MBB: Duke 98, NCSU 85 Post-Game Thread

[mehmattski]

I was at the game in the grad student section. Just before Tyler Lewis went to the free throw line, one of the undergrad line monitors held up his whiteboad reading "It is now past Tyler Lewis' bedtime." This immediately preceded the "Past your bedtime" chant during the free throws. In the first half, the Crazies chanted at him "Bilbo Baggins."

Maybe there were an isolated few with chants that I could not hear, but if it was one of those two chants, I can guarantee nothing about his grandmother was chanted en mass.

[Utley]

I can only see this as a great win. Second half was a little frustrating - some defensive lapses but also some ridiculous shooting by State (the basket at that end was still on fire from our first half). State is good - that front court is ridiculous. I focus more on the first half - we were just ridiculously good - without Ryan Kelly. Let's just revel in that.

[SupaDave]

Ok - chant settled. So what did you guys think of the game?

I found it to be thrilling. That second half was an interesting monster.

[tommy]

I am so tired of this argument. Barely scraping by is not something to celebrate.

I'm guessing that the fans of Indiana, Kansas and Florida only wish they could have "scraped by" with 13 point wins in the last 48 hours. Or any wins at all.

[DukeHLM'13]

The 2 blocks by Mason and Quinn late. Especially the one by Mason which stopped Leslie from cutting the lead to 7 and then directly lead to Leslie's 5th foul.

It was a great, sneaky block that really came out of nowhere and helped to seal the win.

[jipops]

Definitely a big win.

But is N.C. State really a "good" team? They are 2-5 over their last seven games. That is the definition of average. They keep it up and the Wolves will be on the outside looking in on Selection Sunday.

In my opinion State is a bad team with loads of offensive talent. Tonight's game featured two subpar defensive teams. Theirs' was nonexistent in the 1st, ours was bad in the 2nd. It did't help State that Purvis had a miserable game .

[jipops]

The Tuba guys in the pep band played great free throw defense in the 2nd half.

[Native]

The 2 blocks by Mason and Quinn late. Especially the one by Mason which stopped Leslie from cutting the lead to 7 and then directly lead to Leslie's 5th foul.

It was a great, sneaky block that really came out of nowhere and helped to seal the win.

It's all about that Murphy dunk. All about that Murphy dunk.

[gumbomoop]

But is N.C. State really a "good" team? They are 2-5 over their last seven games. That is the definition of average. They keep it up and the Wolves will be on the outside looking in on Selection Sunday.

Although I agree that if the Pack keeps losing they would be in trouble, I don't expect them to lose many more in the regular season. I'm more inclined to agree ...

Solid win. Quite likely that there will be a rubber match in the semi-finals of the ACC tournament. Hopefully both teams are at full strength by then.

... that Duke and NCSt are, yes, actually likely opponents in the ACC semis. Miami has an easy last half of its ACC schedule, and is right now a solid favorite to finish first. Although NCSt looks to be struggling at 5-5, its remaining ACC schedule is, like Miami's, weak. Brown may be back by this Sunday's game @ Clemson, and certainly by the time the Pack travel to CH (2/23). I'd peg this very good [on O] Pack team to recover nicely from Brown's absence to finish at either 12-6 or 13-5, i.e., either win out or lose only 1 ACC game. Duke, UVa, and UNC have roughly equal schedules remaining, and one of Duke, UVa, UNC, and NCSt will miss out on the Thursday ACCT bye. I don't think it will be either Duke or NCSt.

[oldnavy]

For those on the board that are unhappy with our second half, please consider how the game was called by the refs. There was little to no chance of getting into any type of rhythm in the second half due to the insane amount of fouls being called (on both sides).

I think that under the circumstances Duke did an amazing job in both halfs. Of course the opening half was beyond impressive, but I didn't see that we "let up" in the second, it was just a different flow to the game and a lot of that had to do with the calls and open shot not falling at the rate they did in the first half, IMO.

Mason making FT's was crucial to winning this game.

[roywhite]

Duke, UVa, and UNC have roughly equal schedules remaining, and one of Duke, UVa, UNC, and NCSt will miss out on the Thursday ACCT bye. I don't think it will be either Duke or NCSt.

Speaking of schedules remaining, seems a little strange for Duke to have 9 conference games left, a full half season, at this calendar date. Talk about a long grind.

[wsb3]

Such unbridled optimism..how dare you?

Yes the second half was painful but I don't know if it is realistic to expect a repeat of the first half..We did miss open 3's that went down in the first half. I did not really see us being that tired but when K called a full time out right before the under 8:00 timeout..I did wonder if he did that to get back to back rest..Once again Coach K has done a wonderful job of managing an in season injury to a very important player.

We lose people, some early to the NBA, which is the nature of the game today. K finds a way. I remember the summer when Brand & company departed and all the crap I heard from Carolina fans that summer..How bad we were going to be..One of my favorite teams for what they did..As I was watching this game I thought boy am I glad Mason stayed.. I don't even want to think where we would be without him..even with Coach K..He was a beast tonight.. All the scoring and rebounding and in my mind he sealed the game with his block at the end. A block while having four fouls. Big time.

We won!

Scored NINETY EIGHT points.

Was it a second half as good as the first? No.

But....

The glass is half full.

