 losses either came in the NCAAT or to our arch-rival UNC and another came to FSU last year in the ACCT, meaning we only lost two (2) games at home/neutral during the period in question that weren't either to UNC or in a post-season tournament.

Against unranked teams: 89-11. That's 89.0%.

In this case, 6 of the 11 losses came in either the NCAA tournament or the ACC tournament. And once again, 2007 and 2012 contained the lion's share of the losses (7 of the 11). Not counting those two seasons, our record against unranked teams at home or neutral courts was 78-4 (95.1%), with only one (1) such loss coming before the post-season.

My conclusion is the "trend" you've discovered really boils down to the fact that we play true road games, games against our arch-rival, and post-season games after January 1 and that we had two below par seasons during the period you've chosen. I don't think it's much of a trend at all.