We won!

[moonpie23]

i'm not sure what game you debbies were watching last night....i was watching a team bent on payback SCHOOLING the visitors so hard that even the wuffies were standing around muttering "good shot".....then when the other team woke up in the locker room, they came out and acted like the team they were...a VERY good team.


state made shots in the second half, our defense sagged a bit and our offense wasn't quite the blistering pace, but our team wrapped it up. officiating had a big effect on the stodgy flow of the second half as well...


i thought it was a great game...

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

i'm not sure what game you debbies were watching last night....i was watching a team bent on payback SCHOOLING the visitors so hard that even the wuffies were standing around muttering "good shot".....then when the other team woke up in the locker room, they came out and acted like the team they were...a VERY good team.


state made shots in the second half, our defense sagged a bit and our offense wasn't quite the blistering pace, but our team wrapped it up. officiating had a big effect on the stodgy flow of the second half as well...


i thought it was a great game...

Agreed. Some of you folks need to wake up and smell the coffee. K is in the process of engineering another amazing mid-season adjustment. Not every minute of basketball we play is going to be brilliant, near-perfect, inspired hoops like the first 10 minutes of last night's game. But if you would stop and notice, you will see a team that is literally re-learning how to play together in Ryan's absence and doing a better and better job every week. This thing is not even fully baked yet. You could continue to pick at this and pick at that and tell yourself we're not as good as our 20-2 record would suggest. Or you can take notice that the season is more than half over and try to enjoy the rest of what this season will bring. I prefer the latter. It's what we agonizingly look forward to for seven months every year.

[Billy Dat]

Anyone know the story behind this, if there is one?

Gary Parrish ‏@GaryParrishCBS
Best friends. RT @willbrinson: You can tell Coach K really likes Mark Gottfried: http://yfrog.com/nwbzpldhj

The photo is the post game shake and K is not smiling. Is there a bad history between K and Gottfried?

[Dukeblue91]

i'm not sure what game you debbies were watching last night....i was watching a team bent on payback SCHOOLING the visitors so hard that even the wuffies were standing around muttering "good shot".....then when the other team woke up in the locker room, they came out and acted like the team they were...a VERY good team.


state made shots in the second half, our defense sagged a bit and our offense wasn't quite the blistering pace, but our team wrapped it up. officiating had a big effect on the stodgy flow of the second half as well...


i thought it was a great game...

Agreed!!
I thought we played a great game in the first and a good game in the second half.
Beating State by 13 in the ACC is nothing to sneeze at and a great win.
Considering the flow of the second half, I thought we played good ball.
Me I'm very happy with this win and think some of the people here moaning are just not being very realistic about our and other teams.

[davekay1971]

“Howell, for all the players in our league, is the unsung hero,” Krzyzewski said. “The unsung great player in our league.”

Any question who K would probably take on his roster from another ACC team? And, as usual, he's right. Howell has improved so much from his freshman year till now, you'd think Wojo was his big man coach. I felt terrible for Howell with that last foul. He should never have brought his elbow up like that (number one, there's a reason they whistle that - it's a dangerous move; number two, the refs were calling it so tight the second half, he should have known he'd get whistled), but you could see the pain on his face during the end of the game. The kid wanted this game, and he played brilliantly until he fouled out.

Duke should feel incredibly positive right now. They hit their low point in the Game-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Since then, all they've done is play brilliantly in 3 out of their last four, winning 2 on the road, dominating in 3 of the 4 games. Amile has shown that he can contribute well as our starting 4. Rasheed has stepped up. Alex provided good minutes last night. Mason has proven he can stay on the court, even in tightly called games (oh, and, by the way, back to back 30 point games is pretty nice, too).

We look good. We look as good as any other imperfect but really good team in the nation.

[Duvall]

Anyone know the story behind this, if there is one?

Gary Parrish ‏@GaryParrishCBS
Best friends. RT @willbrinson: You can tell Coach K really likes Mark Gottfried: http://yfrog.com/nwbzpldhj

The photo is the post game shake and K is not smiling. Is there a bad history between K and Gottfried?

Not that I know of. But Gottfried is a Jim Harrick protege, so it's hard to know why anyone *would* like him.

[Mike Corey]

Coach K is a competitor. Gottfried's team won the last game. Coach K was amped up. I don't think there's anything more to it than that.

The fictitious grandma story is already "fact" thanks to the Internet and irresponsible journalists. So it goes.

The story of the game was our absurd offensive production in the first half, and Mason's tenacity in the second. That swat of Leslie in the waning minutes was truly something to see.

Our defense has clearly suffered more than our offense in the absence of Kelly. More adjustment and growth is needed, no doubt. But this was a big win and a big step for this team.

Go Duke.

[dyedwab]

I always gain greater perspective the next morning, esp. after reading what K and the players had to say

Seth said that the tight officiating in the 2nd half made it harder to get into a rhythm - that make sense to me.

K did indicate that fatigue, and the fact that we built such a big lead, led to a bit of a lull in 2nd half.

Team seems to be taking shape in its Kelly-less form. I'm particularly impressed with the starts we had against FSU and NCState. Our slow starts has seemed a problem to me, and that seems to have been corrected. Allowed us to withstand a light-out offensive performance by State in the 2nd half.